It’s my baby’s birthday todayyyay. 😀 <3 He has turned 37, which is such an adorable age. ( – 3 -) It’s both my lucky numbers. I wish him a lucky year. <3 *sends kusjes*

I wanted to call today’s post “Happy Yayday”, like baby Yayence’s birthday, but unfortunately my day is not as yayed as I wanted it to be.

Around 5 AM, I had woken up and went to use the bathroom (toilet). I then checked on Bert.

I put some rock salt in Bert’s temporary jar and, given that his aquarium water was a couple degrees warmer than usual, I decided to make the water in his temporary jar a bit warmer as well. I dissolved the salt in the water and put Bert in. He was swimming wildly in his jar, though he often does that in his cramped up space, it felt very uncomfortable this time. I went to the bathroom (bath) to get the bucket and his suction tubes. When I came back, the water in his temporary jar was full of mucus he coughed up and he was trying to get out of the jar but lost more strength at every attempt.

So I poured him back into his aquarium right away, and he sunk to the bottom of it like a torpedo. Then he just laid there. Lifeless. But his gills were still moving. I was sad and told him to stay with me. After a few seconds he strugglingly swam to the surface and gasped for air.

I didn’t want to put him through more temperature shock, but the water was turbid again and full of mucus, so I had to push through. I filled his temporary jar with water less warm and didn’t use salt in it. (He was a lot easier to catch. 🙁 ) He seemed dead, at some point even laying at the surface sideways, but his gills were still moving. I told him to not stop fighting and that he is too young to die.

So I proceeded to empty out the tank. I cleaned his gravel in hot water, rinsed his plants in hot water, cleaned his marbles in hot water, scrubbed his rocks, rid the windows of mucus and drained the water thereof. In the meantime I felt how ice cold the temporary jar had become and poured a shot glass of lukewarm water into it. Bert swirled himself around the perimeter and then fell still again. Then I refilled his aquarium and put him back. The salt shaker is empty now.

Of the amount of bloodworms in the shot glass (I wasn’t paying attention and let it thaw too much), I gave him just a tip of a teaspoon – which is his dosage. He doesn’t eat. But he’s still alive…

The water was on about 29 degrees Celsius again when I put him in. Though he was basically behaving exactly like this when I just got him, I decided to adjust the temperature back to the more preferable constant of 26 degrees. Time will tell if he will recover from this temperature shock. And though he got rid of a lot of mucus, time will also tell if he will recover from ich or not. It’s all over him. 🙁

I was hoping to be able to use the mini aquarium I bought for him, to put him in during a water change, but Dpd’s customer service didn’t respond and on the track & trace page I saw the pick-up point with location unknown to me is returning the package to the sender.  I hope eventually it will still end up at my door. Hoping that Bert is still with us by then.

I’m going to take a nap. x

11:07 (AM) CET

I checked on him just now. He was eating when I did. 🙂

11:25 (AM) CET

The Dutch government has fallen. 😮

The cabinet will resign (and return to the status of regular members of parliament). The minister of economic affairs (and climate) will rightfully permanently resign, after ignoring the smoke signals coming from the case that led to thousands of people unrightfully purged by the government. Loss of faith in the rule of law, after the very unrightful purge, is the main reason why the cabinet decided to step down.

The child allowance affair, if I am correct, was that parents (with a double nationality¿) were blacklisted on the basis of race and were purged after having been listed as fraudulent for requesting governmental child allowance they in reality were eligible to. It is ridiculous that this has ever happened. What is even more ridiculous is that the resigned minister of economic affairs (and climate) refused to answer any questions from the media.

I consider it unjust that the media are trying to hold the prime minister accountable for this. This awful, clearly erroneous case should have never left the ministry of economic affairs and climate. It’s absurd to think that it had been ignored for so long that it became a problem so big that the prime minister, who directs all ministries from agriculture to education, has been involved in this.

From the Christmas holidays onwards, the prime minister has been directing the parliament to rapidly roll out financial compensation to the families who have been victimized by the governmental purge. Given that the minister of economic affairs and climate is a bad leader, the responsibilities of the prime minister do not go beyond that, even though that too should have been done by the minister of economic affairs.

Bert is such a strong visje. ( – 3 -)

15:35 (03:35 PM) CET

We’re clearly on the verge of genocide.

15:59 (04:59 PM) CET

When I went to take my nap, I opened the window in the living room for Bert to get some oxygen. Later, when I was awake and washing dishes in the living room, I closed it again, because it’s cold asf over here (on average not as cold as in the Netherlands, but still temperatures between 3 and -2 degrees Celcius). At some point Bert started to do the paralysis thing again. Then I opened the window and decided to buy some more salt.

Yesterday I measured the salt all wrong. First I used a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon. When I used a tablespoon, I was very parsimonious with the salt, basically still using teaspoons.

Last night I googled how many grams is a tablespoon. It’s about 17 grams in a tablespoon. For my tank it’s like 25 tablespoons of salt, which is 425 grams. Especially given Bert’s fragility and also because gold seems cheaper than the salt, there’s about 200 grams of salt in my tank right now. Half of the salt shaker I bought yesterday, and one entire salt shaker I bought today.

Bert was coughing up mucus just now, so I guess that’s a good sign. That he’s getting it out of his system. All mucus I see that is reachable for me, I spoon out of there. Reprimanding him when he’s sniffing it. His TGIF spinach snack will do him well I hope. 🙂

17:55 (05:55 PM) CET

Every time it happens it’s like he’s about to jump out of his aquarium, because he leans with his nose against the glass to do it and then thrashes the same way as in the GIF I posted earlier. I think that, before I go to sleep, it’s crucial that I finish his fence. (Especially because the saltwater has raised the water level.)

Bert is quite the investment haha. I hope it’s all worth it. I don’t want to be alone again. He’s such sweet company.

18:08 (06:08 PM) CET

I’ll be making a variation of this. <3_<3

A variation as in I have cassava and tuna at home and the rest I’ll have to improvise.

Maybe today is a yayday after all.

19:41 (07:41 PM) CET

I’m not going to sleep yet but I won’t update anymore until I’ve slept so good night x

23:30 (11:30 PM) CET