Some may flippantly flush fish down the commode at the first sign of trouble, but I think they are missing something.

Betta boy lives in a heated, 2.5 gallon planted aquarium with driftwood and snails. Six months ago, the Betta splendens in my bathroom developed swim bladder disease for unknown reasons. That meant that this fish- who must come to the surface periodically for oxygen- would have to struggle to the surface every time.

I struggled myself. Euthanasia? Was his life worth living? I decided that it was not my call. So every day, I cupped my hand under him and helped him to the surface to eat. Sometimes I did this twice daily. He rebounded, swimming to the surface on his own and regaining weight. I lowered the water level enough that he could perch on the drifwood to breathe and to eat. Twice I thought I was going to lose him; he stopped wanting his pellets and dried bloodworms. I enticed him with brine shrimp fed from a dropper, and he started eating again. Not just eating, but swimming and fluttering around.

Lately he’d been slipping again. I briefly thought of euthanasia again. I simply couldn’t do it, as long as he was still eating, undiseased, and seemed comfortable. I added brine shrimp daily in addition to his other foods. He nibbled, but didn’t really eat.

He wasn’t perched on his driftwood this morning. As I sat brushing my teeth and waiting for him to swim up from the plants, I worried that he was gone. I worry this every morning that he doesn’t immediately swim to greet me. But this time I was right.

Did I make the right decision, to let him die naturally when I could have ended it the minute he became disabled? I don’t know. Animals feel (and deal with) pain so differently from humans. Warm-blooded companion animals live with horrendous cancers with no whining. My own dog’s knee was hopelessly torn, but other than her limp, her personality did not change. Cold-blooded pets live with even worse diseases; I’ve seen fish covered in fungus but still alive. Does that mean that their quality of life is acceptable? At what point is it no longer good for them, and we are only easing our own pain by postponing their death? We’ll never know.

I do know that my Betta boy lived a relatively long and mostly happy life, almost five years old this summer. I’ll miss him.

This was supposed to be the post where I talk about my brand new planted aquarium.  I’ve been dreaming of this aquarium for years, spent months in planning the plants/substrate/fish, and have spent the last couple of weeks on actually making my dream a reality.

Saturday, I moved my four female bettas from the bare glass, 15-gallon, filterless tank to a beautiful 33-gallon tank full of plants and of baby snails for them to eat.  I was extra careful to test the water parameters so the fish wouldn’t be stressed by the move.  They settled into their new digs in about five minutes and started begging for food!

I’ve had the pequeni?as (a play on a word from Speaker for the Dead) for two years.  We’ve enjoyed watching them and their little hungry personalities, always crowding the upper corner of the tank because that’s where food can be found.  They begged for food more than dogs!!

Female bettas are overlooked as a pet in favor of the longer finned, sometimes more brightly colored, male bettas.  But females can be kept in a group if suitably acclimated and they do not display as much aggression to other community fish.  On the flip side, they are less bullied because they do not have the long, flowing fins to be nipped.  By Sunday night, three of the females were ripe with eggs and two had on breeding stripes.  This indicates that they were adapting extremely well to their new home.

After work on Monday, I came home to pack a dinner and let the dog go outside.  Standing next to the aquarium, I could feel it radiating heat.  With sickness, I felt the glass.  It was hot to the touch.  The water was over 110 degrees F.  The heater had failed in the “on” position and was cooking the tank’s inhabitants.  Panicked, I looked in the aquarium.  All four ni?as were long dead, suffocated by the heat.  The plant leaves had already started to melt.

I spent the evening doing water changes with cold water and ice, finally pulling the temperature back to 76 F.  I couldn’t stop crying about my poor fish and the horrid way they died.  I wrapped them in a pink satin ribbon and disposed of their little bodies (flushing them is a very irresponsible thing to do with a fish; it can spread disease in local water systems).

Lesson learned: I’d read that it was better to have two small heaters in a tank than one larger one.  That way if one fails “on,” it takes longer to reach fatal conditions and it can be stopped.  I’ve ordered two new, smaller heaters that include failure switches so the heater can’t fail “on.”

I’m sure I will stop feeling sad sometime soon, but it’s hard to imagine for now.  Luckily I snapped a couple of pictures of the fish in their new home just a day before they died.  I’m also lucky that this happened in a tank with four fish- not 20, like I have planned for that tank.

Goodbye, sweet ni?as.

Please be prepared, as this is going to be an angry rant.

I love Sesame Street.  I love its multiculturalism, its learning opportunities, and its special place in my heart.  However, I’m pretty upset with one thing about the otherwise adorable Elmo: his goldfish.

In each episode, a baby goldfish is housed in a bowl.  They stick all kinds of stuff in the bowl and who knows if they’ve bothered to see if it will be toxic to the fish.  I’ll bet that “Dorothy??? has died numerous times of the torture of the goldfish bowl.

You see, goldfish bowls are terrible for the poor fish forced to live there.  Goldfish are thick-bodied fish who eat a lot and produce a LOT of waste.  A goldfish in a bowl quickly pollutes the water.  The fish is then forced to breathe its own concentrated waste.  If you think that bowl smells bad above water, imagine trying to breathe below the surface.

Goldfish need a lot of water per fish.  There are lots of good sources  for goldfish information, and they all say pretty much the same thing.  Baby goldfish- the kind you see in the pet store- require at least TEN gallons of water per fish.  Most fish bowls contain half a gallon or less.  As they grow- to over four inches long with very high body mass- they need THIRTY gallons per fish.

You may argue that you have a goldfish in a bowl or tiny aquarium for a year or more and it hasn’t grown, so that’s OK, right?  That’s because the poor fish has had its growth stunted by living in such small quarters.  If that doesn’t somehow seem cruel to you, imagine buying a Saint Bernard puppy and keeping it in a two foot by two foot crate, never letting the poor guy out, and only cleaning his messes once a week or so.

Goldfish never belong in a bowl.  I can’t believe a socially responsible show like Sesame Street would do something so cruel.  I know of several moms who, with best intentions, have bought goldfish in bowls for their Elmo-loving kids.  The pet store employees have either hidden the truth or were ignorant to the facts of these wonderful pets.

Goldfish live a long time.  If you think keeping a fish in a bowl for a couple of years is a success, it isn’t.  Non-fancy varieties live to be teenagers or older.  Fancies, such as double tails, black moors, and lionheads can live to be 30!  Again, think of owning a kitten and it dies in a year or two.  Does that sound like the right lifespan for a cat?

If your kid wants a “Dorothy??? like Elmo, there are three good options.  First, buy a small aquarium and house a few fish that are gold in color but aren’t goldfish.  A ten-gallon aquarium with two or three gold-color Mickey Mouse platys will bring a lot of joy to your child.  Second, if a full-size aquarium is simply out of your budget, buy a bowl of a gallon or more and house two or three White Cloud Mountain Minnows and a nice growth of Java Moss, but no gravel (for easy cleaning).  Last, if all of this sounds too difficult, don’t buy any fish.  Aquaria are an addition to your household chores and lives are at stake.

Finally, I don’t blame the people who want the goldfish bowls.  I blame the pet stores and irresponsible employees who promote goldfish in a bowl. 

Mostly, I blame Elmo for marketing goldfish in a bowl to children.  It is cruel, irresponsible, and unnecessary.