Yesterday Christy’s and my fish, Blue (aka Blueregard) died. Now normally this wouldn’t be something i’d write about; but for some reason I wanted to put something up.

Christy brought Blue and another neon blue gormy at petsmart. Unfortunately the other gormy died pretty quickly, but Blue ended up being ok. After a couple days we noticed some white spots on his fins, and, thinking this was common ich, something we’ve dealt with before, we started treating him.

A few days later we tried to get Blue another companion. We seem to like having fish in pairs, as this makes us feel better.. I can not confirm or deny that the fish enjoy this, although our two angel fish continue to lay eggs every 10 days or so, therefore my guess is that they like it at least a little bit.

This new fish died much like the last pretty quickly. Fish can be pretty hard to keep alive, and the trip from the pet store to our house is pretty stressful I would guess. This on top of the fact that petsmart is just about the worst place you can get fish or any other living thing for that matter. (note: this may or may not be fact, I am not an expert on petsmart.)

As time went on Blue wasn’t getting better. In fact, after a week or so it seemed that his white spots were getting worse, and growing to look more like cotton. We went to our regular fish store up in Evanston and asked them what might be going on. They gave us some very expensive medicine to try and we spent the next two weeks treating the whole tank, but didn’t see a lot of improvement. After the second week—in which Nathan was treating the fish for us—we got pretty worried and thought that Blue was probably a goner.

Fortunately, Christy and I don’t really give up on anything (anything worth not giving up on that is… and decided to move blue into a small bowl fish tank we have to treat him more directly (and use less of the outrageous medicine.) We moved one of the plants, and even the heater from the big tank to give Blue a place to hide and feel comfortable—in theory. For about the next two or three weeks we treated blue in our bathroom, sitting right next to our sink. He was getting progressively better, and we gained some hope that he would survive and be just fine.

Right before we left for easter Blue was looking great and so we moved him back into the big tank with the other fish before leaving for Cincinnati and the farm. When we got back, it seemed that Blue wasn’t totally better, so we moved him back into his “apartment” with the scenic view of our sink and toilet (who can really say what fish like to look out at? I sure can’t.) For the last week or so we’ve been treating him, and again he got progressively better. Unfortunately, fish are pretty fragile and overnight—right before Christy left for New Orleans to gut houses (what a heart)—blue wasn’t looking so good.

Now we’ve had fish in bad shape before, and Blue wasn’t looking as bad as I’ve seen, but he did seem.. out of it. I noticed before going to work, and decided to move him back into the big tank just to be safe (he always seems happier there.. more animated and he eats more.) He was looking ok before I left, or at least better than he was in the small tank. I went to work hoping he would be fine and better when I got back.

Sadly he wasn’t. I don’t know what happened, he could have gotten sick or stressed in the small tank, or the angel fish—who had just laid a leaf of eggs—might have tormented him in his fragile state. They do this—in the name of egg protection—to all that dares lives in our aquarium, but blue might have been too shaken up to handle it.

Some blogs might have something intelligent, profound, or meaningful to say here at the end. I don’t know if I do.. I really just wanted to get the story out for some reason. I was thinking perhaps something enlightening would just come to me, but that wasn’t really the point (obviously, as I grasp for any sort of meaning.) If anything, some things are out of your control. Blue was a very small, sick fish. I’ve been back to petsmart for cat food a couple times in the last month or so and the tank with neon blue gormys always has dead or dying fish in it (that place really sucks.) I don’t think Blue had much of a chance no matter what.

I guess the moral—if any, and you must note that my name is not aesop—is if you can help someone (or some fish) you should try. I don’t know how insightful that really is—to me it feels like common knowledge. Now that I think some more that moral doesn’t actually go along with the story as I ended up losing money, time, and ultimately the fish I was trying to save. I guess its just good practice, because your not going to fail all the time, and you can succeed without trying.