175: fish tales

do y'all know sylvia? she's baby bliss's pet beta. we've had her since winter. she's our ongoing home schooling project.

she's pretty and funny. a beautiful shade of cobalt blue that stripes when she's scared or (i think) mad.

when we got her, we didn't know a thing about raising fish. she was a totally spur-of-the-moment purchase. once we got her home, we were afraid she'd die on us so i did lots of online research.

a few of the things i learned:

1. betas like greenery in the bowl. usually to hide behind.
2. if the fish rub against anything sharp, they can be injured and could die.
3. sea salt is good for them. celtic salt is better.
   
4. they like to eat spirulina and it's a nice treat for them.
5. their little bellies are about the size of one of their eyeballs, so it's extremely important not to overfeed them.
6. they can go a week or two without eating cuz that's what sometimes happens in their natural habitats (shallow puddles in Thailand)

we had my bamboo plants in with sylvie when we had her in her first container. but that was a vase that wasn't very roomy. and the glass was frosty and so i thought sylvie might feel a lot lonely not being able to see us clearly.

we moved her to another home and put the bamboo back in their original vase.

baby bliss and i thought sylvie might want some decorations for her new home. we already had some glass pebbles here that we weren't using. they now line the bottom of sylvie's third (and final) home, an oversized brandy glass we got at walmart a few months ago.

sylvie's home could still use a bit of greenery but we haven't been able to find anything without sharp edges. i was feeling bad about that tho it wasn't my fault.

then the other day it dawned on me. sylvie could have something other than greenery if we so chose. while we were in walmart, i decided glass would be a good choice for sylvie's almost-empty nest.

it took a while to decide between several options. baby bliss thought my final choice (a small fish bowl with fluted edges) would be too big to fit in sylvie's bowl. mr. bliss agreed when he saw it.

wouldn't y'all know it? momma knows best cuz that little fish bowl fit nicely in sylvie's brandy glass. yeah, it's sticking out of the water a bit but that's good. i don't think it should be totally submerged cuz sylvie goes to the surface every so often. for air or to be nosey, one. i'm not sure which.

at first she seemed put out by the new accessory but now she seems to love it. we've seen her hanging out in her new fixture lots of times already.