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Jan. 29th, 2012 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
damselfishI killed Angryfish last night.
Maybe I should back up and explain.
There has been a wasting sickness raging in my 6 gallon Fluval for months, now. One fish gets sick, I toss it into quarantine, it dies, there will be no sign of the disease in the meantime, then a few weeks later another fish starts withering away and struggling to swim. It'll die within the next 48 hours. I don't know what it is-- no one does, we have it down to bacterial or parasitic infection (I'm leaning toward a parasite brought in by the snails). My super fancy jade head guppy takes sick, and I am livid. I go to Petsmart to buy aquarium salt, a tiny heater, and waffle over antibiotics-- but the antibiotics look like they're for external diseases, and if it's a parasite, what good is it gonna do?
While there, I mention that Angryfish's aquarium is leaking, and the guy points out an aquarium on sale for $22. I've spent a while searching off and on for a new aquarium for Angryfish, but balk at the prices (usually above $30). I buy this 3.5 gallon aquarium and take it home, feeling pleased. I later find out the aquarium was $26. Seeing "on sale" really does prompt people to buy things! I had no idea there was an aquarium that cheap, honestly.
I salt the Fluval, crank the heat up to 82, dose with medication, and everyone comes out to watch me expectantly. I don't hold out much hope for the guppy, but the jade head looks better than he did just an hour ago, watching me with dark eyes in hopes that I'll feed him. All the others weren't eating before they died, so I dare feel optimistic for his chances (spoiler: he died in the night.)
I spend an hour figuring out where to put Angryfish's new tank, and finally set it up on the kitchen counter, removing all the decor in the ugly cube. He looked anxious in the empty cube, cowering on the gravel and tucked into a corner, so I put him in the new tank. After five minutes he looks distinctly unhappy-- lying on the bottom on his side, so I figure he's stressed after being chased around with a net, and I (worryingly easily) scoop him out and put him in an empty gelato carton. I've gotten more mileage from this carton than any other fish tool I have.
He's fine! He's eating, he's glaring at me sullenly as I make dinner. After three hours or so I put him back in the big tank and watch him like a hawk. He disappears into the corners-- an effect that's hard to describe to people who haven't spent much time looking at curved tanks full of water without explaining that water bends light which just exacerbates the angle of the curve and making it seem like it has deep corners or at least pocket dimensions-- but when I see him again, he's fine. Bettas can be sluggish so when he hangs out at the surface or the bottom, I accept it as long as he's not panting as he was the first time. He's just looking a bit like a slug, which bettas tend to do. After a while I stop checking on him every five minutes.
Next time I look up, he's dead.
I call my mom on the verge of tears. My apartment is like a fish wasteland; I have two angelfish in the quarantine tank recovering from some fungal infection (they're new, so in a more rational state of mind I let it slide since it's not my fault, and they're feisty little bastards), my fluval is ravaged by sickness and has been for months, and now I killed my favorite fish. Me, with my own crappy fishkeeping. I don't know what I did wrong; I rinsed the tank and the gravel, used his old decor, the only explanation is something gross in the filter.
"Did you dechlorinate the water?"
"I... never... for bettas."
"You used to." I don't remember, but I doubt I did since I used tap water for all my aquariums at that stage (lo, the blissful ignorance of a decade ago!) I know for sure Angryfish never got dechlorinated water, but straight from the tap. It never bothered him. I remember the frantic pumping of his gills the first time I put him in. I'm sure it had to be this; even though it's never harmed him before, I was in such a rush I didn't bother doing the math to put dechlorinator into 3.5 gallons of water. It would have been so simple.
The most beautiful, perfect betta-- so rare you can only get one like him from this one source and they've never had one as great as him since-- dead, because I'm a lazy slob.
I don't even know what to do. Return the aquarium? Keep it? It was only $20, and it is bigger and non-leaking despite the weirdness of the curve. Bettas are my favorite fish, so maybe I'll get another later, or something. 3.5 is much bigger than the 1.5 ugly cube.... And I can't take the remaining survivors out of the Fluval to break it down until the angels leave quarantine. But when they do, man that aquarium is getting torn apart like nobody's business. Sorry, scuds, you have to go, too. Whatever is in there is going to die.
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Date: 2012-01-30 08:34 pm (UTC)Angryfish was a half-dragonscale half-moon (half-dragonscale because a full dragon will have the iridescent scales all over, he just had them partially and then black scales below-- very pretty even if not show quality). I like looking at those bettas too, but I just can't justify that kind of money! Especially since fish are so delicate. I'm soooo glad I didn't get into saltwater, since right now my entire fish stock has cost me about $50 (including $8 for Angryfish), which will buy, uh, 1/2 a tang.
I'm sorry about your cichlid! I have a gnat infestation right now I can't spray for because of the fish.
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Date: 2012-01-31 04:29 am (UTC)I'm sorry about my cichlid but if I'm honest I've been aching to have a community tank for a long time. I loved Gilgamesh, but ten years is a long time to only have one fish that you didn't even pick out for yourself.
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Date: 2012-01-31 04:08 pm (UTC)