Nemo Goldfish

A few years back we "inherited" a goldfish from my in laws.  They were helping a couple move and volunteered us in absentia for the goldfish adoption program.  Our last foray into aquarium ownership ended several years ago when Josh threw a golfball which broke the tank glass and sent our beautiful six inch angelfish to the pet store for rescue.  They gave us $6 a piece for them.  I now know that for angelfish of that size we were taken advantage of.  But live and learn.  We also gave them our nine inch monstrosity of a plecostomus which knocked all the aquarium plants and decorations all over the place every time it moved.  So, life does has its little balancing points.

As I said, we are suckers who can easily be talked into animal custodianship simply by the asking.  Someday I will have to tell the world about Conner.  I didn't know if Conner was a cockatoo or a parrot or some kind of psittacine. Yes, I looked that up. Evidently he is a conure.  Which, given his name, makes sense, but I didn't even know about conures. Birds never really interested me. And I can see my first instinct was right. Conner is malicious, nasty, and verbose.  He stays with us occasionally and deserves his own blog entry.  But back to the goldfish.  Supposedly, this little guy was already quite old and wouldn't live that much longer.  So I thought that was just great.  We could hold on to it long enough for the kids to grow attached and then we could have a fish funeral in the back yard.  Parenthood can be such a joy.

Michael named the fish.  The goldfish was dubbed Nemo Goldfish. Much of Michael's naming patterns are directly related to Pixar movie characters.   I can't wait to meet my grandchildren: Buzz, EVE and Lightning.

Feeding and tank cleaning duties fell where they always do - on mom.  The rest of us learned to ignore the fish.  He was decoration for the china cabinet.  And amazingly enough, he did not die.  He got bigger.  We found out that he was only being feed every other day or so by his previous owners.  This seemed cruel and unusual to us.  He was in a stupid fish bowl.  He didn't have anything else to do but eat.  And we knew that we were fond of eating everyday, so we fed Nemo daily too. 

 

Nemo got bigger and started displaying some very odd characteristics.  He floated near the top of the tank much of the time.  And he was starting to hang head down.  We were afraid he was a goner.  We'd seen ick and other diseases before and thought he was on the path to fertilizerhood.  My brother-in-law, Tony, has a big tank full of fish.  He can take his sick fish out and roll them in a paper towel and pop them with his fist.  It's a mercy killing.  Tony's form of ichthyological euthanasia.  But I don't have the heart for that.  Besides, watching Tony do that traumatized my kids.  Having a crazy fish pounding uncle is one thing, but I don't think I want my descendants passing down stories of how their deranged paternal ancestor sledgehammered fish.  These family legends always get bigger as they are passed down. By the fourth generation I could end up being called Ahab



Nemo Goldfish is not dead.  He is merely resting.

But Nemo did not die.  However, he did have swelling around his sides.  A little research revealed that his air bladder might be infected or blocked or something like that.  Nemo couldn't control his buoyancy and was doomed to a deadfish float.  He would fight to swim to the bottom and feed, but he would quickly shoot back up to the top of the tank like he was wearing a life jacket.  He spent a lot of time floating around belly up. We wondered if he did die, how long would it take us to even notice it?

We tried all the remedies.  We added aquarium salt to the bowl.  We cleaned the tank more often.  We gave him frozen peas.  The peas actually worked to a degree.  Suddenly Nemo Goldfish would have, well, a big bowel movement.  And he would start to swim normally for a day or two.  But it would start all over again.  Basically, swim bladder disease is an intestinal condition and this goldfish couldn't regulate his condition.



Bruce the Shark

 One day, out of completely nowhere as far as I can tell, Mike, Stephanie's boyfriend, decided to go to the pet store and buy Michael a shark.  As to this day, I'm clueless as to what motivated this act.  Mike and Stephanie brought home this little Bala Shark.  I was not for this idea.  But I wasn't consulted. I normally have no say in these matters.  In typical fashion, Gailyn and I were at the local Walmart a short time later looking at fish tanks.  Michael named it Bruce the Shark.

We brought home the tank and set Bruce up in the kitchen.  Nemo lived in the dining room.  I suppose they could have seen each other if they tried, but there never seemed to be any attempts in that direction.  Each seemed oblivious of their fellow prisoner.

The deal with care for "sharks" is that there is no special care needed, but they are especially sensitive and not as hardy as goldfish.  They can grow up to a foot and a half over time and I figured we would end up having to throw Bruce in the pool in a year or two. But Bruce never got that far. He died about 3 months after we got him. A big attempt was made to cover up the death from Michael, but these sharks are expensive and Mike didn't want to splurge for another one. Bruce got buried in the backyard.

With Bruce gone, we decided to move Nemo to the better tank. It had a better aerator and was a little bigger. And a miracle happened. Nemo got better. He thrived in his new aquarium. It took the sad short life of Bruce to elevate Nemo to the living conditions that work for him.

And more, he engages us. Whenever people walk into the room he goes nuts. He swims all over the tank, darting back and forth. He gets his little goldfish mouth above the water and shakes back and forth. Why does he do that? He's begging! I have a goldfish who begs. And he gets food a lot of the time for that begging. The principles of classical conditioning are alive and well in this house; For the non-humans anyway.