A few words about the Aquarium.
August 25th, 2007
As Enid quite correctly pointed out, watching your fish swim around the aquarium is restful, soothing and a great stress release. Unless you’re neurotic like me, and hanging on every flick of their fins and tails. Are they healthy or are they ill? Which are male and which are female? Are they eating too much or not enough? (Are they eating at all?) Are they playing with each other, or trying to kill each other? The aquarium light scares them–will they get used to it, or should I keep them in the dark? Why are they so obsessed with their reflections in the side of the tank? Why don’t they eat the bloodworms I bought them? And, of course, do they like me? Do they hate me? Do they even know I exist?
I originally had six Zebra Danios, and didn’t look at them too closely at the store, which was mistake number one. I brought them home, introduced them gently into the tank as per the instructions all over the internet. Once they were in the tank, they were nervous, then curious and playful…except for one who looked slightly different (a bit bent out of shape, though a fish’s a fish). He kept to himself, gathered with the others for meals and a bit of play but otherwise stayed hidden. The others seemed subdued around him as well. At first I wondered if they were shunning him, or picking on hijm. I watched carefully, and saw that the others welcomed him but didn’t get too close, and he in turn spent as little time as possible with them, and then went off to hide among the silk plant leaves.
“I think I’m going to lose a fish,” I said to Asif that afternoon. He assured me that no such thing would happen, but I had had pets throughout my childhood and this reminded me of the cats we had who, when they were direly ill, would hide themselves in the remotest parts of the house, under beds or behind dressers or somewhere else where they couldn’t be seen or touched or comforted. Sure enough, I came home and changed some of the water in the tank–and where I had had six fish before, I now only had five.
I looked in the syphon (no fish), I looked in the dirty water (no fish), I looked in the tank. Onetwothreefourfive. I peered around behind the tank and saw a little tail flickering among the shafts of the fake plants. He seemed to be stuck. Great. One by one, I carefully pulled out the fake plants, shook them over the water and then sat them in the bucket. Looked into the aquarium. Onetwothreefourfive. I looked at the plants, sprayed them, shook them over the dirty water. No fish.
Left in the tank were the five fish, three round beach stones holding the bubble disk down under the gravel, and one large resin rock-like ornament. I lifted that, looked under, shook it. Set it back down. Onetwothreefourfive. Still no sixth fish. Even though it seemed highly highly unlikely, I lifted up one of the beach stones from the bubble disk–and jumped back as a still silver body floated up from under it.
“You asshole!” I shouted at the clearly dead fish. I called Asif on his cellphone, asked where he was, then told him I had a dead fish I needed some help with. He rushed over to find me trying to scoop out the little silver corpse with a wooden spoon. His hands were steadier so he took over and got it all the way to the top of the tank but couldn’t get it through the opening in the cover.
“This would be so much easier if you had a net,” he said.
“Oh wait,” I said. “I do.” He gave me that special look he reserved solely for morons while I opened the drawer beneath the tank and took out the net. He grabbed it from me, handed me the spoon, stuck the ned in the water and gently brought the body to the surface.
“Oh David, come on, it has a big lump on its side. No wonder it died.”
“I guess it had some kind of tumour,” I answered. This did nothing to assuage my feelings of guilt. My fish had died on my watch. Only 24 hours after I had brought him home. The danios were supposed to be among the easiest fish to own. Clearly I was some kind of fishkeeping failure.
“What do you want me to do with it?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Take it upstairs, say a little Muslim prayer over it and flush it down the toilet.”
As he did so, I noticed that the other fish weren’t especially grief-stricken. If anything, they seemed relieved. Already they were much more energetic, zooming around the now-barren tank as if the sixth had never existed.
Asif came back downstairs, handed me the net. “You should wash it,” he said. I took it from him, placed it alongside the tank. “What do you want to do for dinner?”
“I dunno,” I said, staring at the net.
“I guess you probably don’t want sushi,” he answered, then stepped back before I could smack him.
14 Comments Add your own
1. Steph F. | August 25th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
aww, RIP little fishy.
I must say though, Asif’s “sushi” comment made me smile a bit.
2. Tracy | August 26th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Good luck with your aquarium! I have a 29gal that I’ve had for about 7 years now. Took a while to figure everything out. It’s in the bedroom where I can see it from the bed (I can lay across the bed and watch the fish in the evening) and every morning I wake up and all the fish are clustered in the corner nearest me. Watching me. Waiting to be fed. I’m sure I’m only the Food Bringer, but they know me
3. Suzanne V. (Yarnhog) | August 26th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
It’s probably a good thing you don’t have dogs. Or kids. You might not survive with your sanity intact.
I had a fish tank for my son. We called it “Death Roe”, because it was only a matter of time before its residents went to that big fish tank in the sky.
4. Glenna | August 26th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Aw! Poor wee fishy. My condolences and I hope your 5 remaining pets stay just as energetic. My friends who have had fish tanks always loved watching the fish swim around, they said it was like television.
5. roro | August 26th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Congrats on your new tank and so sorry about your poor danio! Your tale of fish woe both made me howl and then shudder as I recalled how locating and removing expired fish was always my least favourite part of fish ownership. A similar thing happened to us a few years ago when we brought a five platys home to start our new tank. The next day there were four platys and we never found the fifth one. At least you have the comfort of knowing that your danios aren’t cannibals.
6. Jodi | August 27th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
lol. ya, i hate when that happens too. good rule is to always buy one extra fish, especially when ya buying cheap chain store fish. you should really try real plants, they provide oxygen in the tank and when a hurricane hits and your gone for 4 months the fish eat the plants. it really does come in handy. i always, love reading your blog.
7. Eikon | August 28th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Oh this is why I don’t have fish. They are lovely but always seem a moment from death.
8. david_demchuk | August 28th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
They do seem that way, especially if I’m taking care of them. By the way, how can I not love a blog with the address pirohi.blogspot.com?
It warms my little gay Ukrainian knitting heart!
9. Jayne | August 30th, 2007 at 10:51 am
David, I think you and I must be related in a past life. Not sure if you followed my fish tales in Amsterdam but I think I uttered ever single thing you said.
I, too got a weak one in the bunch. No-Clops was a fish with no eyes. Try as I might, I kept that bugger alive for 2 weeks until he could go on no more. I actually cried in my room for awhile. My four year old had to comfort me and tell me that we could get another one if I wanted.
I wasn’t sure that the other fish in the tank were ready to move on.
10. david_demchuk | August 30th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I don’t think that we acknowledge this enough: It is bloody hard work keeping other things alive! Plants, pets, children, parents, spouses, even ourselves! That we can help any of them squeeze another day out of this life is a big fucking achievement. I personally feel that I deserve a medal.
No, I didn’t know about Mr. No-Clops–I’ll have to do some back reading on your blog. No eyes is a cruel trick of nature, I’m sure you kept him going as long as you could. (How did he ever survive at the pet store?)
I guess it’s self-evident that the more you invest, emotionally and physically, in the survival of another creature, the more devastated you’ll be if and when it dies. I’m glad I didn’t have that long to bond with Mr. Lumpy, just a couple of days, but even so I felt like I had failed him somehow. I think I needed your compassionate and sensible four-year-old to counsel me through it.
The other fish in my tank have long moved on from Mr. Lumpy. Callous little beasts.
11. marjorie | August 30th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
We have never had much luck with fish in our family. My daughter had an aquarium in her room but all her fish committed suicide by getting stuck in the filter. One jumped right out and died by dehydration on the carpet. As a child, I had goldfish. (my mother’s substitute for the dog I really wanted.) One of my goldfish ate most of the other one. It’s hard to get up any speed in the bowl and get away from the bully when he has chewed your fins off.
12. david_demchuk | August 31st, 2007 at 10:45 am
It’s here that we can see how creative fish can actually be. (And how evil.) And some people think fish have no thoughts or feelings!
13. Niki Storr | September 3rd, 2007 at 9:38 pm
I have 7 goldfish & I worry about them in the exact same way after losing (killing?) the 30+ year old goldfish I had inherited from my grandfather. One moment they are okay & the next morning they are floating covered in white fungus. Now I am careful to partially change the water and test & tweak the Ph every week. Only 2 have died since I restocked the tank & I hold the pet store somewhat responsible as they couldn’t tell a sick fish from a fillet. Now when I buy fish I scoop the fish myself to make sure I have healthy ones.
14. Gabrielle Adams | November 22nd, 2007 at 7:48 am
If you want fish that are relaxing to watch, danios aren’t it. They’re a bit frenetic. They do add a lot of energy and motion to a tank though. Angelfish or Siamese fighting fish are more the thing for lowering blood pressure, and they love bloodworms
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