mortality

My wife Victoria thoughtfully bought me a pair of Bettas (Siamese Fighting Fish) for Valentine's Day. I used to raise tropical fish and goldfish with my family and my dad still has a big 55-gallon tank. When he was going to move out of the Bay Area he asked me if I wanted the tank. I really did want it but Victoria said she didn't want such a big tank in the house. What's up with that? I think a large fish tank is impressive and I really like to watch fish swim around. However since I was a little kid my parents learned not to let me overfeed the goldfish, which I am known to do. What can I say, I'm a really generous guy.


Anyways Victoria thought it would be nice to surprise me with a small fish tank and a pair of colorful Bettas. One was reddish and the other was bluish in color, and the tank was specifically designed to host two Bettas with a plastic partition in the middle to keep them separated. Well she brought them home on Tuesday and said if I took good care of them she would let me get a bigger tank and some more fish.

I have to say these were the most boring fish I've ever seen. The fish were generally lethargic and often either sat on the bottom of the tank or floating at the top, completely immobile. Every so often they'd move a little and then settle back into a statute imitation. They never seemed to eat any of the few sprinkles of food I left for them. One of them had a puffy eye and both had ragged-looking fins. Victoria said she got them at Wal-mart and that there were only 3 left so she picked the two healthiest looking ones. Well you can see where this is going.

By Friday night the red one was belly up at the bottom of the tank. There's playing dead, and then there's straight-up dead. This guy was straight dead. As I had done so many times before in my childhood, I held a little funeral toilet-side and gave him the Big Flush. "Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust" somehow always makes it into my eulogy, even though fish funerals have pretty much nothing to do with either ashes or dust.

We pulled the blue guy out of the tank, removed the partition to make it one big tank, replaced about 2/3 of the water, and put him back in. He seemed ok with the newly refurbished condo, and we hoped for the best. I gave him a few more specks of fish food but he still didn't seem too hungry.

By Saturday night his ticket was punched. Belly up, just like his red homie. I tipped a 40 in his honor and gave him the royal sendoff at the porcelain throne.


Don't buy fish at Wal-Mart. It just doesn't seem like a wise venue to find a longlasting pet.
A little late, but I came across this article on picking a fish at the store:

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art35928.asp