SpecialPatrolGroup
- #1
This is a long story, but a really lovely one and worth reading if you want your faith in human decency restored!!
Obviously everywhere in the world has different Covid protocols but in Perth, where I live, we had two years of closed borders and almost no Covid. By January this year, my state of Western Australia had had only nine Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic. We had vaccine mandates here so by December about 98 percent of our population aged 12 and up had had two shots. When our numbers for the third shot, the booster, were up to 70% our borders re-opened to the rest of Australia. Masks were mandated in public and you had to check in and show proof of vaccination everywhere you went. You were not allowed into the state unless you were triple-vaccinated. So numbers stayed low.
Then, because things were going so beautifully, our restrictions eased and then of course numbers started going up. It was only a matter of time before I got it and roughly three weeks after mask mandates ended, my son caught Covid and so did my daughter and I. My daughter was dreadfully sick and so I decided to sleep in the lounge room because from there I could hear them both in the night (I am a single Mum). My tank was in my bedroom.
The other thing in Perth is that if you have Covid, you have to isolate at home for seven days - you're not allowed to go anywhere. At all. On the third day of our isolation, I got up in the morning and went into my bedroom to get dressed. My first step into the room was into water. My tank filters were making the noise filters make when there is nothing but air pumping through them.
My tank had sprung a leak in the silicone overnight, and dumped about 120 litres of water onto my floor.
I was pretty sick with Covid, stuck at home in isolation with two sick kids, and a LOT of fish that now had nowhere to live, plus a bedroom that was covered in water - all under the bed, in the cupboards, soaking the bottoms of the drawers, the bookcases etc. Disaster. Not only that, but whatever debris or whatever that was in the cracks between the floorboards had been dislodged and as I stepped into the room, something sharp went into the side of my foot.
So, after a MASSIVE clean-up effort and no way of leaving the house or doing anything for another four days (and that was only if I was symptom-free) I had no fish tank big enough to house all my fish and I was too sick to set up a dozen smaller ones.
A few months earlier, I had purchased a quarantine tank from a fellow on Facebook Marketplace. When I went to collect it, he had dozens and dozens of tanks at his home of all different sizes. He'd had some fish rooms and was closing them down. So, I contacted him again. I told him what had happened and asked if he had a large, tall tank that would be suitable for me.
He sent me some photos and one of them was of a 500L tank - quite tall so my baby angelfish would have some decent growth room. But 500L was so much bigger than I could afford and I asked if he had anything smaller as I am a single Mum, a full-time student, and not working because I have a disabled son. I also explained that we all had Covid and so I couldn't go anywhere. He lives only a few streets away from me though so I said when I was better I would come in person to see what he had.
This man - this wonderful, fabulous man - hired a van with his son. Put the 500L tank in the van. Drove to my house. He and his son dressed in full PPE. They carried that monster tank into my home and set it up in my lounge. He had even painted the stand it came with so it would look nicer. He told me that I could have the whole set-up for $400 (USD $275) and that I could pay him in instalments, whenever I could afford it. That he just wanted to help out a fellow fish lover. He is an engineer and he has guaranteed no leaks and he made a custom foam base for it for me.
And that was that. He was legit. All he has asked me for is some photos to see how happy the fish are. I have paid him $50 a week since then and so now I have a beautiful, gorgeous, HUGE tank that I have purely because some people out in the world are truly wonderful and deserve to have as many people as possible know about them!!
If you read this whole story, thank you!!
Obviously everywhere in the world has different Covid protocols but in Perth, where I live, we had two years of closed borders and almost no Covid. By January this year, my state of Western Australia had had only nine Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic. We had vaccine mandates here so by December about 98 percent of our population aged 12 and up had had two shots. When our numbers for the third shot, the booster, were up to 70% our borders re-opened to the rest of Australia. Masks were mandated in public and you had to check in and show proof of vaccination everywhere you went. You were not allowed into the state unless you were triple-vaccinated. So numbers stayed low.
Then, because things were going so beautifully, our restrictions eased and then of course numbers started going up. It was only a matter of time before I got it and roughly three weeks after mask mandates ended, my son caught Covid and so did my daughter and I. My daughter was dreadfully sick and so I decided to sleep in the lounge room because from there I could hear them both in the night (I am a single Mum). My tank was in my bedroom.
The other thing in Perth is that if you have Covid, you have to isolate at home for seven days - you're not allowed to go anywhere. At all. On the third day of our isolation, I got up in the morning and went into my bedroom to get dressed. My first step into the room was into water. My tank filters were making the noise filters make when there is nothing but air pumping through them.
My tank had sprung a leak in the silicone overnight, and dumped about 120 litres of water onto my floor.
I was pretty sick with Covid, stuck at home in isolation with two sick kids, and a LOT of fish that now had nowhere to live, plus a bedroom that was covered in water - all under the bed, in the cupboards, soaking the bottoms of the drawers, the bookcases etc. Disaster. Not only that, but whatever debris or whatever that was in the cracks between the floorboards had been dislodged and as I stepped into the room, something sharp went into the side of my foot.
So, after a MASSIVE clean-up effort and no way of leaving the house or doing anything for another four days (and that was only if I was symptom-free) I had no fish tank big enough to house all my fish and I was too sick to set up a dozen smaller ones.
A few months earlier, I had purchased a quarantine tank from a fellow on Facebook Marketplace. When I went to collect it, he had dozens and dozens of tanks at his home of all different sizes. He'd had some fish rooms and was closing them down. So, I contacted him again. I told him what had happened and asked if he had a large, tall tank that would be suitable for me.
He sent me some photos and one of them was of a 500L tank - quite tall so my baby angelfish would have some decent growth room. But 500L was so much bigger than I could afford and I asked if he had anything smaller as I am a single Mum, a full-time student, and not working because I have a disabled son. I also explained that we all had Covid and so I couldn't go anywhere. He lives only a few streets away from me though so I said when I was better I would come in person to see what he had.
This man - this wonderful, fabulous man - hired a van with his son. Put the 500L tank in the van. Drove to my house. He and his son dressed in full PPE. They carried that monster tank into my home and set it up in my lounge. He had even painted the stand it came with so it would look nicer. He told me that I could have the whole set-up for $400 (USD $275) and that I could pay him in instalments, whenever I could afford it. That he just wanted to help out a fellow fish lover. He is an engineer and he has guaranteed no leaks and he made a custom foam base for it for me.
And that was that. He was legit. All he has asked me for is some photos to see how happy the fish are. I have paid him $50 a week since then and so now I have a beautiful, gorgeous, HUGE tank that I have purely because some people out in the world are truly wonderful and deserve to have as many people as possible know about them!!
If you read this whole story, thank you!!
