And back to the topic on hand
I've been back on campus for 2 weeks. Two days before I came back I made a rather pleasant discovery. The drain the runs just outside the wall of my house, is teeming with small fish.And tadpoles. And worms. And a whole lot of dog poop. Not to mention a monitor lizard or two.
It's actually rather shallow with only an inch or two of water at some places.The deep end opens up into a foot high tunnel that goes into pitch black darkness.
Anyway, it has plenty of wild guppies in it and I have been yearning to catch some for quite awhile. I kept hundreds of them as a kid and it was a wonderful experience. They're not as colorful as commercialized guppies but I like their random streaks and spots. And they have more personality. More aggressive and energetic. They're much smaller too, growing up to maybe 2cms in length. Females can get much bigger though.
My 12 year old sis and I grabbed a bucket and went down the drain. It smelled soo...well it wasn't that bad. The water was pretty clear surprisingly and those little buggers were hard to catch. In the end we caught a few babies, around 4 fully grown males and 3 juvenile females. One of the males had only one eye,the other was probably bitten off by another male and had a golden sort of membrane covering it.
What I like about the males are the way they show off their dominance to other males. The sort of bend their bodies in an angle and quiver. Their colors become vibrant in mere seconds! Those guppies in shops may have really colorful and whimsical patterns but they lack character and vitality. And, they have really dull looks on their faces. No disrespect to guppy owners though.
Here's a rather blurry(I don't have a cam) video of what the males look like
These wild guppies are really tough cookies. They can survive in harsh conditions. No kidding. I've lost count of how many times we've dumped stuff into those drains and the city council has fogged up our area tons of times trying to eliminate those pesky dengue carrying mosquitoes. Yet these funny lil creatures survive and thrive.
To show you how resilient these little guys are, let me tell you about what happened when I got them a tank of their own.For a week or so they were swimming in a plastic basin till I came back from university on the weekend.I bought them a roughly two gallon tank.I wanted them to have as luxurious life as they could since I was gona keep em prisoner for the rest of their lives so I bought the a plant and a filter so they could have a nice current like they were used to in the drains.The tanks wasn't very big so I got a really tiny pump for them.It was smaller than my palm and was one of those made in China submersible ones.Cost me only RM12.
After I had gotten the pump adjusted and running I noticed something weird.The fishes were all twitching,or lying motionless at the top of the tanks.They were moving really weird.Turns out the submersible pump was electrifying them.The four tetras in the same tank all died.A female guppy struggled for awhile and so did two babies.One lil fella showed real spunk.He struggled then laid still as if dead.When I checked on him half an hour later,he was swimming upside down.Sadly the next day,he died as well.
I felt really bad for killing them unintentionally.I've sworn off submersible pumps,especially those made in China.But as you can see,these guys are really made of steel.They're doing really well and I'm looking forward to see them the next time I go home.
