Cora and Bennie swim beneath the fluorescent light and steady hum of an aquarium skimmer. The clown fish live in a 20-gallon tank beneath UI sophomore Kylie Day’s loft bed.
“I’ve always been insane with animals,” the neurobiology and preveterinary studies student said, sitting back in a green papasan chair in her Burge dorm room. “When I was little, I wasn’t inside with Barbies, I was outside catching frogs with my brothers.”
Working with animals and researching saltwater aquariums in her free time is pretty true to character.
“Mom says ever since before I can remember, I was bringing home all kinds of odd creatures and getting all goofy about things outside the car window,” she said.
Day started with a couple guppies and a 10-gallon tank her senior year of high school.
“When you first start off, it is hard,” she said. “Guppies don’t live very long, and when the first one died, I was all upset.”
She refers to her pets by name. Cora and Bennie are joined by shrimp — Kronos and Athena — and snails, one named Queen Latifa because of the spectacular clump of algae clinging to its shell.
Despite the glass barrier between fish and human, Day frequently interacts with her pets.
Julia Cheng, Day’s roommate, said she caught the dark-haired woman greeting the fish when she came into the room.
“Today, I was taking a nap,” Cheng said. “She didn’t know I was sleeping, and she came in and started talking to the fish. ‘Oh hi, little fishes,’ ” Cheng said, demonstrating with her voice pitched up a bit higher.
“They are really personable, with little quirks,” Day said. “Cora comes and visits me while I am doing homework. She is very bossy. Bennie is at her beck and call.”
At 20 gallons, Day has maxed out the tank size permitted in the residence halls.
“I would have a bigger one,” she said, scrunching her nose up. “We should protest.”
She leans forward whenever she explains an aspect of her tank and jumps out of her chair to pull up pictures of fish she’s owned, such as blood parrot fish and the common pleco, a leopoard-spotted sucker fish that can reach 2 feet long.
This aquatic obsession can dominate her conversations, said Day’s boyfriend, Brian Albert.
“My mom has the same hobby,” Albert said. “They talk all the time, and I don’t really know what is going on.”
Day said she wrangles Albert into helping her with the heavy lifting of moving the tank between her Williamsburg, Iowa, home and the dorms.
“Moving day is a five- to six-hour ordeal,” she said, miming the motions of carting in supplies. “There is a lot of carrying and moving and craziness.”
Outside of classes and her aquatic obsession, Day works summers and weekends at a veterinary office in her hometown. During the week, she works at Petland in Iowa City.
After graduating from the UI, she said, she plans on studying animals large and small at the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine.
“I just can’t pick which one I want to play with,” she said with a grin, flopping back in her chair and giving her shoulders a slight shrug.