Saturday, January 6, 2018

Meet Ms PacMan, the Rudest Fish in My Tank



Clown loaches are really fun fresh water fish to keep. Their apt moniker is displayed daily by clownish activities like lying atop one another on their sides or balancing on tip of tail. My eldest, Ms PacMan (named for the way she goes after their Tretra Min tropical crisps) will do the latter with her belly facing the front of the tank.

And these loaches make periodic clicking noises, hers being much louder than the smaller males, Frick and Frack. What’s especially funny is that they sometimes do this to get me out of bed in the morning. They know a feeding will soon follow.



The other day she got so loud I half feared that the glass would shatter. And her trigger was both surprising and hilarious. She reacted to my car on the other side of the bedroom wall.

My 2016 Chevrolet Volt runs on both electric batteries and an internal combustion engine. When home, we keep the vehicle perpetually plugged in to the garage charger. This allows the vehicle to draw power when extreme cold or heat trigger a conditioning cycle meant to prolong battery life.

When the cycle completes, the vehicle emits a sharp pop. Yesterday, I am sure that signal sent Ms PacMan into her raucous 6am fit.


Have you ever kept tropical fish, either freshwater or salt?

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16 comments:

  1. Beautiful fish and it sounds like Ms. Pacman is very intelligent. Sounds like she is worse than a cat for wanting to get you up for a feeding :) We tried to have freshwater fish once and they didn't survive long.

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    1. Thank you for the kind words. I'm sorry for your fish losses. Took a long time for me to realize that our water softener was bad for fish and plants. ~shakes head~ Now things seem nice and stable. Be well!

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  2. Loaches and "cleaner fish" are hilarious. We used to breed tropical fish (1985-2005). Bill won awards (seriously) for his fish. My favourites were the catfish and loaches. We had a redtail cat (Scooter) who was huge, a channel cat from right here (Gomez), a black shark (Mac the Knife, because he tried to sneak up and kill others), and many others. We had Oscars, and several cichlids, too. The ones he bred were smaller, delicate, fragile things. I just fedf and kept them alive for him. We had 75 tanks. HUGS.

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    1. Wow! Thank you for sharing. And I get incredulous glares when I mention wanting a third tank. Hugs back at ya!

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  3. First off I have to know.....has the cats ever tried to get the fish? HAHA...Yes, I have had a 5 gallons a few times in my adult life. I love the neon tetras. An aquarium is like a Christmas tree to me or a fire in the fireplace....relaxing. I used to love to turn the lights off in the room and only have the aquarium light on and I would watch the fish. My last aquarium was about 16 yrs ago, had it when my daughter and 1 yr old grandson moved in....after toys being put down in it, and kids hands, my fish died off and I did away with it. But....I have my hands full now with the KING (Dakota), the QUEEN (Lily) and Ms Stubborn (Misfire)...haha

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    1. You do have your hands full. ~grin~ Fortunately, the cats have never bothered the fish. Hope you're having a great day!

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  4. I have never had fish though a roommate did and they were fun to watch. I'm afraid my cats might help themselves...

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    1. Fortunately, our cats have never bothered them. Luna (rest her soul) did knock over and somehow open a container of fish food, though, and helped herself. What a mess, only funny in hindsight. ~snicker~ She was a character. From then on the food went into a cabinet or drawer. Thanks for stopping by with a friendly word!

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  5. I've never had fish in a tank. I would imagine fish also have individual personalities.

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    1. You've got your hands full without needing to clean aquariums. ~hugs~ Thanks for taking time to visit and leave a kind word!

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  6. Well, at least it's only an occasional pop, right? (If it happened frequently, I think it would drive you bonkers.)

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  7. That's crazy. I didn't even know fish could MAKE noises like that. I always thought of them as being the 'Quiet Pet'. haha

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    1. I know what you mean. ~nods~ I had no idea what I was getting into. Hope you're having a great day.

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  8. checking on you....I see you come to the blog but you are not posting....WRITING?

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    1. You got it in one! You also inspired me to post something here...

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