About Our Fish
When you visit Center Point Medicine you will be greeted by our fish ambassadors, who keep watch over the premises. Their home, a fully equipped fresh water aquarium with modern lighting and filtration system, is pictured on the right.
The ambassadors are fed three times a day by an automatic feeder as well as by hand.
Our ambassadors submitted a number of auto-biographical sketches, and the winners’ entries are posted below.
El Magnifico
I am a 16-year-old Blood Parrot Fish who expects to live past 20! I was born in Taiwan to my father, a Midas, and my mother, a Redhead cichlid. After being shipped to New York State, I lived in Syracuse for 11 years. I was given my name because I was put in charge of my 50 gallon aquarium and I was the handsomest fish there!
As a result of my relationship with Dr. Anbar, I was able to negotiate a transfer to La Jolla in early 2015. My trip to La Jolla was interrupted when the air freight company refused to deliver me to my new home because my travel package became wet. Imagine that! The company was worried that I might have been hurt by a little water. Fortunately, Dr. Anbar was able to pick me up and deliver me to my new 225 gallon fancy upgraded home. I love it!
I am looking forward to greeting all visitors who come to Center Point Medicine. You will know me because I am the biggest and baddest Parrot Fish in the aquarium, and I have the biggest grin!
Tropicana Moonbeam
I am the baby in the aquarium. I arrived in 2017 just after El Magnifico’s friend and longest companion of 9 years, moved on to the big aquarium in the sky. (I just came from that aquarium and I can tell you that fish can swim freely there without ever running into glass walls!) El Magnifico's friend was named Tropicana "Scarface" Moon, and you can see his photo on the right. El Magnifico misses him. I'll bet you can tell how my name is similar! I am very friendly.
Did you notice that as Blood Parrots our mouths have a funny shape? This is because of the way we have been bred. Dr. Anbar taught me how to use positive self-talk to feel better about myself. So, every morning after I wake up I tell myself, "I am handsome, smart, funny, enthusiastic, energetic, and totally awesome." This makes me feel great and then I have a terrific day!
I love to eat! This is why I always come to check out visitors, in case they have a snack to share with me. When I grow up, I plan for my favorite hobby to be digging. I like to watch when the other Parrots move rocks around and make big holes in the aquarium gravel. It looks like so much fun. I think they do this in case they decide to have babies.
Nemo
Hi! I used to be the youngest Parrot in the aquarium. I am almost 6-years-old. When we flew from Syracuse I almost died! My bag leaked and I couldn’t breathe. I think I fainted.
Dr. Anbar told me that when he found me in the bag I was floating upside down in a very small amount of water. He said that he thought I was dead, and was almost ready to take me to the big basin! But then he looked at me closely, shook the bag of water, and noticed that one of my fins was moving ever so slightly. He put my bag into the aquarium and added some water. After a while I woke up, and felt woozy. Then, he put me in the aquarium. By the next day I was good as new!
That’s when I was named Nemo, because he almost died in a bag, too!
The Four Amigos
Hi there! We’re the four Blue Acaras. We travelled to La Jolla all the way from Venezuela. We are usually peaceful except that sometimes we can become mean such as when Gill and Flo decide to have babies. You might see Gill and Flo swimming together, while the teenagers, Nigel and Remus are swimming all by themselves. When they get lonely we sometimes let them join us.
We know we are the most beautiful fish in the aquarium because even our scientific name (“pulcher”) means beautiful. And because we know we are beautiful we sometimes like to chase smaller fish around to let them know who is boss!
Jenna and the Pips
We're known commonly as Black Bar Silver Dollars or Disk Tetras. We love to jog around the aquarium, so look for us playing following the leader! This is how we got to travel from the Amazon River in Brazil all the way to La Jolla. It was all Jenna’s fault. She went in one direction and then we followed her straight into the net. The rest is history.
We do love our new home. We especially enjoy the algae cookies. We’re glad we’re in California so that people do not think we are strange for being vegans.
When we get older we look forward to becoming even more beautiful, especially as we will have great new colors. By then, the Acaras will no longer be able to say that they are the finest looking fish at Center Point Medicine!
Azul
Hola! I am a blue angelfish. I used to be a jet pilot in my previous career with the Navy. I especially love San Diego because it has a naval base!
I was born in Columbia, South America, which is where I learned to speak a bit of Spanish! I love to eat and that’s why you will always see me near the surface of the tank, so that I can start to eat as soon as the food arrives. I also follow visitors at Center Point Medicine very carefully, to check out if they have any treats for me. I hope to keeping growing until I am 6 inches tall!
Donald
Do you love gemstones? Diamonds? Rubies? Sapphires? I am not so picky! I LOVE any kind of rock. My family name is “Geophagus” that means “Rock eater.” If you watch me closely you will see that I pick up rocks and then spit them out to check if they have any delicious food stuck to them.
I grew up in Rio Tapajos in Brazil, which joins the Amazon River. I am very social and sometimes I like to pretend that I am a Disk Tetra. Watch me hang around them! (If you look closely at Jenna and the Pips you will see that I snuck into their photo!) They are crazy, I have to tell you. They kind of remind me of the penguins from the movie Madagascar!
Zehava
Dr. Anbar was so very happy to meet me in La Jolla! He has wanted to welcome a Golden Nugget Plecostomus to his fish tanks for many years. I just arrived from Rio Xingu in Brazil in January, 2015. Yes! I do come from Donald's neighborhood. My river is more than 1000 miles long and joins the Amazon River just to the east of Donald's homeland.
Some of my cousins have golden bands on their fins, but I think they're real show-offs. This is why I choose to wear an elegant lacy outfit. Don't you love it?
I used to like living under the rocks in my river because it had a very strong current that brought me lots of algae to eat. In La Jolla, Dr. Anbar and Melanie give me special algae cookies that are my favorites! It's not fair that Jenna and the Pips steal some of my cookies because they also get to eat the flaky food that floats in the water. Harumph!
The Four Bozos and the Bozuito
Ha! Ha! Ha! We love fancy colors, and that’s why we are known as clowns! Sometimes we swim upside down. Sometimes we sleep on our sides! Sometimes we like to play dead! But we’re just joking around! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Bozuito just joined us recently. You will know him because he is just a little Bozo.
We come from Indonesia, which is in Asia. We know that because we are very smart. We observe all the other fish in the tank and copy them. If the other fish hide, so do we. If the other fish are happy, so are we. We’re in harmony!
Starlight "Buffy the Vampire" Pleco
I hereby announce my dark seahorse candidacy to become the first female President of the Center Point Medicine Body of Water. I would like to clear up some rumors that already have been floated by my opponents. There is nothing in the Center Point Medicine constitution that requires our Presidential candidates to have been hatched in the United States of America. In fact, none of our Body of Water citizens are native born.
I was born in Brazil, just like my cousin Zehava, my third cousin once removed, Donald, and my dear distant relatives, Jenna and the Pips. However, my river, Rio Tocantins does not join the Amazon. (Tocantins means "Toucan's beak"!) This makes me an independent candidate for the Presidency! Furthermore, many of my opponents like to call me "Buffy the Vampire" Pleco because they think this makes me sound evil. Actually, my striking good looks have earned me the scientific name of Leporacanthicus galaxias or Galaxy Pleco. Now you understand why parents gave me my beautiful name "Starlight."
Thus, my platform includes establishing Pleco colonies on Mars in the ancient ocean they just discovered there.
I am in favor of increasing the various foods given to our Body of Water citizens. I love red meat. This is why I want to eliminate fish only Fridays! I believe all our citizens should be immunized against diseases that can affect all of us. Finally, I would like to assure all voters that I have never sent a classified e-mail. And I am not even going to mention that once elected I will be the first female President of the Body of Water.
As your President, I promise to share many more universal thoughts with you!
Anthony
What’s up, human? I am the only fish in this aquarium from the wonderful continent of Africa! I am very peaceful and have no idea why El Magnífico and Tropicana Moon like to bicker or why the Three Amigos are not so friendly to some of our other tank mates. I say, give peace a chance!
I like to sleep in the daytime, and tend to come of my hiding spot at night. Sometimes, I do wake up from my nap in order to eat at lunchtime. Some of my cousins like to swim upside-down, which is why some people want to call me an upside-down catfish. But you’ll never catch me doing such a loony stunt.
Phelingo
I am the most important Plecostomus here because I come from Venezuela, which is the top country of South America. (If you don’t know why, you should check out a map!)
I have decided to throw my phantom hat into the ring and run for President because my species represents true equality between the genders. After my mother laid the egg from which I was born in a dark cave, my father took care of me until I came out of my egg after 4 days!
Fun facts: Do you know why I love opera and Kermit the Frog? Because around the world I am known as the Green Phantom! My father is a language professor at Phantom Equatorial University. That’s why he named me Phelingo. The “Ph” of course stands for “Phantom,” “e” stands for “Equatorial” and “lingo” means “language.”
GloFish School Buddies
We love to go to school and learn all about science. That's how we find out more about ourselves.
About 12 years ago, scientists put in a special gene into our DNA that made us glow when we were exposed to certain chemicals! The reason for this is that we would be put into water pools and if our people friends could see us glow they would know there is pollution in the water. But have no fear! The GloFish at Center Point Medicine have their glow gene always turned on. We can assure you that our water here is of the finest quality!
We are the only fish in Center Point Medicine who come from the United States. Many other countries discriminate against us because of how scientists made us by playing with our genes. Those countries are silly, because people have been playing with genes for many years. How do you think different dog breeds came to be? By mixing genes!
To be perfectly honest, the reason the other countries are suspicious is because our glow genes did not come from fish to start with. They came from jelly fish and sea anemone! And in case you are wondering, we can't have jellyfish at Center Point Medicine because they are dumb, and get stuck in the the corners of aquariums. Also, they like the temperature to be 20 degrees colder than we like because we are tropical fish. Dr. Anbar did not want to buy sweaters for everyone else in the tank because those would cover up our wonderful colors.
Did you know that some other animals also glow? For example, some butterflies, parrots and spiders glow!
If you want to see how beautiful we are when we glow our best, you should ask for the lights to be turned off at Center Point Medicine. Don't you agree that we are amazing and gorgeous?
