The Fishies

Now that these fish have up and died, I figure it's time to post a picture of them.

Apparently, apparently, you're supposed to change the filter every month, not every three months like we were on track for. This act of neglect will apparently cause SFD* in your home fish tank. The story went something like this.

Bella and I were about to head out for track practice when I noticed that "Ariel" was lying under the filter intake and not moving. I quickly figured out that she was quite dead, and so I threw Bella onto our bed (she likes to play up there and it's out of view of the fish tank) and proceeded to fish the fish out of the tank and throw her away before we headed off to practice. I figured that "Ariel" had just gotten stuck under the filter intake and couldn't get out and that was why she died. At this point, "Goldfish" was still going strong.

When we got home two hours later, "Goldfish" was also no longer with the living. So this time I laid Bella down for a nap and emptied out the fish tank and gave it a thorough cleaning in preparation for the new fish that I knew we'd have to be getting soon. As soon as I pulled out the filter and saw things growing on it, I realized why the fish had both died within hours of eachother. In cleaning out the tank, I managed to let the dead fish slip out into the sink with the old water and into the garbage disposal. So not only did I kill my daughter's fish by not replacing the filter on a regular basis, but I proceeded to grind it up in the in-sink-erator. Last night, after her nap, Bella did not notice the newly cleaned fish tank.

This morning, Bella got up and noticed the newly cleaned fish tank. She informed me, after a bit of searching, that the fishies were "hiding". I, of course, latched on to this falsehood and told her that yes, she was quite right. The fishies were hiding. She continued to peer into the tank from as many angles and vantage points as she could find and kept telling me that they were hiding. I told her that we'd go to the pet store this afternoon to find them.

This afternoon we went to the pet store and 'found' Bella's fish. Funny thing is that we used to have two orange goldfish and now we have an orange and black one and two orange and white ones. Fortunately, Bella isn't so much with the counting OR colors yet, so she hasn't caught on that the old ones are gone and we now have different ones. Oh, and now she's explaining to her papa that the fish were "hundred dollars". I guess that if they were a hundred dollars I'd better be more diligent with the filter replacement this time around.


*Sudden Fish Death