An ugly/beautiful fish gets plucked off the glass and is put to work; Roy Ahsoak and Ben Hopson at the beginning of a long drive
Friday, April 15, 2011 at 1:27PM 
Those who knew my blog back during the time that Jacob, Lavina, and Kalib lived with us, before there was a Jobe, will remember that Kalib loved my fish. Every night, he had to feed them. So, when the family moved into a home of their own, I gave Kalib one of my 55 gallon tanks to take to his new home.
He was very fond of "Bobby" - the name he gave the big plecostomus that lived in my 90 gallon tank, so I gave Bobby to him as well.
And for all that time since, there has not been a plecostomus in the 90 gallon tank. The water inside has been kept clean and good, but there had been a bad algae buildup on the inner tank walls, which kind of mucked up the whole viewing experience.
So I finally went and bought a pleco from my local fish dealer, Alaska Reef and Freshwater. At first, Sergey, the owner and founder, tried to catch it with a little net, but couldn't. He gave up, plunged his hand into the tank, grabbed hold of it, pried it off the glass...
...and pulled it out.
He opened a bag...
...and put the pleco in it. He then put this bag into another bag, filled with air, just in case the pleco should poke a hole in it.
And here is the pleco, finally cleaning the algae from my 90 gallon tank. The pleco is observed by my ten or eleven year-old parrot fish who I bought as a baby all those years ago.
I love that parrot. He is friendly and smart and I will be sad when he dies. He is getting old.
In about two days, I expect the walls of this tank to shiny clean, free of algae.
This morning, Ben Hopson and Roy Ahsoak stopped in Wasilla at the beginning of a three-day drive that will end in Barrow, hopefully Sunday afternoon. We had breakfast together at Subways, courtesy of Roy.
I know - some of you are wondering... how can they drive to Barrow? No roads lead to Barrow. There is a road that goes to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and there is a temporary ice road that is made by spraying water onto a Rollagon path across the tundra that leads all the way to Barrow.
Temperatures along the route are still dropping to as cold as -30, but the thaw is coming and so the road will be closed for the season April 20.
It is not a good idea to make such a drive alone, so Roy and Ben will be meeting Clancy Itta in Fairbanks and he will drive to Barrow with them. I think there might be a third vehicle in the caravan as well.
The new truck and boat belong to Roy. He was planning to leave the boat in Prudhoe Bay and then come back and pick it up in the summer after the ice goes out, but, if the weather and driving conditions look good, he just might take it all the way to Barrow.
By air, 850 miles separate Barrow from Anchorage - where they began. The drive, of course, will be more than that, but I do not know how much more.
If I had this blog to where I would truly like to get it - if I could make this blog my livelihood and do with it what I want to do, I think I would have jumped into the truck with them and then blogged the whole experience.
That would have been fun.
Safe travels, Roy and Bennie.
Reader Comments (2)
just caught up on your w'ful blog, charming billy. what's that from? a song, i think. love the fish photographs. i clicked on leah's etsy website...fantastic jewelry! margie's cake looks fantastic. i thot maybe a bear would come and eat it. i've heard that moose are allergic to chocolate.
i think pleco's are beautiful...now my firemouth who shares a tank with one is not that crazy about them :)