Sunday, September 10, 2006

RIP fish

Glenda the goldfish of steel finally succumbed. After a miraculous recovery from her out-of-tank experience, the family poured their love and appreciation out for the fish in the form of food (there are not many ways to express one's love for a fish, apart from buying a larger tank or feeding). Glenda became quite sick as a result of overfeeding. I put some overdue work into research proper fish care. We nursed her back to health from that, and she was looking great again after two miraculous recoveries.

THEN Anton overfed her, in his overpouring of affection and caring after her second miraculous recovery. This time was fatal. Poor Glenda passed away this morning.

We haven't broken the news yet to Lola. Iris wants to be the one to tell her, the little sadist.

Incidentally, here are some things I have learned about goldfish:

The Care of Goldfish

- Ordinary goldfish should attain a lifespan of 20-30 years.

- A goldfish requires a tank of at least three feet. Keeping goldfish in little bowls is inhumane and will kill the fish, because...

- goldfish naturally attain the length of at least six inches. If a goldfish is kept in an inhumanely small tank, it will be stunted, and this means its internal organs will be stunted as well, resulting in an early death.

- The most common cause of death in domestic goldfish is overfeeding. One should scoop out whatever uneaten food remains three minutes or so after feeding a fish.

- It stresses a fish to remove it from an aquarium and change all the water. Twenty percent of the tank's water should be swapped out weekly.

- A goldfish needs a filtration system which puts extra oxygen in the water (the one we have has a sort of paddle which oxygenates the water).

- If a goldfish appears ill, immediately remove the gravel from the bottom of the tank and disinfect it.

UPDATE: Anton broke the news to Lola, who was surprisingly stoic. We buried Glenda in the back yard, and Lola chose an appopriate stone to place on her resting spot. Anton sang, "Swing low, Sweet Chariot" until cranky Iris informed him he was giving her a headache and would he please stop.

2 comments:

Freewheel said...

My 5-year-old started with 2 guppies, who then had 10 babies. Anyway, the mother guppy died 2 days ago, and my son was devastated. He does not want to flush the fish, so we're trying to put together a proper burial ceremony.

Green said...

The very first fish we buried was named Lucky. Please send my sympathies to Lola.