Questions...

Does this goldfish look like a serial killer to you?  Is it possible that my family watches too many crime shows?  Perhaps, but we have learned quite a bit about profiling sociopaths and are growing suspicious of this innocent looking carp.  Fish just don’t up and die in my house.  We take their care seriously.  With not one, but two filters going 24/7 and the regular weekly siphoning of the gravel, the fish in our house grow to a healthy old age.  We’ve had basic goldfish thrive more than a decade in our 29 gallon tank.  Something fishy is definitely going on around here.

The Facts:

1.      Several months ago we ventured to the pet store and chose Gary and his speckled friend, Miss Piggy. We brought them home and introduced them to our established aquarium.  They both thrived…for a while.  After a few weeks Miss Piggy began hiding in the ceramic cave in the corner.  Before long she was belly up with Xs on her giant eyeballs (not really, but I like the visual).  Sometimes these things happen.

2.      After double checking the chemistry and researching the best diet for these goggled-eyed fan-tails, we went back to the Feed and Seed to find Gary a newfriend.  (Note:  At this point my daughter informed me that we may need to change his name to Gary-etta, as we had likely misjudged his gender when originally naming him.  She usually knows of what she speaks when it comes to animals.)  We named the new bright orange fish Chubs.  In the beginning these two were great friends.  They played chase games and competed for food like normal fish do.  After two to three weeks my daughter reported to me that Chubs was slowing down.  This newest carp was spending most of its time hiding behind the mermaid statue and seeking shelter in the cave.  A day or two later we had another floater.  Coincidence?

3.      We mourned her loss for a few days and then returned to the store to find Gary-etta a hardy friend.  It was that day that we realized how huge she had become!  She had grown to twice the size of any of these fish in the store.  How was Gary-etta thriving in our aquarium when nobody else could?  Aiming for a relatively big mate, we chose a lively speckled moor with black eyes that looked like oversized sunglasses.  We named this one Chicken Little for reasons you will see.  From the moment we put her in the tank we could see that something was strange.  This new fish seemed desperate to keep distance between herself and the larger and overbearing Gary-etta.  We watched closely for days and never once saw the two of them interacting.  Day after day the scene was almost always the same, Chicken Little hiding in a corner or behind an ornament and Gary swimming around gaily.  You could almost hear a sinister gurgle coming from the larger fish.  Then one morning it happened.  We awoke to find Chicken Little not only dead, but sucked up against the filter.

At this point we are too stunned to go back to the fish store.  Three fatalities, and Gary-etta’s behavior seems to get more bold with every death.  She struts around the tank, flipping her fins as if nothing is wrong.  She is thriving and growing so fast, as if she is getting some kind of lift from the demise of her co-habitants.

On the one hand, how do we bring another innocent fish into the clutches of a suspected serial killer?  But then, what if are suspicions are wrong?  What if Gary-etta is sweet and friendly with her tank-mates and these deaths are merely a coincidence?  Do we condemn her to solitary confinement without any proof?

So many questions….