And Then There Was One
24 March 2007, early evening
The skinniest of our three fish was named little Ram, after me. This morning we woke up to find him struggling to swim around his tank. He was on his side and things weren’t looking too good for him. We fed him one last time, and that was that. He liked to swim around the fish tank, and eat fish food. It was a simple life, but he liked it. He is survived by Little Shima, his fiancee fish.
=’(
by Krishna on March 25 2007, 1:00 am #
dude…what the hell are you doing to these fish??
by matthew on March 25 2007, 9:38 am #
They are actually feeder fish, so their life expectancy isn’t suppose to be very high.
by sh!ma on March 25 2007, 10:29 am #
So sad. Little Ram was a good fish.
by matt on March 25 2007, 4:11 pm #
We’re not even doing anything bad: we change the water daily and feed them once a day too.
by ramanan on March 25 2007, 5:37 pm #
Ram:
Changing the water once a day is probably killing them for a few reasons:
These guys are constantly soiling the water so they need some kind of bacteria in there to break down their crap. Clean water lacks these bacteria so things just start building up. Let the water sit for a week or so before introducing fish and then only do half water changes every two weeks or once a month (depending on the size of the tank and the number of fish in the tank).
If you’re doing full water changes, it’s likely the fish are getting shocked from water temperature changes. A difference of a few degrees is enough to throw these guys for a loop. This is why most fish die within a few days of getting back from the pet store. The owners dump them from a bag into a tank and the water isn’t the same temperature. Unless the temperature of the water you’re putting in the tank is the same as the temperature you’re dumping from the tank, the fish are probably getting stressed.
If it’s a full water change daily, I imagine you’re taking them out of the tank. Not so bad once in awhile but do it every day and these guys are probably completely stressed out.
Finally, it could be any number of other things that are killing the poor guys. The pH balance of the water could be wrong for the fish, the water temperature could be wrong for the fish, the water could be too hard for them, too much crowding, no cover to hide from the world etc.
I killed a lot of fish before a pet store friend gave be a book on fishkeeping.
by Steve on March 26 2007, 7:41 am #
You also should have been feeding the dead fish to the surviving one so it would absorb their strength. Like in Highlander.
by Dave on March 26 2007, 8:34 am #
We give our fish only the best: brita water. (I let the water sit out and so it’s not too cold/warm for the fish).
But wont the water be super dirty in two days? It gets pretty nasty after 24 hours… Anyways, I’ll try changing the water less often. Thanks for the tip, Steve.
by sh!ma on March 26 2007, 8:44 am #
When we used to have a fish tank (I guess most Chinese families go through this at some time), you needed to use anti-chlorine drops in the water. I’m not sure about leaving the water for a whole week before putting fish in if they are just in a bowl cause the water will start losing oxygen without a machine.
by Victor on March 26 2007, 10:26 am #
Steve’s got good tips. Les also changes at most 1/3 of the water. But i think you guys also may have problems with the size of the tank and oxygen issues…Les is the only one i know who has goldfish almost getting to be teenagers. I think he got them as feeder fish as well from his aquarium friend. so don’t think little shima has no potential.
by tiff on March 26 2007, 1:21 pm #