Fishy Obituary

***Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life that was Blackie Goldfish. In the short 9 days that he was with us, he brought us peace and joy. Though he lost an eye on Saturday to unknown circumstances, he fought valiantly on for 2 more days. May he rest in peace in the big fish tank in the sky.***

My sister gave us a fishtank set Christmas of 2004 (but she gave it to us a few months late.) However, we had 2 bettas (Siamese Fighting fish) at the time and we didn't want them to get jealous (actually, we didn't have time for any more pets! We had 2 fish, 2 dogs, a budgie and half a cat [don't ask- well, ok it was next doors cat but spent all its time in our yard]). During the course of 2005 our neighbours lost the cat to a snake (but it chose to die in our yard), the budgie fell off the perch and the 2 fish swam to Davy Jones locker - yes lots of sad fatalities that year. So when a petshop/ nursery decided to move location, we decided to check it out to see if there would be something suitable for the tank. Country businesses are confusing! They change ownership, move, rename themselves and close down at the drop of a hat. We thought this was a new place, however, it was just the old pet shop moving to a new location.

Anyway, it had a very good selection of birds and fish. There were really cute silky chicks that we had to fight hard to control the urge to keep them.There were lots of beautiful tropical fish but our tank had no heater. We also pondered getting one of these creepy creatures known as axolotl. To me it looks like some sort of strange mutated fish which has lived too close to toxic waste.
However, because they are half reptilian, we would have to feed it insects, meat, other fish!? etc and would need a much bigger tank than the 7 litre one we had. Hence we went home with Comet (the carpy looking goldfish), Blackie, and Puss (a tendenous catfish which is freshwater).

They had really different personalities. Comet is a big greedy fish which would come to the surface and make gulping noises whenever you opened the lid. Blackie was peaceful and loved swimming into the jet of the filter, swimming hard but going nowhere (probably exercising) and Puss just hides under that blue glass mountain thing where the light is. Poor Blackie, Richard noticed on Saturday that his right eye was missing. We wondered if it was involved in a fight with the innocent looking catfish (silent assasin?) or the big bully gold fish or if it was some strange pop-eye disease. Nevertheless, sadly he is gone but we will have this picture to remember him by.