I’m bad with fish. I was about 19 when I got my first aquarium and 3 goldfish. One died pretty quickly, but the other 2 held on. Then I went on a weeklong cruise so I dropped them off at my mom’s for the week. When I got home there was only one. I asked my mom where the other one was, but she swore I only brought one over. So I went home with just one fish. A week or so later I was cleaning out the tank an dumped out the gravel. There, under the gravel, scales all beat up, was one of the fish. He was alive! What a fighter! I apologized profusely and gave him extra pellets that night. He lived with his brother (or sister, whatever) for another year or so. One day I was cleaning out the tank and (stupidly) thought I should use bleach to really clean it out well. I apparently didn’t rinse it enough because within an hour of being put back into the tank, both fish died. They were so pitiful looking, floating there with their bleached out eyes.
I didn’t have another fish until Bubba. J and I bought him when we lived in our apartment. He did great, even survived the move to the house. He lived in a cool hanging vase on the wall in the dining room until he dove to his death on Valentine’s day this year. We replaced Bubba with another beta fish, Kenichi. He also attempted suicide at my sister’s bridal shower by jumping out of the wall vase. Luckily my friend Amy saw him on the floor and he was saved. I put plastic wrap over the top of the vase to prevent further suicidal episodes. This only succeeded in trapping an army of ants in the vase during our ant problem days. Poor Kenichi suffered through it though and I rewarded him by buying him a big fish bowl. He loved it there and lived peacefully atop our amoire in the bedroom…until Sunday.
I was cleaning out his bowl so I scooped him up to put him in a coffee cup as a holding place. That’s when I realized I had yet to put water in the cup. So I dropped Kenichi in the cup as I turned on the faucet. Unfortunately I had just been washing dishes, so the water that rushed out was extremely hot. Poor Kenichi was thrashing about so I quickly dumped out the hot water and replaced it with cold. I think it was all too much for him. He turned belly up in the coffee cup. I poked at him a couple of times and he started flipping his fins again so I put him back in his bowl with clean water. His comeback was not meant to be however. He would stay completely still for a while, then jerk around, head up to the surface for air then go still again. And finally after about an hour he died. I felt so bad! Still do. J said maybe we should just lay off the fish for a while. I think he’s trying to prevent another tragedy from happening to the most low maintenance pets ever- that I still manage to kill again and again.
Bless Your Heart 