The Millennial Files

Is there hope out there?

In light of all the Doomsday reports regarding global warming in the media recently, it has been difficult for me to find something to say. Initially, when I began editing and posting articles here, the idea was to inform and provide examples of what others were doing to combat the phenomenon. However, I had no idea when the general public would finally wake up, they would say “Oops! Too late. Can’t do anything about it anyway.” Talk about a downer.

 While trying to rescue my Pollyanna/Anne Frank (”I still believe!”) voice, I had a personal experience that gave me some hope. We have had a fifty-gallon aquarium for about 10 years, filled with fish and greenery my husband has diligently nurtured. One day, it began leaking. Initially, he wanted to sell the fish and forego having the aquarium in our house, but  I had gotten used to watching our “little buddies” in the evenings. We could not afford to replace an equal-sized tank, so opted for a smaller one until muster enough money to get a larger, nicer replacement.

However, when we took down the original, the wear and tear of its stand was painfully obvious and we opted to refinish and rebuild it. That entailed putting the fish in an aluminum pot (Lesson #1: a toxic environment), which as the repair went on, required them to stay there overnight instead of 4 hours. Early in the morning, my husband heard them thrashing about and discovered the Elephant Nose and an Angel, his most prized, had died. So he refilled the old tank with tap water and put in some Stress Coat (a conditioner that removes chlorine) and transferred the fish.

By the time I got up, several hours later, 90% of the fish looked dead, and two were barely holding on (Lesson #2: Sometimes the cure has its own problems). It was so disheartening; so much so that John decided to forget about the project all together, and return the new tank. I could not bear the thought, and cried over the thought of so much loss, which moved him to reassess the situation (Lesson #3:Never give up).

Upon closer inspection, he said it looked like some of the fish were not dead, but barely breathing, and it was possible adding more conditioner and warm water might revive them. I ran to the store for the largest bottle I could find, while he heated a few pots (this time stainless steel) of water. He added the water and conditioner, and after a few hours, the smaller fish became fairly active. The larger ones began to stir, and he remaining Angels struggled. Unfortunately for them, it was too late. What was pretty amazing was the most fragile fish, a Gourami survived as well.

John finished the stand, and with my son’s help (Lesson #4: don’t do it alone), brought it in and placed the new tank upon it. He prepared the new environment, with contents from the old and after conditioning the water again, moved the remaining fish to their new home. Ultimately, we were only able to save 60% of our original stock, but it was not an entire loss. So, my lesson in this, which I will apply to my work at mmmfiles is, tipping point or not, there is always something we can do. Salvaging a situation is whole lot better than losing everything.

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