Comments on: Here Fishy Fishy, Bye Fishy Fishy: Share Your Fish “Tails”

By: serf 'rett

serf 'rett — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:04:14 +0000

Before you bewail the limited life spans of fishy #1, #2, #3, etc., consider the following tale. My daughter got my son two red eared slider turtles in the summer of either 1998 or ’99. They were cute when they were the size of a silver dollar. Pounds of turtle food and a gazillion water filters later; not so cute! When we left town, the cat could be dumped at the vet, but not the shelled critters. I got to wondering just how long we were going to be blessed with tank cleanings and found that the beasties might be around for THIRTY FIVE YEARS! When we turned them loose in a friend’s pond, it was hard to discern who was happiest.

By: Awesome Mom

Awesome Mom — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 03:46:44 +0000

I hate to say it but the employee was right, you can’t keep three goldfish in a two gallon tank. Goldfish get really big and they are very poopy and messy so they need cleaner water. You also do not need to feed them twice a day, just once will do. Tank cleaning should also be kept to a minimum as it can disturb the chemical balance of a properly established tank. All of these things I have learned the hard way at the expense of many a fish. We also have a cursed thank that for some reason we keep trying to put fish in and they invariably end up going belly up.

Oh and I killed a hamster. He would chew on the cage and it bugged the crap out of me so I would squirt him with water to get him to stop and I think that chilled him enough that he got a respiratory infection and died.

By: JoAnn

JoAnn — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:00:22 +0000

Back at the turn of the century, I got one of those little cubes at a local store (Walgreens? Maybe?) that had two tiny little fish in it. I don’t even know if they sell them anymore. I had them at work with me, and they made my cube a happy place.

I named them Fred and Ginger, because they loved to dance. After a few months, Ginger wouldn’t dance…she’d just float at the top, so Fred had to continue on without her.

He lived a LONG time.

I eventually moved him home to our apartment where he spent the rest of his days on the counter overlooking the living room and kitchen.

He eventually moved on to bluer waters (so to speak), and we haven’t had a fish since.

By: Gretchen White

Gretchen White — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:40:23 +0000

We had Juicebox the goldfish, who lived at our house for a whopping 9 months. He was an amazing fish, who could do tricks and communicate. He rocked, and we all cried when he died. Really.

As a kid, though, my sister and I went through multiple fish. The most dramatic loss occurred when she put perfume in the bowl one day to freshen it up. Who knew fish don’t like L’Air du Temps?

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 05:02:52 +0000

I’m guilty of fishy murder. It was totally pre-meditated too. My kids got some extra fish from a fair we had at church. I thought they would last in the fish bowl a week or so, and most of them did. Except for one little bugger. He wouldn’t die! My girls are older and didn’t name them or really even care. The dog is so much more interesting. You can pet him and he’ll sleep by your feet.
I quit cleaning the bowl. It lived on. I quit feeding it. It still lived. I let the water evaporate until there was about an inch of blackened water in the bowl. The sucker would not die! One day I finally had enough and flushed him down the toilet. Alive. I can’t even say it was a mercy killing. He’s probably still alive swimming through the sewers.

By: Amber Johnson

Amber Johnson — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:26:59 +0000

4 days? 28 hours? I feel much better. And it sounds like we need to graduate from goldfish in order to see any success!

PS. Love the goldfish revenge.

By: Allie

Allie — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:03:36 +0000

We had our first AND ONLY goldfish experience last year when my hubby thought it was a brilliant idea to get the kids two each for their rooms. My son’s fish managed to survive for 4 days. My daughter’s? Erm … 28 hours.

All fish had the ceremonial burial of the garburator as those rock hard, yet floatable carcasses gave me the heebie geebies and I envisioned them coming back to bite my ass in revenge if I were to flush them down the porcelin watery grave.

And because the kids were so devastated at the loss of their new pets, I went out and got them beta fish (aka Siamese fighting fish). They are durable, resilient and pretty to look at. Just tonight we were commenting on how long these suckers have lived – almost 1 year!!!! And trust me when I say, I do not take great care of these things.

By: Amber Johnson

Amber Johnson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:26:23 +0000

Yowsas–some more great tips! “Mismatched couple in love.” HILARIOUS.

By: Hillary

Hillary — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:16:17 +0000

When I was in grade school, we had a tank of guppies. They had babies of course. One of the babies was sucked into the filter and miraculously survived so we name it Survivor. Then the tank heater went on the fritz. Mmmm, boiled guppies. Survivor was smart though, he jumped out of the tank and we found him on the floor, still alive.

In junior high, I got two goldfish, Dumpling and Black-eye, to put in a fish bowl that wasn’t being put to good use. Dumpling died within the first month, Black-eye lived for about 3 years. I was a negligent goldfish owner and only cleaned the bowl every 4-6 months. One of our cats loved the fish bowl. She would drink the water, but she never once tried to eat the fish.

When we were pregnant with our oldest daughter, we tried to set up a fish tank to put in her room. That didn’t work out too well either. Every fish we got had leprosy, okay we were actually having major pH and ammonia problems, but they kept losing parts. Poor little guys.

We are now contemplating a bowl of goldfish, but I’m planning on ignoring the “fish” guys and doing it like I did in junior high. One fish, one bowl, one cleaning every 6 months. It’s not like fish ponds are immaculate and they survive just fine in those.

The pet stores pull the floaters out on a daily basis. You just have to get the right angle to see them.

By: Lynn @ human, being

Lynn @ human, being — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:07:47 +0000

We always had a fish tank growing up. When I was a toddler, one of our black mollys had babies. I notoriously picked them up out of the water, one-by-one, and squished them to death, not out of cruelty but out of curiosity. I was supposed to be napping with my mom, but she fell asleep, I didn’t and I became a fish murderer on her watch. Ha!

When I was in grade school, my neighborhood friends and I had a club called the Golden Girls, for which we had Goldie the Goldfish as a mascot (oh, how clever we were). Goldie went into said fish tank and commenced eating all the other fish except a single angel fish. Well, Goldie and the angel fish lived until I was in college. No lie. They both got huge as the only fish in a 20-gallon tank. My parents finally got sick of scraping algae for two fish, so they regifted–ahem, put them up for adoption. But when they were separated, they died. It was kind of sad. We thought they hated each other because they were always fighting. Turns out they were just another mismatched couple in love.

Don’t let the PetsMart fish police guilt you. Fish are hard to keep alive. Even my BFF, who has 3 fish tanks and nearly a PhD in keeping them, kills them off regularly.