Mojo in Memory Of
Last night Mojo died. I figure I must have fed him too much. Little fish totally depended on me to take care of him. Nearly two years I’ve had this fish and now he is gone by my mistake. These fish will eat and eat and eat until they die. As owner you have to be so careful. I was feeding the fish three times a day and with various foods. Mojo bloated up, floated upside down, and then died. My tank only has four fish now and I miss Mojo. From now on I am only going to feed the fish twice a day with granular food which settles on the bottom of the tank.
This is the last photo and entry for Mojo. I buried him outside underneath a tree and I feel rotten.
Nitrite, Nitrate, Nightmare Survivors
Back in March of this year I put my fish through an awful ordeal. It was a nightmare and my fish suffered. Provided are the THEN and NOW photos of my Aqua-babies.
In the photo of carnage you see Lil Fish in the far left ~ he died. In the middle is Mojoanna with a deep scarred red varicose fantail. Below, almost dying on the bottom is Wabi-Sabi my once gray Oranda. In the upper right is Bubbles my Dragon Eye. To the far right near the bottom is Sun my golden Oranda. Not pictured is Barri, the baby lionhead. My wife had put Barri in her community tank until I made my tank safe. All of this was brought about by my ignorance on not cycling my tank.
However…
In the photo of beautiful life are the same fish minus Lil Fish. In the far left eating food off the gravel is Sun my goldie Oranda. Since the first photo Sun had surgery removing Wen from around his eyes so he could see. Beside Sun, is Bubbles my Dragon Eye. Bubbles is now 9 inches from tail to nose. Above Bubbles is my angel Mojoanna with a flowing beautiful flawless tail. To the far right completely opposite of Sun is Wabi-Sabi my little gray Oranda now turned richly gold with a highly developing Wen. Swimming off in the upper right coroner is Barri, the lion head my wife had a really hard time letting go of, but relented knowing he needed to be with the other goldfish.
Click here to see a larger version of Fish Family of Five.
Portrait of Mojoanna a Red Cap Oranda Goldfish
Click here for larger viewing of Mojoanna
So I find taking care of goldfish can be quite a task. The major job is cleaning the tank. This has to be done every 3 to 4 days with my growing goldfish in this 55 gallon tank. I remove 15 gallons of water, break down and completely clean the filter, break down and clean ultra-violet light filter, scrub sides of tank and remove debris when I suction the water out. Put filters back together and place onto the tank and then refill the 15 gallons of water from 3 five gallon jugs. Then I have to re-fill the five gallon jugs so this water can be used at the next cleaning.
My five goldfish are growing fast and this 55 gallon aquarium is becoming quite small for them. I saw a 125 gallon aquarium today which I think will do quite nice. It will be a while before I can get it. I need to study and find what is the best filtration system I can get. Presently I have an emperor 400 pump which does a good job, but I am having to clean the tank often. Is there a system out there which will keep a 125 gallon tank clean for a longer period of time? I mean having to change 25 to 30 gallons of water every 3 or 4 days will really become quite a job.
I really enjoy my five goldfish and I plan on having them for a long time. As I learn about them I will record my findings on this blog. A 125 gallon aquarium will provide 25 gallons of water per fish. Maybe in a few months I’ll get this new aquarium. So much to learn before I do…
Goldies Glimmering
No doubt there is a lot of work in taking care of five goldfish. However it is probably no harder taking care of five as it would be to take care of two or three. The hardest part is cleaning the tank. I just completed cleaning their tank a little while ago. I clean the tank about every three to five days. If I let the tank go for a full week the room would be smelling and I would have some very un-happy fish.
The other day my wife, Anna, and I watched a show on television about a man with an obsession of collecting and hoarding Asian trinkets and the like. Even though he had gone overboard, he sure had some very pretty stuff. The Chinese and Asian world in general, surely have a flair I enjoy. I love the colors, the designs, music, and arts the Asian’s offer. I will explore the Asian world of colors and the like with my fancy goldfish. I will share what I learn through my photos and this blog.
Fancy Goldfish Swimming
This photo captures all my aqua buddies. Bottom left corner is Sun, above him is little Barri, above Barri is my dragon eye Bubbles, in front of Bubbles is Mojoanna, and to the far right is Wabi-Sabi. Between Sun and the bridge near the bottom of the aquarium is my little cory cat Charlie. I have a smaller 2o gallon aquarium which contains some neons, guppies, balloon mollies, a loach, and a snail.
All of these fish started out smaller than Barri. Now their bodies fill my palm with their tails extending way beyond my palm. I suspect they will grow two palms long. They are housed in this 55 gallon aquarium, but when they grow larger I will have to get a larger tank. Here is a video I took of them a little over two months ago:Five Fancy Goldfish.
I will have to make another video soon so you can see how much these guys have changed. Wabi-Sabi has changed the most. He was a totally gray little guy when I first got him. Bubbles also changed lots. Bubbles fins were totally black and lacy looking, but now he is almost total brilliant gold. My goldfish bring me lots of contentment. I will share my goldfish and their stories as time goes passes. I’m an amateur with these fish and am learning as I go along. I hope you will enjoy watching their journey.
Goodmorning Mojoanna
It is 4:45 in the morning and my five goldfish are swimming around looking as if they are mighty hungry. I’m up every morning at this time getting ready to go to work. I come into this room, turn on the table lamp, hit a key on the keyboard for the computer to wake up, turn on the lights in both my aquariums, and then sit down to eat my bowl of cereal and to check out messages and so forth on the computer. Featured in this photo is Mojoanna. She is my oldest fish. Her body fills the palm of my hand and her tail extends out past my palm. Barri is the smallest and the other three are larger than Mojoanna. When I hold Bubbles, Wabi, and Sun their body extents past the palm of my hand. I will not be surprise if the three of them grow to two palm lengths. When I clean the goldfish tank I always hold and pet the fish. They allow me to do this. Not at first, they were scared when I first held them. Now they are quite use to it. I really do enjoy watching these fish and the antics they pull.
I have a smaller fish aquarium sitting on my computer desk which houses several neons, guppies, mollies, and a loach. I will feature them from time to time.
Fancy Goldfish and a Cory
Here are all five of my goldfish. From left to right they are Mojoanna, Wabi-Sabi, Bubbles, Sun, and Barri. The catfish, I just call him Charlie. I had almost ran out of their favorite food which is Saki-Hikari Fancy Goldfish Food. My first supply of this food came from Doctors Foster and Smith on-line store so I ordered from them again. However they were out and put a back-order in for me. So I thought in a week or two longer I would get it, but it never came. This was like over a month ago. So I email them and they say it will be another month before they get any more from their supplier. Since I already paid for the shipping, I’ve let the order remain and maybe in a few weeks I’ll get the two packages I ordered. Well my fish don’t really understand why I’ve rationed them on the good stuff and were getting impatient with me. They kept giving me this worried look. So I go ahead and order a package from Amazon while waiting on the order from Foster and Smith. The food came in yesterday so I give the fish the rest of the food I had been rationing out. They went crazy. They really love this food. I feed them crisps and flakes, but this stuff they go nuts over. So my fish will have to work with me here because the food is rather expensive along with the shipping. I will not feed it to them at every feeding, but every other day or so I will. I sure do enjoy these fish. They are a pleasure to watch.
Work and Worry
Mojoanna is in her own little world swimming by the Bonsai Tree. As I grow older I find myself wrapped into my own world. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I wish I could have been this way many years ago. Work, life, people, and stuff was always on my mind. Many times I’ve been worried about this or that. I bet if I could ad up all the hours and minutes I’ve worried over something it would equate up to months or even years. Was all that worrying a waste? Probably most of it was misspent time, but some of the time worrying I probably put two and two together and figured out things which help alleviate the situation.
Keeping busy and working hard is what works best for me. There is a time coming when I can retire if I choose to do so. This worries the hell out of me. Should it? Many folks, most folks, count on and get real excited about retiring. I guess if you retire you can go to restaurants with all the other old folks and collect on your senior citizen discounts. You can go fishing…. Yikes… no fishing for me…. What a terrible thing to even cross my mind. Maybe I could buy a Harley and hit the streets. Only problem is I couldn’t hold the bike up and would most likely have an accident before even leaving the driveway. Maybe I’ll just work until I can’t work any more. Tis’ all I know…
Fancy Goldfish and Budda
Fancy goldfish do originate from China and I do have a bonsai tree in the tank, seems only fitting to have a little Budda as well. Have to admit these fish bring a lot of peace and contentment into my life.
Sun is doing so much better. He is pictured on the bottom left in this photo. He is swimming around and is much more frisky. Quite an improvement since his Wen Trim Surgery.
It is hard to believe Wabbi-Sabbi, Oranda on the bottom right, was completely gray when he was smaller. It is amazing watching these fish grow. They are constantly changing in shape and form right in front of my eyes.
Mojoanna
Mojo I’ve decided to rename Mojoanna. I’ve had Mojo/anna for over two years and he/she is almost the smallest fancy goldfish I have. She is so pretty and nurturing. She always hangs with the weakest ones until they build their strength back up. I could be wrong, but I’m deciding at this point on calling this fish Mojoanna. The terrible things I’ve put my fish through while learning how to raise them, and Mojoanna has survived it all and comforted all the others. The worst thing I’ve done was putting them into the large 55 gallon tank before it was cycled. The Nitrates and Nitrites were at toxic levels for quite some time. I nearly lost them. Anna, my wife, came to the aide of the fish and helped save them. She put Barri, the baby lionhead, into her community tank and transferred cycled water from her large tank into mine until the toxic levels were brought down. Later after my tank was cycled she returned Barri – sorta’ reluctantly.
I started taking a lot of photos of Barri for I was going to do a post about him. During the photo process I took a few photos of Mojoanna. In one shot she was swimming towards the back of the tank. The background came out black with white specks from the front glass sprakling. Looking at the photo the specks could have easily of been stars and the black the night sky. So I run the photo through various software programs to come up with the above image.
As for Barri, he is doing fine and I will be getting a post up about him soon.
