Goldfish Drama

Brayden has a fish tank in his room. He has had it since early spring. We have frequently praised Brayden for taking such good care of his fish. (He still has the original fish we bought with the tank, which he named Taylor.)

On Monday, I took Brayden to the pet store after school. We were going to get a snail because goldfish are terribly dirty fish....and I am not all that in to cleaning fish tanks. When we arrived at the pet store, Brayden immediately started begging for a new fish. Goldfish cost approximately 12-cents a piece, so I let him get a new fish. His consolation prize, since the pet store was out of snails until Thursday.

Brayden was so very excited about his new fish. He named the new fish Ethan. I guess all of his fish will be boys. I totally understand that....all of my fish would be girls. :-)

Last night, after I put Brayden to bed (two or three times), he comes running out of his room frantically telling me that Ethan (the new fish) has gotten sucked up into the filter. I go in to check out the fish situation and see the fish is, in fact, sucked up against the bottom of the filter. We free the fish and it swims away from the filter but this fish is NOT looking good. His back fin is weathered and tattered. Brayden falls asleep and I went back in to check on the fish situation. Ethan is sucked up against the filter again. I unplug the filter and he swims away but he is looking worse by the minute. At this point, Ethan is swimming upside down, vertically, and has tiny tiny black pupils. As soon as I plugged the filter back in, he was promptly sucked back up against it.

This is not going well.

I am already frantic about what I am going to tell Brayden when he wakes up and his new fish is dead. I decided (after consulting Scott) to get the fish out of the tank. I put it in a cup in the kitchen. I expected Ethan to be dead by morning.

Nope. Not dead by lunch either. OK, I can handle this.

I put Ethan back into the tank with Taylor. Ethan seems to have regained some strength and is swimming around okay. And then I see it.....Taylor is eating Ethan's tail! Nipping is what wikipedia called it. I promptly searched goldfish on wikipedia and learned that goldfish are sociable, but when a new fish is introduced to the tank, the senior fish sometimes express aggressive behaviors. Chasing. Tail nipping.

Super. Taylor is trying to kill Ethan.

I am keeping a close watch on these two should I need to intervene again.

Now, how many of you are asking, "You did what and spent how much time, effort, and anguish over a 12-cent fish?"

Never mind. Those of you that are Mothers are not asking that question.