Male Guppies
When i was a child, i went to a county fair and won a silver goldfish in one of those games along the midway. Thee fact that it was a SILVER goldfish was - i thought- the greatest thing (even back then i liked the unusual).. Of course, i learned later on that the silver color is the "junk" color, the color of feeder fish! But i thought it was cool! Anyway, in a few months, i had the whole shmear: the tank, the filter, some "gold" goldfish to keep the silver guy company, and it grew from there as well. i eventually had several tanks, tropical fish, plants, snails, catfish, breeding tanks, etc., and became quite the young fish expert! i especially liked the live-bearers (as opposed to egg layers), most notably Fancy tailed Guppies.
Female Guppy (...notice the EYES in her belly!)
They came in brilliant combinations of colors, the sexes were easy to tell apart, they bred constantly, and it was fun to watch the babies grow inside of the mothers' bellies and predict when they would be born. That was some of the most interesting stuff i did during my childhood!
The funniest part about this is when i met my husband to be, he told me that HE had been into tropical fish during his younger years, and had tanks all over HIS parents' house! We now own a 72 gallon tank in our house, but it is mostly his fish - i'm more interested in my fish in our watergarden.
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