RIP Daisy II

Well, we buried yet another goldfish: Daisy's feisty little replacement, who succumbed last night to the harsh conditions of an aquarium that hasn't quite completed its nitrogen cycle yet. Now that I know slightly more than I used to about goldfish care, it's painfully obviously that we shouldn't have added any fish at all to the tank until the water tested positive for nitrites, which would have indicated the presence of bacteria capable of converting the ammonia in our fish's waste to something less toxic. Well live and learn, I guess (unless you happen to be one of our goldfish).

The worst part is that Daisy II didn't even give us a chance to quietly swap her out for another Black moor goldfish, as she gave up sometime yesterday in the late evening, long after closing time even at the most corporate pet stores. This wasn't entirely a bad thing, as it forced us finally to address to issue of pet death with our daughter, who had been sheltered from the untimely demise of Daisy I and her original tank-mate Katharine the First.

Baby Exile took the news surprisingly well - better than either my wife or myself had anticipated. She even wanted to see Daisy II's body (which was still in the freezer, since we euthanized her by putting her on ice) and say goodbye to her, which we thought was sweet until she asked the dreaded question over her goldfish's frozen corpse:

"When can we get another one?"

On second thought, they're swimming in battery acid

Our poor goldfish are going through some tough times right now as we wait for the nitrogen cycle to take over in our new aquarium. Having lost Daisy I early on, yesterday I had to euthanize Katharine (died 5/29/07), as the ammonia levels finally managed to take their toll on her and do her in. Being the cowards that we are, we again decided to replace the fish rather than sit down with Baby Exile and watch the Very Special ™ Harold and the Purple Crayon episode where Harold loses his pet goldfish Goldie. Fortunately there was a fish at the local pet store which looked almost exactly like our dear departed Katharine #1, and even better the clerk offered to give us an extra bag of tank water so as to help facilitate the growth of good bacteria to help kick-start the cycling process and prevent the other fish from suffering a similar fate.

So we introduced Katharine II (Baby Exile is either none the wiser or too wise to go down that particular rabbit hole) and all of the fish seem quite lively once more, but today I went to test the water and was shocked to find that the ammonia levels were 8 parts per million - twice the level that had killed off the first Katharine - even after having effected an almost 50% water change yesterday. The weird thing, however, was that even though the levels were so high the fish were more active and healthy-looking than we've seen them in days, so what gives?

Well upon testing the water's pH I discovered that it had dropped from around 7.4 to 6.4, making the water significantly more acid. While this can be a stressor for goldfish, it has the interesting side effect of neutralizing the toxicity of ammonia, especially when the temperature in the aquarium is on the moderate to low side, as the acidic water causes the ammonia to bind into ammonium, which is much less dangerous to fish. I found a great chart that shows the interrelationship of ammonia levels, pH, and temperature - it turns out that with a pH of 6.4 even an ammonia level of 8 ppm is safer than a 7.4 pH tank with 2 or even 4 part per million of ammonia!

So now the trick is keeping the water from getting too acidic while we ride out the cycling process and the tank's resident bacteria start converting ammonia to nitrites (and then the nitrites to much less harmless nitrates). Funny, nobody told us that we'd have to get PhD's in chemistry in order to raise a handful of goldfish! But it's a fascinating process nonetheless. Here's to hoping our current occupants will make it through the learning curve!

Taking the plunge

So our lives not being crazy enough, last weekend we decided to buy some goldfish.



This is Katharine. She's the feisty one, who already recognizes Baby Exile as the person who feeds her and reacts accordingly.



And this is Daisy I. I employ the Roman Numeral here to denote the fact that this Daisy is already no longer with us. No sooner had we brought her and Katharine home than we noticed that our little Black Moor goldfish had a strange penchant for lying on the gravel at the bottom of the aquarium for hours on end. Tank shock, perhaps, or maybe poor Daisy was already ill when we bought her at the pet store. Whatever the reason, we spent the weekend agonizing over what we should do about our sick fish - wait it out and see if she recovered, or euthanize her so that she didn't starve to death, as she wasn't even stirring to eat by Sunday evening.

I have had fish die on me before when I kept goldfish in college, but the last time my wife had dealt with pets was when she was a little girl, so she was surprised to see how emotionally involved she had already become with Daisy after only a couple of days. Her theory is that once you name a pet, you've crossed an empathic threshold of sorts, which makes a lot of sense. In fact this is probably the same reason why old-school Greeks don't call their children by name until after they've been baptized (which can be a year or more after their birth in the Orthodox Church), so as to soften the blow if the baby should not survive.

Well, we had already named Daisy, so we had no such emotional luxury. And even though Baby Exile had already seen the Harold and the Purple Crayon episode where Harold's pet fish Goldie dies - and was exceedingly fond of it as well - we could tell that the idea that one of her goldfish might not make it was distressing her greatly. So we decided we would take the coward's way out and "cheat" death by replacing Daisy I with another Black Moor (Daisy II). Yes, I know this is standard operating procedure for parents, but even so we were left with an uncomfortable decision to make: to flush or not to flush?

(Now actually these days the humane thing to do is not to flush a live albeit dying goldfish but to put it in a plastic bag full of cold water and a couple of ice cubes and freeze it, as since fish are cold-blooded creatures being placed in the freezer will simply cause its metabolism to slow down ever so gradually until the creature freezes to death. Apparently however some veterinarians have questioned whether this method is in fact painless or not, and claim that not only can the fish actually feel ice crystals form inside their cells but that it hurts like the dickens as well. These vets suggest poisoning a fish with a solution of clove oil and vodka, but I digress.)

Fortunately however the decision was taken out of our hands, for when I got home from the ophthalmologist's office on Monday I noticed that I couldn't find Daisy I anywhere on the floor of the fishtank. Odd. I checked the surrounding carpet only halfheartedly, as I was sure that a fish that couldn't rouse itself to eat certainly wouldn't have had the strength to leap out of the water. And sure enough, after making a second pass through the aquarium I spotted Daisy at last - her lifeless body had been sucked against the filter's black intake tube, where she was perfectly camouflaged. RIP, Daisy I (died 5/14/07).

Daisy II appears to be much livelier, and we added a third fish to the tank for good measures as well - a calico named "Doc" (no picture yet) who we said helped nurse Daisy back from her illness. Pathetic, I know, but we're new to this whole dead pet business...