Howdy, Seamus

Last weekend, I realized my dream of getting a fish. I have a long history with fish, particularly Bettas, starting back when I lived in Philadelphia and exhausted Betta population of the Snyder Avenue PetCo. I had several Edgars, an Edward, and when I moved to Brooklyn I had Freddy "Betta" Betesh. Don't ask, it's a family joke. So anyway, I've been without a fish for a while now and I decided it was about time for me to remedy the situation. My friend Rose reminded me of the aquarium fish shop on Essex Road in Angel, and, after visiting a few times to inspect the fish stock, I dragged the Irishman with me last Saturday and acquired a red Betta named Seamus.

Now. I've been planning Seamus's acquisition for a while now, to the point of having picked his name and talking about him like he was already in his bowl happily swimming about. So I was pretty pumped about picking him up and getting him home. But of course, in my usual fashion, I didn't quite plan for it. I forgot to get a net for scooping him, and we bought food from the fish store. But the biggest issue was the water.

In NYC, I used to buy a gallon of water from the grocery store for 50 cents or whatever it was, and pour it straight in the bowl. Freddy never really had an issue with it, and it was a lot easier than treating water with chemicals, sitting overnight, etc etc. So I did the same thing here. I went to Budgens and got 2 2liter bottles of water for Seamus's bowl. Thing is, water here comes in a bottle that looks like a soda bottle - and though Still, the water must be bottled under pressure because the minute I put Seamus in the bowl he was covered in little tiny air bubbles. The air bubbles were lifting him to the surface, and for the first 15 minutes in his new bowl, he was floating on his side at the top. Poor guy.

I tried to help him by lifting him out of the water so the bubbles would explode, but I didn't have that net so I used a slotted spoon. Yeah not so great, because Seamus kept leaping off the spoon and then falling back on it and I think I damaged one of his little side body fins. So within 30 minutes of having Seamus, I was extremely upset about my bubbly broken fish and had to leave.

When we returned at 10pm that night, I was prepared for a dead fish. But he miraculously was okay! He acclimated okay and is now an extremely active and happy little fish, and even the Irishman likes having him around. Hurrah!