RIP Bubbles

Our little goldfish Bubbles finally died yesterday. I say finally because for the past month or so I have thought she was dead every time I approached the tank. She always seemed to be "resting" on top of the tank on her side. I would open the top of the tank to further investigate and she would perk up, flip over and come to the front of the aquarium to be fed. As sad as it is that she died, it really is no surprise that we killed another fish. In the past five months our toilet has ushered 6 fish to their watery graves. We used to be really good fish owners, we really did. We managed to keep our first fish alive for over a year before our luck all started to change after a tragic cleaning of the tank about six months ago...

First, a little history: We bought a blue betta fish shortly after getting married. His name was Iceman. He seemed to be a happy fish, living alone in his one gallon aquarium on our bookshelf. But like always, I got bored of this set up. On a trip to WalMart one day I found an aquarium ornament I just had to have (shown in the picture). Zach, being the patient man he is, agreed to buy it. YES! Well we got home and the new plant and rock didn't fit in our little one gallon aquarium. This was not acceptable to me. I needed that plant to fit and I needed it to fit that very night. The only plausible solution to the problem was to get a brand new, bigger aquarium. Remember that whole patience thing I admire so much in Zach, well I don't have any. I needed the new aquarium that instant. (I didn't care that it was well after 11:30pm) We went back to WalMart that night and bought a nice 5 gallon aquarium. We brought it home and it was perfect! The plant looked great and, although it no longer fit on our bookshelf, I assembled a TV stand Zach's mom got us for our wedding that had been sitting in our closet. It made a nice sofa side table. Now any sane person would call it good... not me. The tank was too big for one little fish, he needed friends! It was like I was in some strange new edition of the book, "If You Give A Mouse a Cookie" called "If You Give Brooke An Aquarium Ornament." If you give Broke an aquarium ornament, she's going to ask for a bigger tank... and so on. If you know about betta fish, they are notorious for "not getting along" with tank mates. Basically they will kill any fish you put in the tank with them. That didn't stop me. A little online research, one trip to Petsmart, three little grey fish later and VIOLA! the perfectly balanced aquarium! Iceman got along famously with his new friends! Everything was going great for a few months and then we went home to Virginia for Christmas. After we got home from Christmas, I realized the tank needed cleaning. And so it began...

I was happily cleaning the aquarium at our kitchen sink, talking on the phone with my best friend, Kathryn. I was scooping all the fish out with a paper cup and putting them into another bowl while I cleaned the tank. Iceman was first, he was easy. The smaller fish were a little harder. I was finally down to the last small fish and had it in the paper cup when I realized if I poured all the water from the paper cup into the bowl, the bowl would overflow. Easy fix: put my hand over the top of the cup and pour some of the water down the drain. That's exactly what I did only when I looked into the cup after doing this... no fish! I had poured my little fish DOWN THE DRAIN! I was on the phone with Kathryn in disbelief. I couldn't believe what I had just done.

It only took a few days before I got antsy and needed to buy another fish. The aquarium was no longer balanced! This time I wasn't as picky about what type of fish to buy. We went to WalMart (we go there a lot) and bought a little feeder fish. Long story short: the little 10 cent feeder fish died in the first two days and within the week all our fish were dead. We had kept those fish alive for over a year! and we let a cheap little goldfish kill them all! How frustrating!

The aquarium didn't sit empty for long. We bought three fan-tailed goldfish about two weeks later. I was really very excited about them (pictured). We had a white one, a gold/black one and a gold one (Bubbles). Needless to say the white and gold/black one were dead by week two. Bubbles looked like she was on her way out too. That was four months ago. That little goldfish surprised us both by living for so long. Now she is gone and we are left with an empty tank once again.

Call me crazy, but I am thinking about going and buying another betta fish.