This is my big fat fishy named Titanic. He\she is a Striped Raphael catfish which originates from the Amazon. They were featured once in Survivor: Amazon when the starving contestants managed to spear one, and did their best to get some meat off it, but found that the catfish is 3/4 armor plating that is very painful to touch and is also hard to get through to get any meat out.
They are also known as "talking catfish" because when you take them out of the water, they start twitching their scales in a way that makes a humming noise. And then they will also let out a little bark too if provoked enough.
He\she acquired the name "Titanic" long before James Cameron hired Leonardo and Kate. I came home late one night in about 1992 or so, after some drinking. Yes, you read that century correctly - he's at least 18 years old now. It was about 2am, and all I could think about was crawling into bed. But on the way to the bedroom, a flash of silver caught my eye coming from the bottom of the tank. On closer inspection, I discovered about a dozen of my tetra fish lying on the gravel seemingly lifeless.
I had started out the day with 36 very healthy fish in a 29 gallon aquarium whose water I tested regularly for pH, ammonia, and nitrogen levels. I had never before seen a disease take hold so fast as to knock out so many fish at once. There was no fish in the tank that wasn't affected. They were either lying on the bottom, or in Titanic's case, he was floating up on along the surface of the water. His body was twisted into an uncomfortable-looking arc, and he was not moving. Mostly. Every now and then, a single fin would flick upward out of the water, as if to say, "I'm not dead yet!"
I was devastated, thinking I had lost the entire tank full of fish. They weren't dead yet, but I had no idea what could have wiped them all out, nor how to cope with so many sick fish at once. So I resigned myself to going to bed and dealing with the mess in the morning. But I did decide to pick out the dead ones. I reached my hand in there to grab one, and was instantly shocked at how cold the water was! Not only that, but as I touched one of the "dead" ones on the bottom, it moved!
The aquarium's heater had done a good job up until that day, but unfortunately the aquarium was in a room that was not heated, so when the heater broke, the water temp went down into the 50's. All the fish were in shock. This was was so drastic, that they probably went into hypothermia. So at 2:15am I started a water change, swapping out 1 gallons of cold water for hot water. I continued throughout the rest of the night, getting up every hour to do another water change, so as not to increase the temp too quickly. In the end, out of 36 fish, I only lost 6.
Needless to say, he has grown a bit since then, and certainly seems to be fat, sassy, and happy. I've had him since 1990, and he belonged to a friend of mine for a year or two before that.
His usual hidey-hole.
How I normally see him, if at all.
Demanding Breakfast.
