the weird thing is, when I view my job as some sort of background extra it becomes much more palatable. people go to a library and see me shelving a stack of books in my cardigan and glasses (now with glasses chain!) and they go “yeah, that’s exactly right. that’s how it’s supposed to be in a library.” and for some reason, that’s comforting? the work is whatever, and the customers are customers, but sometimes it feels like I’m being paid just to make sure this places looks right, and I find that very fun.
humans be like “is anyone going to nurse this animal back to health?” and not wait for an answer
A summary of everything repeated in the notes:
The black color is natural for a black moor goldfish, but they do often change color as they age, sometimes in response to tank conditions. In this case, the vibrancy of the color is more important to note than the color itself. The scales begin very dull and then as Monstro recovers they become vivid.
Monstro is probably suffering from either chemical burns, dropsy, or both. Fish can probably become depressed in a fish way, but it is not the reason he stopped swimming.
Dropsy is an infection of the swim bladder which helps fish float. The water changes help reduce the inflammation and aquarium salt makes it harder for bacteria to grow in the wounds while he fights off the infection.
The chemical burns are probably from living in a too-small or badly filtered tank. Goldfish produce a lot of waste including ammonia, which in large amounts can cause the burns. The water changes are again helping reduce the ammonia level and keeps the water clean while he’s recovering, like how for humans with chemical burns we flood with saline.
Because of the amount of waste they produce, goldfish need 10-20 gal each absolute minimum, but still think of that as living in a bathroom as a human. Even this setup may need to grow a bit larger as monstro and it’s friends age
Goldfish can live 20/30 years, humans just are Extremely Bad at caring for fish the way we do other pets. Most goldfish need a whole pond and friends to be happy. The goldfish bowl was a temporary viewing object in China to show off the fish to guests in their rooms, and was misunderstood by European visitors to be how the fish were kept all the time.
Fish (and most cold blooded animals and birds) are exempt from most animal abuse protections and retail pet stores are almost fully unregulated in their treatment of animals. Woo!
Idk support well cared for animals including fish and while the bigger the tank the better, don’t like…. Try to release your fish or any other animal into the wild. In this case, surrendering Monstro to the pet store was probably the best thing the former owner could’ve done upon realizing they didn’t know how to care for them .
If you want anything deleted, added, or fixed let me know and I’ll be more than willing to do so! If you use any of the tumblr tutorials, or find them helpful, please consider reblogging them from the source! Good luck with your furbs :))
This is her!!! Her name is Rosie and she’s a big sweetheart. I’m making her a girlfriend soon!! I’ll be sure to update if you’re interested, this took nearly all day (and then some) since she was my first and all, but I couldn’t have done it without one of my close irl friends 💕
