June 2007

The Story of Maurice, Bebe and Conrad/New Maurice 6-1-07

This story is taken from an e-mail sent to a friend in the midst of the tragedy. I've updated it a little to complete the story. This occurred a few years ago and is entirely true.

Well, this is the long and drawn out drama of Maurice and Bebe. I had read some feng shui and also decided I wanted a pet. I mentioned to a friend at work that I was thinking of getting some goldfish and she offered to give me an extra fish tank. Excellent! I don't know if you know, but (according to my tank supplier) with feng shui, when fish die, it is good, because they have absorbed bad energy directed at you. Well, someone hated me.

I went out with Tim to buy some fish. I decided to get two fancy goldfish and was giddy with excitement. Of course, the fact that I was now a caretaker for living things weighed heavily on me, even though they were "just fish." Worrying about their longevity, I decided to give them temporary names: Maurice and Bebe. Well, we set the tank up and went to dinner. During the dinner we spent a lot of time coming up with cute names based on the fact that there were two of them, including things like "Knife" and "Fork." When we returned, we noticed that Maurice had a tendency to stay at the top of the water sideways. This doesn't seem good, but Tim assured me that his sister had a goldfish for a couple of years that would float upside down when sleeping. Ok- I thought, fine. Well, the next day I did some research and realized that Maurice had a swim bladder problem. He really couldn't manage his depth in the water. I also noticed that Bebe chased him around an awful lot. I figured it was play.

How wrong I was.

I called the pet store on Thursday night (my second night of ownership) and asked if I could bring back my fish with the bladder problem. They said yes. The next day (Friday) I came home to find an almost lifeless Maurice floating in a corner. Bebe was attacking him and he wasn't moving. Well, I surely was angry with Bebe. I assumed that since Maurice had this problem, Bebe wanted him gone. We got Maurice out of the tank and into a plastic container of water, but he wasn't meant to survive. By the time we got him back to the pet store, he was dead.

They have a policy of returning the fish within 14 days. What I didn't know is that you needed a water sample. They acted like they weren't going to replace Maurice because I lacked a water sample, but when I said I didn't want money, but another fish, they decided to "make an exception this one time." I went to the fish area and chose another fish. I asked specifically for a "frisky" one, because my last fish hadn't been.

Once again, due to uncertainty in longevity, I named this fish New Maurice. As soon as this frisky and healthy looking fish was dropped into his new home, Bebe attacked. I couldn't believe it. I researched the internet once again to find out that aggressive goldfish are not common. The only excuse I could find was that the tank was too small. I still don't believe that.

Bebe was removed. The only other place I could put her was in a vase I had. Tim assured me that he had a goldfish in a goldfish bowl for 2 years and that the fact I didn't have another bubbler was not going to make a difference. Bebe seemed to love her new environment. She swam and did flips and just seemed to be lively and happy. The vase had some flowers painted on it, which she liked to try to bite as well. Don't worry. I was feeding them regularly and well. So, now I had a dilemma. What do I do with my two fish that can't be in the same tank? I tried to give Bebe away (although truly my heart began to warm up to her once she was not attacking other fish). Unfortunately, no one wanted to take her without me giving them a fish tank. Well, I didn't know what to do.

A few days later, I noticed some weird white thing on New Maurice. Due to its shape, I didn't think it could be a worm, although that is what I thought initially. I figured Bebe had done some damage to him and it would heal.

How wrong I was.

A week passed from my initial purchase. Bebe the killer was now in solitary in a flowered vase. Maurice had some kind of unfortunate damage. We had some all day meetings at a remote location for work and I was offered a ride. At that point, a few people at work had become very involved in the Bebe and Maurice story. People asked after them. I'm sure they thought it was funny, but I was feeling bad about my poor stewardship. So, when I got dropped off, I offered to show my co-worker my fish which had been the talk of the office. She said sure. To my surprise, the usually lively Bebe was now dead. Yes, the one week temporary name was about to be changed and she died. I took her to the small amount of dirt in front of my house and with my co-worker as a witness, commenting that a cat would be shortly digging her up, I buried Bebe. How appropriate it was that it rained all the next day.

So, now, I had become concerned about Maurice. I began another internet search, since my first search for this white thing didn't work. And there it was. Anchor worm. My initial suspicions were correct. Now I felt bad because New Maurice had suffered with a worm for days while I tried to figure out what was wrong with him. With two fish lives on my hands, I decided I would not lose a third. I couldn't get to the pet store right away and I felt horrible knowing that anchor worms cause "extreme distress" to the fish. Not only that, a second one began to appear. Finally, I made my way to the pet store to get the medicine which would cure New Maurice. I went casually over to the fish tanks and noticed that half of the tanks were quarantined. One of them had visible signs of anchor worm. Other tanks were empty or the fish just weren't particularly good looking. Bad, bad pet store. They didn't know how to take care of their fish. So, I bought some medicine and a couple other things out of guilt for Maurice (including some fancy food) with a strong will to make him better.

Happily, the medicine worked. The worm began to disintegrate from his body. New Maurice also had a little bit of a swim bladder problem. Once the worms were gone, Maurice no longer had trouble. Further research showed that stress can cause swim bladder problems. I now regret leaving Old Maurice with Bebe and wonder if I had separated them earlier if he may have recovered from his swim bladder problem (which was worse than New Maurice's) eventually. So, New Maurice got better and he was still alive! Of course, since he passed the temporary name time, I had to rename him. Obviously, Maurice is not a good name for a fish, for it brings misery and hardship.

New Maurice was then Conrad, named after Joseph Conrad. We were doing fine. But, there is sad news to report- Conrad died. Once again I attributed "Bebe damage" to an issue that turned out to be more serious. I noticed a small black area at the front of his dorsal fin. It looked as though Bebe had bitten him. Then the sad realization came that this black area was spreading along the fin. He had been stricken with "fin rot." What made this case of fin rot so sad, in addition to the heavy heart it caused me, was that its progress was something I could watch on daily basis- as the fin turned black and shrank away. Treatments for fin rot vary, including one in which the fish is held in the hand and mercurachrome or something similar is applied gently to the fin. Of course this would be a very difficult operation due to how often it had to happen and the fact that the fish cannot stay out of water very long. I did not think I was up to this, especially since it wasn't a guaranteed fix. (On a side note, this proves that my mom's warning that uncared for wounds might cause a body part to "turn black and fall off" is true for fish. Additionally, as a child I had to use mercurachrome and never fully understood what it did except make the wound so much more obvious.) I had changed jobs by this point and shared my misery with my co-workers, one or two of which proposed humane ways to put Conrad out of his misery. I still couldn't bring myself to do it, though. By the end, I was actually pretty relieved because he wasn't really moving anymore and would just float upside down at the top of the water. That doesn't sound like a full life for a fish. I'm taking a break from fish, but think that if I try one more time, I will need to find a better supplier.