Sad news

On Sunday morning we woke up to find our poor Glebe no longer with us. Glebe, you may remember, was Mac's fish.  

Mac got Glebe in October and he seemed to flourish for awhile.  

Then we went on an overnight trip in November and left Glebe for one night on his own.  Don't freak out - Betta fish only require food every couple days.

Well nutritional requirements are completely different from personality disorders.  

We came home to find he'd copped an attitude with us, as if to punish us for leaving him alone.  He didn't eat as much and appeared to be losing his orange color. I went to the pet store and bought him fancy food - a so-called dial-a-treat of dried blood worms, mysis and daphnia.  I have no idea what any of those things are, but the pet store man told me Betta fish love these treats. 

Glebe did not love them. He refused to eat the treats and so after feeding them to him, I'd have to later filter the uneaten floating detritus fromthe tank.

We hauled him to SC for Thanksgiving in a Rubbermaid cereal box that we bought just for him. He hated it.  He apparently was not a rambling fish.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Glebe was listless and didn't eat much. We moved his tank to a busier area of our apartment in case he was missing the action.  But that didn't bring him out of his depression.

We hauled him home again for Christmas and again, he was miserable. He didn't take advantage of the vertical space in the cereal container. 

After Christmas vacation, Glebe took to sticking his head and sometimes his full body into his fake aquarium trees or laying listlessly on the rocks or just floating, suspended, in the water.  It's winter and I sort of feel like sticking my head or my body into the covers most days.  Maybe Glebe, like me, had a touch of the winter blues so I installed the light feature of his tank so he could have some light therapy. We tried different colors, different rotations of the colors, etc. We turned the lamp on next to his tank so he'd have nice bright light. All to no avail.

 (Early in January)

(The day before he died)

(The day before he died)

He hung on until sometime on Saturday night.  Mac acted devastated for about 28 minutes, gave him an appropriate and solo send-off (complete with a rousing rendition of the "Hallelujah Chorus") and then got over it.  He wants a replacement already, but I am diverting requests to go to the pet store.  

No New Fish!!