Ok, so I go to the Pet Store to buy Belle a new collar. See, she has now grown into the "large-sized" collar, seeing as how she, at 9 months, weighs in at about 65 pounds. I had bought her a pretty purple color with multi-colored paw prints on it. Unfortunately, Large in this particular brand measures 18-28 inches. See in the brand we usually buy, Large starts at 16 inches. Unfortunately, my Bellarina could far to easily slip out of her 18 inch collar, so I needed to get the other kind. (I got a red one this time, with reflective bones on it, which is good, I suppose, because if she is ever running around in the dark you sure as hell won't spot her otherwise. Her coat is so black that I can barely spot her at night when she is sleeping on the floor next to me. (unless of course, she is sleeping on her back and I can see her white belly. Cute Puppy!!!!!
But I digress.
SO anyways, I am at the pet store, and I decide to buy a couple of fish for our aquarium. I look at the fishies that are on sale and there are 4 that we have or have had in our aquarium. I decide to get two swordtails, a male and a female, becaue our female swordtail had died and I thought our male would have enjoyed the company (probably the compaby of two females, but hey...) I also decided on the sword tails because they can have live births...however if she gave birth in our aquarium the frys would just be eaten right up by the big fishies before I even knew it happened.
So I bring the fish home, set the bag in the water to acclimate to the aquarium temperature, and go beautify Belle (as if she could get any cuter) with her new, much better fitting collar. (gosh, love the grammar from the teacher, eh?)
Then my sister calls. A rare and joyous occasion. So we chat. ALl of a sudden, I realize that 15 minutes has long since past and I need to go dump my two new fishies into thier new home.
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! So imagine my suprise when there are not two fishies in the bag but about 25!!! Yes!! Momma had given birth (I must admit - although I didn't want to spoil the story by mentioning it earlier - that I thought her belly looked dark and commented to my cousin, "Wouldn't it be funny if she was pregnent?)
Then panic sets in. I cant put the babies in the tank, they'll get eaten. I can't go buy a maternity net for the babies to live in becaue the store is closed. I carefully dump daddy in to the tank, leaving mommy and the babies, and the debate ensues. DO I leave mommy in in case she is not done delievering babies and risk her eating some? Do I put mommy in the big tank and hope that if she does have anymore babies they'll hide out in the moss until they are big and strong?
I search the internet. So helpful. depending on their age, females can have 20-100 babies at a time. Now how am I suppsoed to decide when shes done? There are about 15-20 live ones, and maybe 10-15 more dead ones (still births?) I watch her for about 15 minutes and nothing comes out. Eventually I decide to let her in the big tank to keep the ones already in there alive. (Gosh...the morality of it all...)
As it turns out she wasn't quite finished, as witnessed by a tiny little newborn swimming carelessly across the tank and straight into the Tiger Barbs mouth. Sigh. The one thing I didn't want to see.
However, There are still about 10 babies swimming around in the maternity net that I bought the next morning. I am hoping a few survive. Of course if all ten do, I don't think are tank will be able to hold them all so we'll have to bring some back to the pet store.
How exciting!!!!
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