Re: Looking for fish suggestions

[Charter <charter@charter-terminal.com>]

At 10:56 AM 3/28/2002 -0800, you wrote:
> Well, peaceful dwarf cichlids like Apistogramma might do the trick.  They
> definitely keep to the bottom.  Funny because we usually are concerned
> with what top-feeders can be put in that won't mess with our bottom-loving
> dwarf cichlids. :)
>
> There a variety of small loaches that would work too.  Kuhli loaches for
> instance.
>
>   - Erik

"You got your dwarf cichlids in my White Clouds!"  "You got your White 
Clouds in my dwarf cichlids!"

Kuhli loaches!  Oh no - deja vu!  I should probably get a small group of 
those, to work off a karmic debt from my early EARLY fish-keeping 
days.  Back when I was 13 or so, I had a 20h in my bedroom.  It turned 
swampy - you know how it goes - pea soup water with "bathtub rings" around 
the top of the glass from evaporation and not being topped off.  Like a 
dunce, I kept throwing food in the tank, assuming that someone was eating 
it, even though I couldn't actually SEE any fish, what with visibility 
being down to about half an inch.

Eventually my mother stepped in and mandated a cleaning, because the smell 
of the tank was wafting down the hall and threatening to permeate our 
entire home.  I vividly remember swishing my hand through the murk, pulling 
out handfuls of substrate and plastic decorations.  I pulled out a big 
seashell (that's right - a seashell in a freshwater tank!) and out 
slithered a dead and fairly ripe Kuhli loach.  The smell of that poor dead 
fish has remained on my list of Top 5 Worst Smells I've Ever 
Experienced.  (Ask me about the other 4!  I dare you!)

I'm a much better fishkeeper now, I promise!

I dunno, though - maybe getting Kuhli loaches isn't such a good idea for 
me.  The tank is right next to my couch, and I don't know if I can handle 
all those little accusatory glares.  I picture them sharpening their little 
eye-spines at night while I'm asleep.

"My name is Inigo Loach-toya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die."