Fish....

I have always had fish. When I was teaching, I had three different tanks at school. I was the fish rescue as well as a bird rescue. On Sunday afternoon I had a parent call me and said that I had to come and take these fish away, one has died and I don't want to watch the rest of them die. So I dutifully went over and picked up four beautiful gold fish. They were the kind that I refuse to buy because they are very expensive. I am cheap as I always go and buy the feeder fish that are intended to be fed to bigger fish. Goldfish come in and they will sell three for a dollar. I will buy them and keep them for years and they get very big. I have an outside pond that I throw them in during the summer and they grow and deepen in color while being outside in natural water.
In the years I have received expensive cichlids from frustrated kids or parents. They are fun, but they eventually eat each other. I do know that my friend Dave still has offspring from that rescue, but I don't like how they behave. He has convict cichlid and they are very aggressive fish. In the photos you can see one large orange cichlid that I still have, given to me a couple years ago. I have him in with my two Koi fish and with goldfish. There is a lady who works at Walmart fish department who gave me a great scolding for keeping the tropical fish with cold water fish but they have always done well with each other. That large orange fish liked the camera and came up to the glass to watch me. The black and white larger fish you see is a Koi. I swore off of them for a while as they kept jumping out of my tank when I would forget to put the cover on them. I would bring them in from outside and put them in a school tank and come back the next morning with it laying on the floor dead. I broke down and bought the black and white, and also an orange one. They sell for fifteen dollars but if you find them when they are clearing out a tank and they are selling the real small ones, you can get them for four dollars. So I bought both of them in the past three or four years.
I have only one tank at home now which is nice. If I can reduce some of my bird population to just a couple cages that would be great. I am teasing you by not telling you how many bird cages that I have in the house but I will tell you about my cockatiels some of these days. Thanks for reading.