Bubblenest Boredom

Hey pals! The following events happened a few days ago, but I’ll never pass up a good chance to tell a story or criticize my human! So here’s what happened while I was gone: The stupid human ran out of dechlorinator! It was a complete tragedy. I always tell her that she needs a backup plan for things like this, but clearly she didn’t listen. Even with five tanks in the house, she didn’t listen. And I’m always the one who suffers for her negligence.

So, what happened? Well, I was about due for another water change, and because of the super hot weather lately, my tank water has been evaporating more rapidly. It evaporated so much that the water line went below my filter intake tube and, because the human couldn’t dechlorinate water to do my water change and refill my tank, she had to turn my filter off. The same thing happened with two other filters in the house! Horrible!

So I was left in my icky tank water with no filter for three whole days, and the human couldn’t even change my water the whole time it was off. Luckily my water quality still stayed below dangerous since my tank gravel had enough good bacteria to take care of a little bit of the waste while the filter wasn’t pumping. But during this time, my human fed me even less to try and make sure I didn’t pollute the water (like that even matters with the disgusting plecos still in the tank), so I became very bored. I tried to make the best of the situation, so to cure my boredom I decided to start building a bubblenest!

I don’t get to build bubblenests very often in this new tank, mostly because every time I start one the current from the filter prevents it from sticking to the surface long. Now that there was no current, my bubbles would actually stay in place once I made them! So I scouted my tank for a good spot and decided the best place was right by my leaf hammock. I got to work blowing bubbles, and soon I had quite the nest going.

(Day 1) Beginning construction…

By the second day, my nest was almost done, and the human finally noticed it. She apparently thought it was so cute she needed to try and touch it. Ha! I showed her! I spent the rest of my day tweaking and adding to the nest, and protecting it from the human and the nasty plecos.

(Day 2) Defending my nest from the human!

On the third day, my nest was big enough for me to stick to the glass wall of the tank. I had tried to do this at first to make sure it stayed in place, but the water surface was so still (and icky!) that I didn’t have to. I was so proud of my finished nest! Right after I completed my work, the human announced to me that she finally got more dechlorinator. So she did a water change and I stayed right under my nest to keep it from being destroyed.

(Day 3) My finished bubblenest attached to the wall

But it was all in vain. During the water change my nest detached from the wall, and when the human turned the filter back on it got even worse. Very slowly, my beautiful bubblenest floated across the surface of the water, toward the filter outflow. Some of the bubbles on it were slowly dispersing. It was shrinking and shrinking, and what was left of it was headed right for certain doom. I covered my eyes with my fins. I couldn’t watch.

But my pectoral fins are clear, so I had to watch.

Miserably, I looked on from my leaf hammock, toward the filter on the opposite corner of the tank. There were plants in between my nest and the outflow, but that didn’t stop it from moving. The water flow moved it around the plants in a circle, and then closer and closer to the pouring water.  And then…the edge of the remaining bubbles touched the flowing water, and in an instant the cluster of bubbles I called my nest was pushed under and obliterated.

The whole experience was disheartening, but once I got over the anger at losing my nest, I felt glad to have my filter back on and my tank back to normal. The human gave me some bloodworms, and I’m not bored anymore! Though the filter flow does seem a little stronger than usual now. I will have to demand the human make it calmer. That way, maybe I will be able to have a future bubblenest stay put, even with the filter working! Thanks for reading my story, pals! See you later!