Fish tank

I think I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that we have a small fish-tank out side. Since its out in the open, the fishes are pretty much on their own against the onslaughts of nature. But I figured that since these are just regular fishes from one of our seven lakes, they should not have much of a survival problem as long as there is food.

And they actually manage just fine. Winter is the only time when there is a noticeable change in their lifestyle. They become slow and they eat less but not much else. Since there are about a hundred fishes, there is a regular cycle of life and death throughout the year. Each week one or two fishes pass on and every few months hundreds of new fishes are born. About fifteen or twenty of these manage to survive till adulthood. They are all pretty much the same species and don’t really get along with other types of fishes that we initially tried putting in the same tank. The rest of the fishes killed the newcomers and so we stopped bringing all new fishes after that.

These are called “mauli” but I suppose this would be a local term for these small orange fishes. I really don’t know much about their kind since this tank was started just on impulse. After a little while when the fishes started breeding and the lotus and the lilies started blooming in the tank, we took things a little more seriously.

The fish tank eco-system now seems to be self-sustaining requiring very little effort on our part. We just open the water tap every once in a while to exchange the water and that’s about it. And the fish seem to love boiled eggs, the yolk part. We don’t normally consume the yolk because of the higher levels of cholesterol in it. So instead of throwing it away, we just give the yolk to the fish while my family and I consume the whites. Seems to be working out just great. We are happy and the fish seem happy as well. They also keep the tank free of bugs and mosquitoes. There seem to be none around the place though I don’t know how that’s working out. They seem to be cleaning the water as well since its always crystal clear and without any noticeable smells.

In summers there is plenty of sunshine to keep the flora in the tank going at a fast pace. We have to pull out the lotus leaves every fortnight or so because they spread like weeds and block all the sunlight from reaching the water. In the winter though, their growth also slows down and they hardly flower at all. The best season for this tank is in the monsoons when there are five or six lotus blooms and countless water lilies at all times. But this particular variety of lotus seems to bloom only at night. They close up in the mornings and remain closed for the whole day. Then when the night rolls in, they again open their pink petals. I’ll try to find some pictures from my archives since I do remember taking several photos of these blooming flowers every season. The photo included here was taken last Sunday morning when the sun was just coming up and the fish were gathered in the section of the tank cleared of other plants – the feeding area sort of speak.