Volunteering has always been an important part of the alternative school system in Toronto, and, what with our daughter in her fourth year in a Toronto alternative school, my wife and I finally decided it was time to pick up the slack and make a contribution. We’d both been feeling guilty that our professional lives kept us out of the classroom, but luckily we were able to find something we could do on our own timetable that has made a big difference at the school.

There’s alway been this big old aquarium, 72″ x 18″ x 24″, that you see as you come in the front door of the school, but in recent years it’s been looking a little sad. It hasn’t had proper lighting for months, for starters, and I don’t think it’s ever had a proper cover. So I approached the Parent’s Council and begged to be allowed to fix it up. Luckily, they gave me the green light.

Two dutiful and beautiful angelfish stand guard outside the castle, liar of the ridiculously humongous plecko.

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So, the betta’s been in the community tank for about a week now, and things are going, for lack of a better word, swimmingly.

For starters, being in heated, filtered water seems to be doing wonders for his constitution. His colour is coming up like never before, and he’s actually swimming faster and longer than I’ve ever seen him swim before. To be honest, he used to sit lifeless on the bottom of his bowl for so long I used to start rehearsing how I’d explain to my daughter what fish heaven was all about. Read the rest of this entry »

Last weekend, we decided to put an urban myth to the test. For years now, even seasoned fish collectors have warned us against the dangers posed by betta splendens, the legendary Siamese Fighting Fish.

Heeding these warnings and not wanting to have our other fish torn to shreds, we have kept our daughter’s betta isolated in one of those little plastic boxes they sell for bettas at Petsmart.  He lead a solitary existence that grew increasingly more isolated as our cat, Riley, grew more and more interested in his long, flowing fins (they taunted him so). It got to the point that his little plastic box was shoved on the top shelf of our armoire where neither the stupid cat nor sunlight could get to him.

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