The highlight of yesterday evening was the appearance of a mountain
where none had ever been. At sunset we looked out the kitchen window
and lo! Someone had added a mountain in the distance. We figured out
that in must be Mount Jefferson, which is eighty miles or more from
here. Never seen it from that or any window in our house. Out came
the telescope and binoculars. Sure enough, covered in lots of snow,
tinged by orange glow, there was the unmistakable form of an enemy, yet
another threat to our health and future. Now we know for sure that we
are in extreme blast distance of three volcanoes: St. Helen's, Hood and
Jefferson. The good news, according to Smithsonian magazine, is that
most of the residents of Pompei survived. Those who didn't were the
ones who decided to stay under the stairs, bunker themselves in and
wait the whole thing out. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
Questions for kinder times #1, "What does it mean when your bottom
feeder dies?" Came down yesterday morning, the algae eater was gone,
stiff, bereft of life, flat on the floor of the tank, gone to the great
slime bucket in the sky. Night before, hearty as anything that has a
mouth on the lower part of its body can be.
Immediately began the search for a replacement; a habitat without a
scum sucker is no habitat at all.
I checked the web before I went in search. According to sources, our
algae eater was defective, guilty of submitting a false vitae. The
Chinese Algae Eater is said not to eat algae... and yet ours appeared
to. One wonders now if it was dissembling, in deep cover or something.
Worse yet, when they get older C.A.E.'s become grumpy, much more
active; they go around attacking other fish. Clearly we dodged a
bullet.
With what does one replace a C.A.E.? An S.A.E., Siamese Algae Eater is
best... except none is to be found in these parts. Thus, as so often
happens, one settles for second best, a South American cousin and a
triplet of Mollies.
Our fish store had not heard that Mollies eat algae, but that's what
two sources on the web said. Mollies, too, can be aggressive, so I got
two females and a male. Apparently if you divide the attention of a
male Molly, he is less likely to be fretful and a fighter.
David Ritchie Portland, Oregon
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