We’ve got Shaun White, snowboarder extraordinaire, in the tank! Yes, another betta came home with the biocube filter. Funny how that happens. We went to the LFS to get a new filter and found the bettas. Since we just have the community tank running, this guy *HAD* to be laid back. So we found the VTs and looked for the most “don’t worry, be happy” betta we could find. This little guy was swimming around but didn’t jump or flare when we moved his neighbour close. We put him back, looked at others but kinda liked his white body and red hair. Two name possibilities arose:
- Stephen Harper, the current Prime Minister of Canada (since the fish was *obviously* Canadian with his colours, eh!)
- Shaun White, the U.S.
I sighed. Said a fishie prayer. And said ok. So Shaun came home and was introduced to the community tank. That was two weeks ago. He has yet to nip a neighbour or flare at a reflection. He is one laid-back-betta!
My son decided he was more of a Shaun because he was like, totally laid back, dude. Totally. Nothing flips this boy out. He swims slowly, no zipping around, man. That’s bad for your mind, or sumptin’. No noshing on the neighbours. We even have baby platies in the tank that would fit in his mouth… and they swim right next to him. Now, I fully expected there would be some, ah, losses but so far, none. Granted the adult Platy Brats are larger than he is. They are… well fed.
He did colour up a bit after a few days in the tank. His pale white body got some colour and a sheen of blue showed up in his fins. And like most adorable redheads, he has very cute freckles! (“D’oh!” says my son “Stephen Harper IS a conservative, Mom! They’re blue, too. You didn’t expect him to wear bleeding liberal red ties forever, did you?”) Oh ya…but we named him after a snowboarding dude, not an uptight politician.
The name Shaun stuck (with a few nicknames)… this fish embodies the laid back Californian. He loves to ride the filter flow down, the bubbles up and chill out on the java moss deck to catch some rays. Dude.
And he has little white socks!



































