• ⇤
• ⇽
• ≡
• ⇾
• ⇥

sold our first fish today

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This weekend, two of our countless little fishbabies died. I don't actually know when the first died, I just found it pressed up against the filter on Friday evening. Its body was so soft that I reckon it had been there quite a while. This morning I found another that was still twitching a bit but it wasn't breathing. Both are now feeding ants in our yard.

We selected some thirty-two of the largest and most colorful* and took them to the local fish store, where we sold them for the princely sum of ¥10 apiece - around ten cents (Canadian). Then we bought more than twice that in new food because while we now have far fewer fish, there are still many babies to go, and they're eating more than ever.

I hope that by thinning the crowding a bit we'll see fewer fatalities and also see faster growth so we can offload the rest in a timely fashion. We've now handed over about 180 fish.

*Mari and Emma each selected one to keep. They were both in the upstairs aquarium and are now easily the largest two fish we have left. All the fish in that aquarium are freaking out and at this point have been for eight hours, so I'm not sure what I can do to calm them. Tomorrow they'll have a day largely to themselves as I'm meeting two new staff members in my division and will be downtown. Here's hoping they'll settle!