G is for Guppies (and Goldfish!)

Here is my original post for the letter G.  It is all about my fishies!!!

Fish are one of my newer obsessions.  I had them as a kid, but not nearly to the extent I do now!   It all started a few months before Christmas.  The kids decided they wanted fish.  Little did I know that their present would turn into my own new hobby.

It started with a tank of goldfish.

We have regular goldfish, lion heads, veil tails, moors, koi, comets,  and telescope eyes.

When we went to the store there were some really pretty guppies, and there were even some baby fish too!  Sooo cute! The guy at the store was nice enough to throw one in for free.  Of course the goldfish liked the baby guppy too. Within days one of them ATE IT!!!!  I was sooooo sad! :'(  

However I was soon to discover that guppies are VERY easy to breed.  So I set up a tank especially for them, as well as picking up some breeder containers for them to give birth in.  (these also worked well for keeping the babies in for a time, I eventually got a tank just for the babies) 

our black moor

My babies! (there's really a lot more
than it looks like)

I love my fish.  I can stare at them for hours.  I know it seems weird, but they are actually very calming.
Plus the babies are fun, cause you never know what colors they are going to eventually be.  (I'm not breeding for color at the moment so the colors vary) Most start out tiny and clear and their colors don't start to show for about a month.  Even after their colors start to show they aren't their final colors.  I have one that was black at first.  Then it started to get a red spot on it's tail.  As it's grown it has bright red spots on its sides and it's tail is filling in with more red.  I have some that were black with blue tails, and now have blue with red mixed in thoughout their entire body, as well as their tails.

Can't get the guppies to photo as
clearly as the goldfish.
But this is one of the first babies
from January.

In the picture to the left are two more of our goldfish.  The one in the front is Tiger. (yes I know, I know, we're weird and name our fish. Not all of them just some) The one in the back is a lion head that we got at the store.  He is waaaay in the back so his size isn't obvious, he is actually as big as the fish in front.  We got him at a discount because he was missing an eye and had scars all over the one side of his body.  We didn't think he would last very long, but we kind of collect oddities.  He actually has thrived and grown in our tank, and is one of the kids favorites.

Mr. Magoo

Mr. Satan.  (any DBZ fans out there?)

Aliens? Spiders? What was this thing?

On top of getting to see fish give birth, and see baby fish grow.  I also got to see my snails lay eggs, and I have even gotten to see them hatch!  I know sounds weird, but it's actually pretty cool.  I mean how often do you really think about where snails come from right?  One day I found this really weird "thing" on the side of my tank.  Of course boyfriend is classic and says that it must be aliens.

Me: Aliens???
Him: Yup aliens.  Your gonna have some little grey men crawling out of your tank.
Me: Yeah...no.

The little dot on the snail, that's
the egg. And you have to understand
that egg is going up, not down!
Really kinda cool.

I was actually more concerned that they were some type of spider eggs. (UCK! HATE SPIDERS!)  Fortunetly a quick search on Google led me to find out what they really were.   And a few weeks later we got to watch them fall into the tank.  A lot of people online said that they are a hassle, they clog the filters etc.  But we've been lucky and haven't had these problems yet.  A few weeks later I actually got to see one of our snail LAYING EGGS!!!  (and I got a great pic)  I mean how often do you see stuff like that? (and I mean in real life, not on t.v.)




I hope you have enjoyed my pictures and my post about my fishies.  No they aren't companions like my cats, nor are they cuddly.  But they do each have personalities and are interesting in their own right.

a bit better pic of our one eyed fishie!

This post is part of The Blogging From A to Z April Challenge 2012