The look-young syndrome just got worse and worse. 2nd bout was at Henry's today at 8.10pm. A guy, Ian, walks in. He's got that sophisticated yet simple metro-ish look but definitely 27 and above ... and I think he exudes more youth than I do? Dang. And handy too! Makes all sorts of acrylic aquarium gadgets to sell.

Anyway, I sinned SO badly today. So very badly. On the verge of imposing yet another ban on myself again ... until I can clear off the next 1.5 months of shit, at least. Lesson of the day: Do not look too closely at sales tanks - you're bound to see something someone else hasn't spotted and you want so very badly.

I ended up carrying 3 purple tilefishes home ...

The best part? They are notoriously difficult to keep. My one and only solace is that Henry was cool enough to feed them twice to show me that they are eating well, so hopefully ... sigh. And another thing - they are notorious "carpet-surfers" too. That's aquarium lingo for not-so-cheap fish that love skydiving without a parachute, and almost always end up 10 metres away on the surface of some expensive carpet. Drip-acclimatizing them now ...

More updates (damn these frivolous blog posts ... original blog shall soon be up I guess, just to store such nonsense) ...

All morning :> Struggled with several extremely long review articles on nutrition and ended up with sore eyes and an upcoming cold ...

3.00pm:> Visited CoralFarm. Catch of the day - 1 leather coral, 1 white pulsing xenia (please survive ...), 4 sand anemones (cheapo $2 stuff!!! yummmm ... managed to snag a blue-tipped one and a bright green one), 1 orange sponge

4.20pm:> Sidetracked to Henry's to buy some venustus glass cleaner shrimp, but he ran out. Dang ... should have taken Kenneth's banded cleaner shrimp instead!! haha .. but anyway I bought 2 of my own, since I remembered I don't target feed my corals anymore.

THEN. I saw the 3 purple tilefish peeking out of a rock .. and no one would have seen it if they didn't stare at water for half an hour (don't ask me why I did that ... seawater somehow captivates me). Price was gross (for an unpaid student) and I simply had to find out if they survived well in captivity.

5.00pm:> Reached home, frantic search for articles regarding purple tilefish. Had dinner, did 2 more articles for nutrition.

7.25pm:> Finally decided I'm going to risk the hit-or-miss. 3rd catch of the day - 3 purple tilefish (I'm afraid I was behaving in a most frightful manner ... I practically squeezed the poor man dry I think, by bargaining. Well, but I AM a student what.. all the same, once again I appreciate his dedication in making sure we get only healthy stuff.) Also 9 zebra hermits (9 for $11, what a steal!!) , really tiny ones, and 2 snails!

One thing about shopping, be it for fish or for necessities .. I end up feeling awfully guilty.

Please survive...........

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