Details Of The Horrible Accident

I woke Sunday morning as usual, 4 or so smacks on the snooze button before I crawled out of bed to get ready for work. I was in great spirits; it looked like a really short day at work. I turned on the computer to check my e-mail (as I do every morning) then I walked to the kitchen to take my vitamins and crazy pills. I looked into the small tank and to my utter shock and horror Spike was laying motionless on the bottom of the tank and her boyfriend was floating on his side at the top of the tank. They both were dead! Dead I tell you! I looked around for any hint of foul play and saw none. I trembled with fear. Who would kill two simple goldfish? And… would I be next? I…. OK, that didn’t happen. I saw the fish, I said, “Shit! My fish are dead.” And I discarded above-mentioned fished into trash and emptied the small tank. I made sure the two fish corpses were covered in the trash so the kids wouldn’t see them then feel compelled to play with them (ewwwwww!!) or worse for one of the cats to find them and drag them out for a snack (fish parts on the floor – oh nasty!) Off to work I went. I was a bit disappointed that Spike was gone. I had that freaking fish for a year and a half! Some how she survived my utter and complete ignorance to fish care and my horrible neglect for about 6 months – at that point I decided that if she could tough out all that, I might as well put a little effort into owning a fish… I changed the water more often. And now a mere month into my big plunge into aquarium owning (I decided that a 3 inch fish was probably too big for a tank that held less than a gallon of water), Spike is gone. She was a interesting fish. Somewhat homicidal, always evil, mostly temperamental. I’m going to miss that evil little fish. * Sniff* * Sniff* A moment of silence please…. OK, I’m done… enough grieving.

After work - Off to the pet store! I had planned to go to Pet Smart even before the fish kill incident, now I had even more reason to go – Replacement fish!!!

Went right to the goldfish section and selected two fancy gold fish - a red and white ryukin and a calico fantail. I also bought one little comet goldfish. Then off to get a new filter (bigger, better, more powerful) and a bubble tube and a tank cleaner thing. I also bought some other things in the store – but they aren’t pertinent to this story. ;o)

Sooooo… I go home, clean out the fish tank thoroughly, set up the new things in the tank and drop in the new fish. Ahhh life is food. Valkerie and Thor (the red and white and the calico) seem to like it well enough. All of the fish LOVE the bubble wall. They are so funny, they will go to the bubble wand and get in the bubble stream and ride it up to the surface. Hehehehehe… they will do that over and over. It’s very funny, kind of like a carnival ride for them.