When I was really little (between 2 and 3), I remember my dad having a tank of fish. My favorite was one I called "Little Zebra Stripe" - I think it may have been some sort of angelfish. It had vertical black and white stripes. It's the only fish I remember from back then. Then we moved, and suddenly my Little Zebra Stripe was gone! I was sad, but eventually my 4-year-old brain wandered and I forgot. Then I won two goldfish at a fair, and we had a tank again. They grew, got ginormous, and maybe 5 years in one had swim bladder trouble and died. The other lived a glorious 13 years, and lost a 3-4 month battle with dropsy in the end - what a fighter! I hand fed him for at least a month during that time, until he could swim to the surface again. I guess that's when I started remembering that I liked fish. I was pretty sad when poor Goldie died, but also glad he wasn't suffering any more.
My dad, during the whole time we had the goldfish, always griped at me about them. I was little, and had no idea how to care for a tank, but he expected me to do it and suddenly just 'know' - he just dropped it on me, without even really telling me that it was my job now until one day when he was suddenly telling me if I didn't change the fiter, the fish would die. I'm sad to say that I wasn't the best caretaker of fish at 13, save for the last year or so of Goldie's life. My dad would always tell me, "Those fish are going to die because of you, and when they do I'm going to get a bunch of tropical fish for me because you can't do it right," more or less. Well, sure enough, not too long after the tank had been sitting empty (through no fault of my own - I assume it was a bacterial cause of dropsy, and the medication just quit working after the 3rd round or so) he started it up again. Shrimp, neons, danios, red-eyes, x-rays, frogs, guppies, a gourami, and a pleco. The frogs died or disappeared (to be found on the floor later), the shrimp vanished, the neons died off and left a small school - same for the danios and red-eyes, and eventually only two X-ray tetras remained. I don't think the tank was ever properly cycled before he started dropping the fellows in - he had cleaned the whole tank after the goldfish was gone.
Anyways, he dropped the tank again. I was furious. His hypocracy was absolutely maddening. "Dad, did you know there's fungus growing on the rocks?" "I don't have time to take care of those fish." And this from the man who told me that I was doing a terrible job for so many years. I wanted to punch something. It still makes me angry. But there wasn't much I could do, and out of sheer anger I simply refused to touch the tank. If he wouldn't help me, I wouldn't help him. The guppies lost their tails, and eventually died. The gourami became sickly. The schools got smaller and smaller. The only thing thriving was the pleco, who hid out most of the time. The red-eyes lost most of their fins, and the neons were tattered. The problem fish - the danios - were doing alright, but they wreaked havoc.
I couldn't stand it any more. I got a 10 gallon (luckily near my birthday - mum paid for it) and picked out those I'd take from the tank. I settled on the neon and X-ray tetras, but changed my mind last-minute and rounded up the danios instead of the x-rays. I intended to take the gourami, but he was too ill to travel and died a couple days after I left. I was very sad he couldn't make the trip with me - I had picked him out on a trip with my dad to pick out the fish. He was my favorite.
So, here I am with my little crew of rescues. The danios no longer fin-nip, and the neons school around happily. Unfortunately I couldn't take them all, but with the original tank's population cut in half, they ought to be doing at least a little better.
Here's the kicker - in an aside, my dad told me he was basically just waiting for the fish to die. He didn't have the heart to flush them while they were alive.
Yeah, Dad, you sure showed me.
I'm an addict.
