Pet Monologues

Dogs beware: salmon poisoning disease.

Salmon poisoning is caused by eating infected raw fish
Fishing can be wonderful recreation, but sharing the catch with your dog can be an act of kindness that kills. Read the rest of this entry »

by Odessa (?)

Hi my Friend,

Oreo, I’m so sad to have to tell you this: Barney, one of our pet apple snails, died this Christmas eve. We were all very sad. Mom even cried. Barney and Mom were very close you know.

After Mom removed Barney from her home aquarium and put her to rest, Mom dried her eyes, pulled up a chair and started to tell us all about Barney’s life.

It was not a sad story Mom told us, Oreo, and it wasn’t not only about Barney’s life. This story of Barney’s life could be the story of millions of other pet apple snail lives all rolled into one story. I decided that I wanted to shareher story with you Oreo as I know you will be as interested init as I and my mates were.

Barney’s life was not at all like our lives. Barney was an amphibious snail. Where as you and I will live all our life on dry land, amphibious snails like Barney live their lives in water but they must come up to the surface of their aquariums, streams or ponds to breathe. They also lay their eggs just above the water’s surface. The rest of the time they spend under water. Read the rest of this entry »

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to take my ex-roommate’s cat to the vet. I guess he’s my cat now. His name is Max and he’s a very skinny orange tabby cat. He came complete with a fifteen second memory span and he has only one facial expression, which is blank. I often wonder if he was somebody’s genetic cloning experiment. That or if he is suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. He’s just a living cat with barely a hint of character.

I’m trying to give him a personality but it’s difficult. I wonder if my techniques are working. The first technique is to hold him tightly against my chest and speak nonsense to him, kiss his face really hard, and then let him jump out of my arms to freedom. This does not seem to have any effect on him. He just looks mildly bewildered. The second technique is to spank his rump playfully. Again, there’s not much response. Not even the cliché look of superiority most normal cats constantly wear. But I haven’t picked Max up in days and have hardly petted him. I’ve even locked him out of my room. I’m disgusted by him right now. To get my mind off him I think about today’s homework. My teacher wants me to write about something I know a lot about. I glance at a picture of Evan, framed and sitting on my nightstand, where I can see it every night before I go to sleep. I think about Evan’s life and its tragic ending. I wonder if I should write about him. Read the rest of this entry »

I awoke in the gray of dawn, blinking hard to get my bearings. I was in a small nylon tent on a rocky outcrop jutting into Lake Superior. Through the open flap all I could see was black water meeting vast purple sky.

Besides me, snoring peacefully in his sleeping bag, was my college dorm mate Kurt Iverson, whom everyone called Woodstock, a nickname whose origins not even he knew. The two of us had forged a fast friendship the previous year as freshmen, despite all odds. He was a northern Michigan country kid, lean and angular, with an abiding love of hunting and fishing. He tied his own trout flies and could skin a rabbit in two minutes flat. Read the rest of this entry »

The Freshwater Moray Eel (Gymnothorax polyuradon) is a wonderful aquarium inhabitant that is rarely seen in pet stores. When available to aquarists, it disappears quickly and happy hobbyists rush home with a fish they have no idea how to care for.

There are two main keys to keeping the Freshwater Moray Eel alive. First you have to have an aquarium set up so that the Eel will feel at home, and second, you need to provide a food that the Eel wants to eat.

Providing the food isn’t too hard. I recommend salad shrimp or ghost shrimp. However, if you don’t meet the first condition of making the Eel feel at home, having the right food won’t make any difference. This article is aimed at helping you create a home for your freshwater moray eel so that the two of you can enjoy a long companionship. (I wouldn’t try petting the eel though)

With my first Freshwater Moray, I watched the fish swim incessantly around the tank for 3 months until it slowly starved to death. It was a devastating moment for me. I’ve never wanted to bring a fish home to its death. It’s always been my intent to give any animal I bring into my house the best possible home possible.

When I bought my second Freshwater Moray, I was determined to keep it alive. I did so with the help of a lot of lacerock. This eel, like most others appreciates hiding places. Above all other things the eel wants a narrow area where it feels secure. Though lace rock can help accomplish this it also hides the eel from your view. Since most people, including me appreciate being able to see the fish they buy, I began looking for some way to keep my eel visible, while stile meeting its need to be hidden. What follows is the plan for a tank I created in order to meet both the eel’s needs, and my own.

The tank employs a raised-floor with access to main area of the aquarium. I have included pictures to help illustrate what this set-up entails.

The Set-Up:

This set-up is customized for a 20-gallon “high” aquarium, but you can use the same concept for any size tank. Obviously the first item needed is be a 20-gallon aquarium (24″l x 12 1/2″w x 16 3/4″h). You will also need 9-2 1/4 h” x 1 1/2 d” pipe cylinders. These will serve as the main pieces of support for the raised-floor. In addition, 4 T-Pipes (1 x 3/4″ and 4 x 1″) and one 12″ piece of sprinkler tubing are needed. The 12″ piece will serve as an extension from the raised-floor to a power filter at the top of the aquarium. It is important that this piece fit snuggly into one of the T-pipes at the top of the ‘T’. Since the 12″ piece of pipe will connect the raised-floor to a power filter, the other end of the pipe needs to fit snuggly around the intake pipe of your power filter. In my case I used a pipe with a diameter of about 1″. The interior diameter was about 3/4″ allowing a Marineland Bio-wheel ‘Mini’ filter to fit quite snuggly inside the pipe. Beyond these pieces of equipment, only one more thing is required. You will need a piece of glass cut to the interior dimensions of the aquarium. It is important that the glass be smaller than the inside dimensions of the aquarium. If it’s slightly too small, you will be able to work with it. If it’s slightly too large it will require getting the glass cut again.

The dimensions I provide are accurate, but they may need to be modified based on your tanks actual size. Of particular importance is the amount of silicon joining the corner of your aquarium. If there is too much, it will not be possible to put the sheets of glass in the aquarium. I would recommend cutting double-strength glass into two nearly even halves (11 3/4″l x 11 5/8″w; 11 5/8″ x 11 5/8″) This will allow you to more easily install and remove your raised-floor.

The most expensive part of this project is in fact the glass, since it must have 4 circle cuts made in it. Three of these cuts can be put just about anywhere you want. However, the fourth cut is important as it is where the 3/4″ T-pipe will line up with the overhead filter. For the MarineLand Mini I used, the center of this cut was 8″ in from the left wall and 1 1/2″ in from the back wall. (Note: It is possible to pull of the same set-up using a light plastic instead of glass, though glass is much sturdier) I have succeeded in using plastic intended for a kitchen fluorescent light fixture. Yes, I actually meant a “light” plastic. This type of item is routinely available at large hardware stores.) I would recommend cutting the glass into two even halves. This will allow you to more easily install and remove your raised-floor.

To begin, place the 9 pipe cylinders on the floor of the aquarium in 3 rows and columns. These will be used as the foundation for the raised-floor. I recommend siliconing the 4-t pipes into the raised-floor. However you attach them to the raised-floor, make sure that they stick out above the raised-floor. (They in fact will have to stick out from the bottom unless the cylinders you used were taller than the ones I used) If you do allow the T-pipes to stick out into the main tank, all the gravel from the aquarium will eventually find its way down the T-pipe and will fill sub-floor area, making it impossible for the eel to get from the bottom to the top. Three of the T-pipes (1″) will provide access for the eel to the rest of the tank. The fourth t-pipe (3/4″) is also very important. I will allow the filter to pull its water from the bottom of the tank. If this is not done, you will create a stagnant zone below the raised-floor, which could become lethal. For this reason, it’s very important to make sure that you position the T-pipe that will be connected to the filter in a place that will allow it to be connected to the filter at the top of the aquarium. Put a thin layer of gravel at the bottom of the tank, and then put the glass in. (While this is certainly not required, it does make the tank much more comfortable for the eel) The raised-floor should rest about 2 1/4″ above the actual bottom of the aquarium.

To connect the raised-floor to the filter, first insert a barrier to prevent the eel from swimming up the filter intake valve. In my set-up, I used the intake strainer from the marine bio-wheel to accomplish this. I inverted the strainer and inserted it into the bottom of the 12″ sprinkler pipe. I then inserted the 12″ sprinkler pipe into the back-left t-pipe. When doing this, the strainer should end up in the t-pipe. (The strainer is the aforementioned barrier that keeps the eel out of the filter if you didn’t get all of that)

After the floor is in, you can put some additional gravel down the t-pipes to the raised-floor, but it is sometimes difficult to get it to spread evenly over the floor. Next, you will probably want gravel on top of the raised-floor. When doing this I recommend that you don’t put too much gravel on the floor, as it will probably end up falling down the pipes, as noted earlier.

After doing this, you can decorate as you please, cycle the tank, and you’ll be ready to go. Just add your eel. The “Freshwater Moray” is actually not a freshwater fish. It will live just as well in either brackish or straight saltwater. Though I’ve heard divergent recommendations as to which water environment it does best in, I’ve had equal success with all of these water conditions. I do recommend adding a bit of salt, but a true brackish environment is not necessary.

Keeping the Freshwater Moray Eel

As far as tank mates go, you are somewhat limited. The eel hunts by smell, but if it bumps into a fish it can swallow, it will. Even larger fishes will sometimes show wounds from being bit in the night. I would recommend only using fish that are large and fast moving. Perhaps a scat, mono, or puffer would be a good tank mate if you were intending a slightly brackish environment. Tiger barbs, zebra danios, and other fast moving fish are good freshwater tank-mates. (However, I wouldn’t keep anything too valuable with the eel, even if you don’t think the eel will munch it…trust me on this one)

I hope that you are able to enjoy your freshwater moray even more after constructing this set-up. It allows the eel to be happy while letting you see it and show it off. And let’s face it, there is nothing cooler to show off to friends than a freshwater moray eel.