Friday, April 27, 2012

A to Z Challenge - X


http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/2012-to-z-challenge-sign-up-list.html


X...           Xyphophorus helleri


Along with my adorable cat, who you saw in this post... We also have a fabulous 55-gallon aquarium at home.

 





Currently, we have about thirteen neon tetras,






a handful of various types of other tetras,


 





a red tailed shark and several catfish.

 

 
But my favorite is my orange and black clown loach, "Loachy"... That's him many years back. He is now huge, six-eight inches long (think small guinea pig), but he still sleeps on his back like this!

It used to freak me out...  More than once I banged on the glass to check he was still alive!


Did you notice the little brown fish next to him, in that picture? Go ahead check again.
I'll wait...

He is what pet stores call "plecos", or sucker fish that clean algae off the tank. He was cute back then, right?

He now looks like this...




Clearly, that's not him! This is a picture from a recent article about "armored fish" in Florida destroying the lakes and coastal areas because of how they burrow and reproduce.  Yes, my cute little guy is currently a natural disaster in Florida!

Except, my cute little guy is bigger than that...   He is at least 16-18 inches long (think small dog!). He is beautiful though, with a gorgeous pattern on black. He is also quite funny. He sucks onto the front of the tank because when he does so, he can no longer see you (his eyes are on the side), and its obvious he thinks he's hiding from you! He gets very annoyed if you move to the side of the tank and "find" him.


So, a Xyphophorus helleri is a type of fish commonly found in home aquariums, usually called a sword molly.

I don't actually have any swords left. I had some but they passed on to that great aquarium in the sky.

But I needed an X...

Forgive me? :)



1 comments:

Sherry Ellis said...

It sounds like you have a beautiful aquarium! I've never heard of a fish sleeping upside down. How funny!