There's More To Fish Than You Think.

Fish.  I like fish a lot.  And there's a lot more to pet fish than you might realise.


I use to have a nice, rather ordinary smallish freshwater aquarium.  (I saw the same one on Star Trek - The Next Generation, although I think it was sans fish.)  Mostly I kept small goldfish or, if you're going to be fancy, tiny koi.  Cute little things and quite friendly. Whenever I would walk over to the aquarium, they all swim over to the side and say, in their fish way, "Hi. Glad to see you!"

My favourite was a black bug-eyed fish named Alaska.  (Don't ask.)  He was especially friendly and seemed always happy to see me.  One day when I went to greet my fish, he was missing.  My heart sank as I saw him floating upside down, dead.  I do not easily accept the unnecessary death of a friend.  I gently lifted him out and took him to the bathroom sink.  I ran cool water over him while gently stroking his gills.  Ridiculous, I know.  Still...Wait, are the gills moving? Is that a tiny heartbeat?  They were and it was.    Just to be sure, I kept him in his own little white bowl for a few days, feeding him sparingly - Goldfish should always be fed sparingly.  Most people overfeed them and then wonder why they die - and then returned him to his friends.  They were all happy to see him and he lived for several more years.

 

I no longer have my aquarium and my dear fish.  I lost them through a great tragedy.  Once in a while my husband gets the grand idea of adding to the aquarium.  I didn't like this, but he's stubborn and knows everything.  One day he brought some fish home and dumped them in the tank before I could intercept him.  Immediately, my very innocent little goldfish were under attack and before I could get the net to pull them out, they were all dead, in pieces.  You can imagine how upset I was.  "Simon, what were those fish."

"Well, the guy at the pet store said they shouldn't be put in with other fish, but I thought..."

I glared at him.

"I wasn't thinking."

I continued glaring.  "Did you ask what they are called."

"Perennials , I think, something like that."

"Piranhas,"  I gasped.

"Yeah, that was it."

So my fish were dead and I was left to care for piranhas.  I dutifully fed them, but I didn't make friends with them and I wasn't too unhappy when they died off one by one.  (No, no, of course, I didn't kill them. I would guess that the water was too cold for them, something like that.)



I gave away the aquarium and haven't had the heart to keep fish since.
  
Now I just look after pixels in FishWorld.

And my beloved readers, please refrain from putting barbed hooks in those delicate mouths and do not, I repeat, DO NOT drown them in the air.

Remember, fish are people, too!


Giving credit where credit's due  (all from the the Creative Commons):

Snippy the gold golfish is courtesy of the renowned Rubyblossom

Alaska the black goldfish is played by Concerto of Katie@!

The piranha is from marcelometal