So I've been to Wilmington and back and then to Detroit and back since the last time I wrote. I have an excuse for last week...being at Grandma's and Grandpa's house means not using the computer based on the connection speed being so slow. Yes, they have a computer (HI Grandparents!) but they have dial up. It takes way too long to wait for any one page to pull up that I pretty much avoid the internet while in town. I don't have any good excuse to not have written since April 29 (I think that was the last date). Oh well. Here I am now updating for you few determined followers.
Our trip to Wilmington was fast but fun. We hung out at the beach on Saturday all day long through wind, rain, clouds and sun. And somehow I managed to get burned. I'm still confused as to when I got that burn during the day since the burn lines were along my shorts lines and not my bathing suit lines, but I did burn. And now I'm peeling. It could have been worse but I still hate peeling. Later on Saturday night we went to Circa to eat dinner. We were pretty exhausted so by around 11pm, we left the restaurant and went back to the hotel. Sunday morning we went to brunch at Boca Bay and then went downtown and met Kilby. We walked around the waterfront and then ate lunch at Nikki's. It wasn't as good as it usually is but it was still decent enough. We left Wilmington around 3pm and got home around 8:45pm.
I had Monday to do my normal feral feeding duties and then Tuesday night I left for the metro to take me to the airport for Michigan. My mom flew into town from Kansas as well. (HI Mom!) We all stayed at my Grandparents house and had a lot of "family time". It was actually a fairly good experience. I'd like to think that since my Grandparents had everyday planned out and we didn't have any extra family members (aka the husbands) to try to decide the every day plans, things went smoothly. Mom left on Friday and I stayed until Sunday.
When I returned home yesterday early evening, before I could even put my bags down I saw that my fish tank was extremely cloudy. It was clouded to the point that I could barely see the fish swimming around inside of it. I had absolutely no idea why my husband hadn't told me about this problem earlier since every day that I was gone, I asked about how the fish were doing. He told me that he thought that it must have been from me being gone 5 days and not changing the water!!! OH MY GOD!!! My tank has NEVER been cloudy before and I usually only siphon out 15% of the water once a week. It was bad. I honestly was surprised that the fish could still breathe through all of the junk that was floating throughout the water. I tested the water and the levels were pretty much normal. Then I discovered that my air stone had fallen off of the air tube and looked as though it had disintegrated some. I'm pretty certain that was the cause of the cloudy water. Before I did anything else, I changed 50% of the water. It didn't look that much better, but I didn't want to disrupt the nitrification cycle that was already stable (For those that don't know about aquariums, water from the sink is not compatible with fish. It needs to go through a cycle that produces different types of bacteria to make the tank water stable. If you remove too much water, the nitrification bacteria will also be removed to an extent that will disrupt the cycle and start killing fish. It's not just temperature and chlorine that you have to worry about when starting up an aquarium like I once thought.) So, today I changed about 20% of the water. It's starting to look a little better. I'll keep changing about 20% of the water each day until the cloudiness subsides. In addition to my cloudy fish tank, for a couple weeks now I've been losing guppies. None of my other fish seem affected by this "guppy killer". I don't know what is wrong. I've been looking up fish diseases and trying relentlessly to find a definitive cause of my guppy deaths, but I haven't found one disease that seems to fit. In the mean time, I'm down from 10 guppies to 5. And I'm pretty certain all of those will eventually die. They all look somewhat sick in all different ways. My "sick fish tank" isn't cycled yet, so if I was to remove them and put them in there, they would definitely die. The water isn't currently life sustaining. And through all this, all my other fish don't seem affected at all. They aren't showing any signs of problems. The only thing that I can think that may be the cause is that they all came from the same family. Maybe they have some kind of genetic disorder that didn't show up until they were a few months old. I really have no idea. Some of them are becoming see through, some are losing their bright colors, some look like their spines are starting to bend, some have bright red spots on their backs as if they are hemorrhaging inside, some have split tails and some don't look sick before they die. All that have died though get very lethargic the day before they die. They just sit on a fake plant all day long except to eat. So they are still feeding until the end. If anyone has any knowledge at all as to what be happening in my tank, I would greatly appreciate any advice.
As for the rest of my welcoming home, I was surprised to see that Amigo seemed the happiest that I was back. He greeted me with a happy upright tail and a pounce. I didn't know if he would be scared of me again or if he would remember. Well, apparently he remembered and missed me. He even let Mike pet him while I was petting him yesterday. He usually doesn't let him do that unless he's eating. The rest of the cats seemed like they were happy that I was home, but none were as happy as Amigo I believe. When I finally got some down time last night, I sat on the couch and Skye and Stumpey immediately jumped up and laid with me, one on each side. Skore also gave me some love last night before bed and Sabrina acted like she always does...strangely. Then Stumpey slept with me last night but the other girls didn't. Once Mike left for work, all the girls joined me in bed like normal. I'm sure I will get all of them again for the next couple nights since Mike is going out of town so there will be plenty of space for everyone in bed.
So today I've been washing my clothes and sheets from the spare bedroom as Dad is coming into town today. He should be here around 7pm. There was so much cat hair on the spare bedroom's top blanket. It was definitely a mixture of Skye, Skore and Amigo hair. Amigo is actually sleeping next to me on the couch right now. This is definitely a first. He is progressing each and every day. He's becoming a family member.
Now I must get off here and try not to disrupt Amigo's sleep and get some clothes out of the dryer and put more in the washer. I need to take a shower, feed the feral kitties, go to Petsmart, and go to the grocery store before dad gets here. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to clean up the bathroom a little bit too. But we'll see how far I get today.
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