Tragedy @ D407

Death in a bowl

Even the best of us make mistakes at times and I was no exception.

The day was the 4th of September 2009. The night was young and the corridors of Blk D were silent. I had IFG swimming the next day (which on hindsight now I didn't have... but that is a tale for another day...) and I needed to retire early for the night. The 5 runny nose tetras, 2 Harlequins, 2 bumble bee gobies, 2 Yamato shrimps and 3 Cherry shrimps needed to be fed before the day was out. As these young things had just moved in, they weren't too comfortable with feeding in fast moving, disturbed water just yet. I switched off the ventilator and fed them their food before hitting the sack. That would be the last time I'd see some of them ever again.

Fast forward to the 6th of September. The night was late and my sister needed to head back to school before the clock struck 12. It was supposed to be a drop and go... (drop the groceries in the fridge and go to the car...) I never imagined that the night was going to take a turn for the worse and D407 be turned into a crime scene. I crossed the room and I could sense that something just wasn't right. The water level of the tank had dropped drastically and the erie silence only meant one thing... I dropped the groceries and shoved my sister aside as I rushed to the tankside... I was too late... 38 hours too late... The shrimps lay on their sides... their shells a bright red hue. Astaxanthin, a hidden pigment within the shells of prawns, becomes visibly pink after the protein "hiding" them breaks down after death. One of the Yamato shrimps was still grey indicating that... it had died not too long before. 2 red nose tetras lay floating at the surface as the remainder showed signs of a sever fungus infection which had set in during the incident... My hands shook as I reached into the tank and removed their lifeless bodies from the comforts of the tank. Nothing could prepare me for the trauma I had that night. The death... the stench... the agony of watching S$9.00 worth of Aquarium life go up in smokes... or should I say down the toilet bowl just like that. I had no one to blame but myself. My carelessness... I made a vow never to let such an event ever happen again under my watchful eyes. To my dead comrades of the deep (or 20 cm deep aquarium...)... this I promise you.

The ride to NTU was solemn and silent as I mourned the lost of what I'd like to call... my loyal "desk-mates". Rest in Peace my cheery friends...

"Know thy enemy, know thyself. A thousand battles, a thousand victories."

I play nice most of the time. I would like to think of myself as almost amicable 95 percent of the time and a merry, happy-go-lucky chump who's only worry in the world is whether the Yamato Shrimp in his tank is going to go bonkers and jump into the filter when he goes to bed. That's me till I get pissed off. Now... one might wonder just what it takes to piss me off. My hall administration office waltzed into my friend's room and threw away S$1,600 worth of my items whilst I was holidaying away in Europe and I barely raised my voice. Well, the fact that the personal manning that particular office were working adults who have served the hall for the better part of their lives might have affected the way I reacted but still... a commendable amount of self restraint on my part one must say.

What really pisses me off is the total disregard certain individuals have for their team members. A sports director who is biased, full of hot air and pretends he doesn't know you exist or help with a favour despite always being the first on the list to pass on the good news; A sports secretariat who's incompetance in running and organizing an event resulted not only in the lost what could have been a potientially good race experience but the respect his team-mates had for him; A sports captain who not only doesn't perform his responsibilites at an acceptable level but shys away like a coward when his team mates most need his help...

Whatever I said this morning, I meant it. To you and to anyone who bothered to listen in on what I said. I absolutely hate it when I get taken for a ride and have my carefully laid out plans ruined. I hate it even more that when I asked for help, NO one bothered to come forward and no one bothered to help me explain to the organizers my predicament.

These are the little lessons in life that I'd gladly learn. Lessons that I'd gladly learn so I can better handle individuals like you in the near future.

Room Mates! Part 2

3 Yamato Shrimps, 4 Cherry Shrimps, 3 Runny Nose Tetras.

Epiphany

I was lying in bed when it suddenly struck me. I was about to sleep so it kinda pissed me off that I had to come back online to jot that little random thought down. The epiphany that'll change my life... or somewhere to that extent I guess. Now to head back to bed... :)

On hindsight

I was cleaning up my room last weekend when I chanced upon some JC and Primary school pictures from ages ago. On hindsight it didn't seem that long ago when I was rushing for food in JC or queueing for bus 69 outside RSS. I missed the old days and given a chance I wouldn't have changed how everything turned out though I might have done some things differently.

I had a temper. A really bad one to boot during my schooling days. On hindsight, most of the conflicts which occurred could have been averted by me. The one incident that I regret the most is perhaps the conflict I had with my sailing team mates 4 years ago. There was little doubt in my mind then that I was wronged and so on and so forth but I guess I was rather rash and immature then. I was complacent and I should have accepted the results graciously. There isn't much one can do now except to learn from that episode and move on. I ruined many potentially good friendships and have only myself to blame. :(

My youthful impulsive behaviour... sigh...

Sleep Cycle

Voila, I am now sleeping at 11 pm and waking up at 7.30 am :) Kudos to moi determination for that :)

A Blue Monday

Camwhoring in a whole new dimension.

I haven't been able to sleep well since my 5-hour-in-the-middle-of-the-day-nap which I took shortly after I returned home from the masters swimming event @ CBC. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the company I had during the entire duration of the event. I got to meet some really cool people, my "swim-mates" for the event and myself much better.

I last swam competitively approximately 7 years ago (Nat'l inter-schools to be exact) and participating in an event as such certainly evoked some nostalgia. The race management wasn't too bad and the atmosphere for the event was rather laid back (Though there were individuals who were there to clock in some serious times...).

That aside... with the two paragraphs above merely serving as a short explanation with regards to the pic above... school has been coming along really fine. Today was a darn long day for me with 6 hours of consecutive lessons. French Lect, EU Tutorial and SS1201 Tutorial... all non-napping classes. Coupled with my inadequate sleep the night/morning before, the day passed really slowly and painfully. On a lighter note however, I must mention here that my class/tutorial mates are pretty cool and the level of discussion which went on in all three classes did dull the painful headaches for me. SS1201 in particular surprised me as I honestly didn't expect my lecturer to probe so much into the answer raised. Really interesting tutorial I must add.

I am going to take a quick nap before deciding whether I should head down to the pool for a swim in a bit :) Au revoir!

New Day, New Discoveries

I can't seem to recall where the above phrase came on but I am pretty sure it was introduced to me during those joyous years in RI. I had a terrific day today. I succeeded in finally assembling my "steed" after three whole weeks of procrastination. The bike has been sent in for servicing and I am expecting to get it back sometime this coming week. After dropping the bike off at Passione, I headed to SRC pool where I met up with the rest of my hall-mates for my hall's Inter-Block games Swimming meet. The relays were pretty fun and I must admit I quite enjoyed my time chilling by the poolside. However, Jon did point out something Coach Tay pointed out the night before. It seems that my breast-stroke needs some serious overall... haha... Well... I guess that just means I am up for more pain ahead :)

After the swim, Jon, Nic, Xiuqing and I decided to chug down to Haji Lane to check out WC's new store. After a pit-stop at Holland V for some Provence and Starbucks, we were on our way to Beach Road. Parking, just a thought I kinda figured I should share, was damn bloody difficult and I'd strongly recommend parking in Bugis Junction before walking over or just taking a bus down.

WC's new shop, "the blogshop", is located along Haji Lane. I must admit that the interior decor and the store concept is really impressive. The 4 of us enjoyed ourselves very much just milling over the stuff in the shop and browsing through the flea market along the street too. That... kinda sums up a wondrous afternoon with good friends :)

I drove Dad out for dinner after Micheal's Munich Concert (Which... was on Channel 5. Nothing beats a simple dinner with great company and my dad makes pretty awesome company :)

Tomorrow marks my participation in my inaugural Masters' Swimming competition under my new club... I am pretty excited about that too!! Do forgive me for tonight's rather himbotic post... We'll discuss about the Hungarian President's rather rude intrusion into Romanian cultural sovereignty tomorrow :)

New Tenants

It was only a matter of time... :)

Updates: I kinda realized the air pump supplying air to the NANO tank is way too powerful for the poor fishes. Xiuqing pointed out how the Yellow Shrimp in the tank were being swept up and spun around the tank much to their discomfort. The tank looks like its stabilizing but there are a number of worrying points.

• The ball of moss seems to be jetting around the tank bringing with it 6 scared yellow shrimps
  
• One Yellow Shrimp has already died from being spun around one time too many
• The Bumblebee goby doesn't seem to be receiving any food as the other fish are just too fast
• One of the runny nose Tetras's has a massive bruise on its dorsal area as it decided to catapult itself out of the tank.
• The water continues to remain chalky despite 12 hours passing by.
• The Pale Fighting Fish doesn't look too well either...
  

I hope to rectify all these problems soon :(

Updates #2: The Aquarium is doing really well now. The water in the aquarium has cleared up considerably. The fishes look to be stabilizing and are looking less restless now. The bruise on the Tetra which leaped out of the tank is looking really bad and I hope the fish doesn't die too soon. I have switched off the main air pump and the fish seem to be doing much better. I don't see the fish coming to the surface to take in air so I guess the oxygen content in the water is still reasonably high :) On a sad note, 6 out of 7 of the shrimp have since died and I have no idea at all how they died... Oxygen? Constant bullying by the bumblebee goby...? oh well...

Final Update for this post: One of my Harlequins just dislocated its jaw... and there wasn't much I could do for a fish that size. I think it most probably had something to do with the size of the pellets I am feeding them... I dug out a short forum article on this sort of injuries. Article as follows:

Probably the most common cause is overbite on solid objects like gravel leading to dislocation, muscular torsion jams the jaw shut, or a muscle snaps and the jaw hangs open.I guess the plan with gravel then is for it to be too fine to get jammed in the fishs gob, or way too big.

For cichlids the commonest cause is probably liplocking ending in jaw injury, though big oscars have been known to get rocks stuck or misjudge the solidity of a shrimp etc. Usually its a feeding or fighting related injury for most fish. Hexamita in cichlids often causes jaw weakness, it can eat through a fishs face generally, and if the jaw is affected its "crack" and its done.

Personally had to euthanise an oscar given to me in that condition that had that exact problem, also seen koi and goldies with broken jaws from biting down on gravels, and I managed to pull a piece of glass out of a dempsey with a jaw gone on one side that actually came off a broken tank heater. Glass is hell in fishtanks.

Lots of accidents really, nipping attempts when the victim accelerates away, impact with aquarium glass or decor when panicking, usually just damn bad luck.

Of course there are also there are numerous necrotising bacteria and fungi that may attack jaw muscle, staphylococcus is a classic, and sometimes a fish might be a little nutrient depleted thanks to protozoa or other parasites, they can affect the way bones and muscle are formed.

Sometimes its long term malnutrition, basically sufferring from the fish equivalent of a dietarily inflicted osteoporosis and making a break more likely, though perhaps this is the rarest option, unless the feeding has been with the cheapest of cheap flakes and totally monotypic feeding.Its actually more common with herbivores rather than omnivores, though carnivores given nothing more than muscle meat might not be getting enough calcium.

Fish with hexamita and mycobacterium are many times more likely to break bones than healthy fish, the jaw is just perhaps one of the structures most likely to break. Sometimes those daft cichlid owners who dont treat for hexamita and just use UV to subdue symptoms find that no matter what they feed the fish they cant stop the protozoa stripping calcium out of the bones in the head, and despite no external visible pits or lateral line erosion being visible, one day the jaw just snaps, or a portion of the head collapses.

Trouble is, once its done its done, there isnt usually a great deal you can do about it.

Anyway, there are a couple of stuff I'd like to sort out with regards to the tank before the week is up and the list is as follows:

1. Replace the missing shrimps with a sturdier, cheaper variety
2. Purchase Fish flakes instead of pellets for the fishes
3. Get a netting to cover the top of my tank to prevent the little buggers from jumping out
4. Replace the Runny-Nose Tetra and the Harlequin... I might get 2 Tetras instead... they seem to enjoy each other's company more :)
5. Get a fridge soon so I can start storing bloodworms :P

That should be it!! HAHA Alrighty back to work!!

Midnight Entry

Yes... The photo right at the top of my blog (where the header is) was taken BY me... on an I-phone... at the Pantheon... in Rome :) My new found pets (taken above...) are doing really well and I am still considering whether I should do another tank up... you know to keep me occupied in hall... :) Works' coming along pretty fine I guess and so far school has been treating me rather well. I am slacking a bit too much where my fitness is concerned and I should probably up the tempo by this weekend. :( Goodbye fatty food! I am going to miss you... Random thought here... but I think certain European countries are worth visiting a second time...