Back At It

Hey folks, it’s been awhile. Losing Sasha was tough on us, and we needed time to recover.

We did get a new puppy. He’s a South African Boerboel and just the sweetest guy. He’s going to be enormous when he’s full grown! Not quite 3 months old and already a solid 30 lbs.

We also have been doing work around the house. We took down some fish tanks and consolidated them. We’ve had two silver dollar fish that were given to us a few years ago, along with some Koi, mollies, guppies, and a few others. We noticed that fish were going missing and could not figure it out. I saw the silver dollars chasing the koi into the glass of the tank a few times, which was weird. But I didn’t think too much of it.

We bought some new koi, and the next morning two were gone. No remains, nothing. This has happened once before, and we passed it off as a mystery. This time, however, we finally said “Enough!” We were getting rid of those silver dollars, or feeding them to the turtles.

I asked a few friends, and my neighbors offered to take them both to add to their tank. So I snagged the fish, put them in a bucket, and trekked them up the hill. Imagine my surprise when my neighbor came out and said, “I’m pretty sure those aren’t silver dollars, they are Pacu.” Uh….what? He declined to take them, as he didn’t want his fish to get eaten.

Next best option was to take them to a local reptile store that has two Caiman crocodiles. They agreed to take the fish so I headed over. Sure enough, they confirmed that the fish were pacu. For those who don’t know (like me!) Pacu are in the piranha family. Yes, we had two piranha type fish eating our others all while thinking they were harmless, docile silver dollar fish. Seriously!

The guy at the store wanted to keep them, so he said if the crocs didn’t eat them he’d take them home to his pond. We threw them in the tank and the crocs couldn’t catch them. My problems were over, at least.

I don’t know if they survived to move to another home. I just know that my tanks are safe from cannibalistic fish in disguise, and I didn’t have to feed then to my turtles.

Quarantine has been an adventure. How are y’all doing?