So, we killed our fish.

It really was unintentional. And pretty sad.

For those of you that don’t know we had 5 (very large) fish in our 44 gallon tank. They were probably all between 6 and 8 inches in length. Two of them – the sucker fish – had been around longer than I have (Dave had them before we got married). The other three we got in December of 2006. All of them were classified as ‘tropical’ fish, meaning they like to have the water in their tanks heated at 75-80 degrees – roughly 10 degrees warmer than the air in the average house.

Our largest fish was an Oscar. He was HUGE (big enough that people made jokes about frying him up for dinner). And he had attitude – when he was hungry, he would jump out of the water and hit the lid to the tank so that it would open and shut – making a loud noise that would get our attention. He was also pretty mean (or at least scary), he liked to bully the other fish, and if we stuck our hand in the tank he would immediately make attempts to attack it – probably trying to scare us out of his space. We named him Belthazor.

The final two were thin silver fish with light orange tails. They were fast, really fast. I think that’s what saved them from Belthazor the bully. When we got them they were only about an inch long. When they died, they were pretty close to six inches. They did not have names.

Anyway, about how they died…

Our tank was in need of a cleaning. We try to do it every 3 weeks or so. We should have done it around last Wednesday… but with the crazy schedules we keep around here we kept putting it off. Meantime the water level in the tank was decreasing (as it naturally does), we didn’t fill it because we were going to clean it. Saturday night, we decided that it would officially be set as a Sunday evening project… but when we got home from church they were all belly up. Thankfully Dave found them – I don’t think I could have stomached it. It took a little while to figure out what would have killed all 5 fish at the same time. But after a little investigation he (Dave) figured out that the water level had gotten low enough that the sensor on the heater was no longer getting an accurate reading… so it just kept heating the water… until all the fish had boiled to death.

Looking back, it was a little bit weird that Belthazor didn’t make a big fuss when I fed them that morning. And on Saturday I did notice that there was a bit of leftover food remaining in the tank – but I figured I’d just fed them too much that time.

And we probably should have had a thermometers in the tank… but the last one we had was destroyed by our bully fish, Belthazor. I guess he didn’t like it, because whenever we put it up he would ram into it until the suction cup gave way – sometimes he would even push it around the tank. He eventually broke it. We never bothered to replace it.

Anyway, despite the lack of significant emotional attachment to the fish, I do find myself missing them. And its weird to have to push away that inclination to go feed the fish each day. I don’t know what we are going to do when Lucy dies – she’s a much bigger part of the family.

So, please everyone, learn from our mistake… keep the water levels in your fish tank adequately filled. And don’t let your big fish bully you out of a thermometer.

And please, don’t call PETA. It really was an accident.

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On another, somewhat related, note. I’ve found myself thinking a lot about that little story you hear about the frog in the pot of water that will swim and swim, not trying to jump out, as the water is gradually heated. The moral, of course, being that as we subject ourselves to this or that in our lives that we may be slowly desensitizing ourselves to worldly views. Its interesting to see that real life example in our deaths of our fish – and it has me wondering if there is something more I am to learn from this.