My Goldfish, Mir

I spent more time this weekend with my goldfish than I normally do. My MacBook crashed, and I spent a lot of time on the phone with Apple tech support. The technician I spoke with was tremendously helpful and helped me get my computer all fixed. Looks like the operating system got corrupted. Anyway, when you are on the phone with tech support, there isn't much to do while waiting for things to load, so I watched the fish.

There are two goldfish in my tank: Mir and Pacman. Years ago, I decided to get an aquarium with pretty tropical fish. I was told that the first thing you need to do in a new aquarium to get the bacterial colonies growing is to get a feeder goldfish and wait for the colonies to grow. Well, I never did get those tropical fish. The goldfish just kept right on living. Our cat, Sid, was fascinated with watching the fish. He was a kitten back then, and he'd hop up on a chair next to the tank and say, "Mirrrrr." That's how we named the fish. We let the cat do it.

She (when a fish is big enough, you can determine gender) lived in a 10 gallon tank for several years until we could no longer keep the tank clean. It lived on the bathroom countertop to assist in this cleaning. Having to keep the tank by the sink is pretty silly! So, I bought a new fish tank on eBay. Well not really a new tank... It was 55 gallons though and came with a stand for only $50. Even though I had to pick it up in Green Bay, it was cheaper than buying one new.

She's gotten to be a fairly good size; Craig estimates that she is 12 inches long. I think she's somewhere around five years old. We feed her pellets for goldfish, and she will eat from your fingers, if you let her. She doesn't have teeth so no worries about biting, but it does feel kind of funny. If I am picking up the tank decorations or cleaning the tank, she'll rub up against my hand. That feels kind of funny too.

Our other goldfish, Pacman, is much smaller, probably only 3 inches long. While Mir is very long, Pacman is very round. That's how Craig named him or her. Pacman is a little too small to determine gender, but given the lack of breeding between the fish, I'm guessing they are both females. Maybe we ought to get a bow and name her Ms. Pacman. Pacman has also learned to eat from fingers, and is also quite insistant about being fed. Both fish go up near the top of the tank and move around a whole bunch to get the attention of whomever is in the room. Mir can also make quite a splash with her tail if swimming frantically is not working to get my attention!

Periodically I consider putting in a pond to expand the living quarters for my fish even more, but I have not yet gotten around to it. I am intrigued by the idea of an indoor pond though because it just gets so cold here in the winter. There's a Chinese restaurant in the Milwaukee area (actually Mequon) that has an indoor koi pond with some mighty big fish.