Bij het opruimen van mijn Hyves-account kwam ik een post tegen, die ik leuk genoeg vind om te bewaren. Hij stamt uit januari 2007, en is dus bijna antiek. Ik wist toen nog niet eens dat ik zwanger was van Jasper, kun je nagaan!

Er is ondertussen wel wat verandert. Ik heb bijvoorbeeld geen aquarium meer.

Een aantal maanden geleden stootte ik tegen het glas van het aquarium met de punt van een laptop. Er stroomde 60 liter water uit een grote barst, over het bureau en de grond. Gelukkig viel verdere schade mee. Bas was toen bij ons op bezoek, en ik ben hem nog steeds dankbaar voor zijn koelbloedig optreden. Er waren heel wat handdoeken nodig, maar uiteindelijk hadden we nog een vijftal vissen over in een slakom. In de daaropvolgende dagen stierven er hier vier van, en nu heb ik nog één verbazingwekkend sterke vis over.

kapot aquarium

Lees het bericht over beter tijden

“Fish are friends, not food.”
- Sharks (Finding Nemo)

Perhaps it’s because I was put in front of one as a baby whenever my parents wanted me to sit quietly for a while, or perhaps it’s because aquaria typically do not cut to annoying, loud commercial breaks. Whatever it is, I generally find looking at an aquarium more relaxing then watching TV. It’s not very exciting: fish are possibly the most predictable creatures on this planet. Possibly that is exactly why looking at them is so relaxing. They swim a little to the left, a little to the right, a bit up, down again. They eat. They swim some more. Things like that.

I got a small aquarium with five guppies from my parents when I was 10 or so. Apparently one of the females was pregnant, because the very next day I had a dozen. And guppies do not lay eggs, they give birth to fully developed young. Pretty neat. What I didn’t know was that guppy-women can get pregnant up to four times from one fish-fuck and that they get dozens of young every time. And they go at it like rabbits. Honestly, guppies are perhaps the most indecent fish in existence. The males have penises the size of their entire heads and they get it up almost continually. Within a year, I had more then a hundred guppies in many small fish tanks all lined up on the window sill. I didn’t bother putting the young in separate tanks anymore. Guppies sometimes eat their young and at that point I was glad for every young that disappeared.

I started to give them away, I separated the males from the females and I gave up my dreams of becoming the greatest guppy-breeder in the world. Years and years later there was only one large aquarium left. In it I kept platies, guramis, suckerfish, catfish… All kinds of fish, except guppies.

Apart from two years I spent in the California and in Utrecht, I’ve always had an aquarium. A little underwater garden, which I still find very calming.

Until last week. There was water next to the tank and not just a little bit.
To say that I panicked is an exaggeration, but not much of one. The aquarium contains 60 litres of water and is surrounded by electricity… Disaster scenarios crossed my mind. I immediately put the fish in a small tank, emptied the aquarium and spent last Saturday checking the aquarium for leaks. I found none. I suppose that the water could have gone over the rim. I had just cleaned it and added some water after all…

A lot of stress for nothing? Nah, I wouldn’t say so. The aquarium, newly planted and crystal-clear, looks better then it has in a long time.