Meet Wanda

Meet Wanda! My amazing sister bought me the tank as an early birthday present, and then we went to PetSmart and I found this little dude. It’s actually a boy, but the female betas weren’t as pretty. This is my first pet!

For those of you who are completely in the dark about my name selection, it’s from a movie called A Fish Called Wanda with Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline. It’s a classic

Anyway, my sister and I put Wanda in his tank on Saturday, and she told me to wait a week until I clean it. Except today, it started to get a wee bit green and began to smell. Despite the fact that I was feeling a bit green myself, and I’d never cleaned out a tank or cage of any sort, I took Wanda down to the basement and very, very carefully did the smelly duty.

The only problem I had was when I was transferring Wanda from the 1 gallon Ice Mountain container with the cut-off top. His scales made a squeesh noise again the rough-edged top, so I might have to sand that down for next time, or put masking tape on top. Poor thing When I brought him upstairs, he was absolutely fine and swimming around his tank more peaceful than he had in the past few days.

Then, I got the nasty idea to put my beloved Hooked book in front of the tank:

Wanda froze, and twitched. Then, his gills went waaay out, and I thought for one sick moment that maybe I had hurt my little fishie on the Ice Mountain container.

So I took the book away, and his gills went down. Haha, my plan backfired and I ended up being the one that was freaked out. Anyway, it bothers me how little he eats. Like, do fish only need two flakes a day? And, the really weird thing is, he won’t eat unless I’m watching him. I’ll spend all afternoon gallivanting, come back, and find that he hasn’t eaten any of his flakes. But as soon as I’m kneeling next to my dresser, he’ll immediately float to the top and start attacking his food.

Geez. Well, at least I’d better keep this into consideration before I come home one day with a German Shepherd puppy.