...tropical fish...
...I had three aquariums of tropical fish as a child...I NEVER did ANYTHING HALFWAY!
One was mainly devoted to growing water plants, I would move them to another tank, or give them to friends. Sometimes, I would grow a lot of a particular plant, and SELL them to the pet shop.
Of course, I NEVER received any money...I would just take fish, fish food, or stuff in trade.
The next tank was mainly for watching fish who seemed to be sick, or for placing new ones into it. My large, 20 gallon tank, was the 'fancy one'. I had rocks, nice sand, and such in it, and tried to keep a nice variety of fish in it.
I wanted fish at ALL LEVELS of the tank. Some varieties of fish like to swim at the surface, others at the mid level, and, of course, the catfish...who stay at the bottom I always liked to have one of those very slim eels...it would bury itself in the sand...just its' nose showing. My mother babysitted at our house, and I would explain to the young children what the fish were...and see if they could spot the eel.
…I will confess, that I REALLY ENJOYED feeding the fish live food.
Usually, it was the small shrimp you can buy. They would swim for a little while, as the fish gobbled them down. But, I was fascinated when I fed them tubiflex worms. The worms were bright red, and about as thick as a small pencil lead. Some would get past the fish, and get into the sand...but the catfish would find them.
The little fish would toss sand aside as they dug into the bottom until they got to the worm, and then eat it.
…I spotted tubiflex worms in a ditch, once, and decided to 'harvest' them.
They are also known as 'sewer worms'...because...well...they aren't fussy about what they eat...or the quality of the water.
So, I put on boots, and got a bucket, and a small shovel, and waded into the rancid ditch. They would pull back into the mud, if disturbed, so I had to be patient. As soon as enough of them emerged from the mud, I would quickly scoop out the mud that they were in. I had the bucket full of mud, when I left. Then, came the 'fun' of gathering the worms. I would hose down handfuls of mud, and get the worms floating in the water, and then scoop them out. I did keep the worms isolated for a week, before I fed them to the fish. The worms would gather themselves into a ball, and would need to use the hose to break up the ball, and then scoop up all of the dead ones, discard them and then gather some live ones, and feed them to the fish.
…I only did one 'harvest'...I decided that it was worth the $2.49 I spent to buy a bag of worms from the shop, rather than 'harvest' them myself. Heaven only knows what substances I exposed myself to, wading in that ditch.
