A lesson on life and death

L learned his first lesson about pets dying this weekend and no, it isn't Sonny who seems to have turned the corner and is responding well to medicine.


L has had 2 fish since his 1st birthday. As of this past week, Lane is 2 and a half, so it has been quite a while. He loves his fish and actually does a great job of caring for them.


About 2 weeks ago, I decided that we needed a new tank. The one fish had grown quite a bit and they were starting to look a bit cramped in their old tank. Also, I had stupidly washed the tank with a rough sponge at one point and scratched the daylights out of the plexiglass. So a new tank was bought and it was BEAUTIFUL and much easier to maintain. Except it was huge and now the fish looked teeny tiny in this huge tank of theirs.


After a particularly good weekend with L, I promised him that he would get a new fish and dispensed B to go get a new fish and dog food at the local PetSmart. That was the beginning of the end.


B returned with not one fish (I was thinking a black goldfish to compliment our gold and white and red one, but I of course didn't share that with B), but 5. Four neon teeny fish and one black sucker fish to help keep the tank clean. Within a week, only the sucker fish remains. It died last night.


I guess one or more of the fish had a bacterial or parasite infection which quickly spread to the rest of the fish and caused their fins to dissolve. It wasn't a pretty death and I was devasted for both the 2 fish we have had for a year and a half and for L.


L helped flush the fish and truly seems to be uneffected by the whole loss. Of course, he keeps asking to feed the empty tank, so I don't think he has quite grasped that the fish are in fact GONE and not coming back, but we will get there.


I guess the positive side to this is that L finally slept without a light last night. Normally the tank light serves as his night light, but no fish, means no tank light and L finally is learned to sleep in the pitch black.


Now the good question is -- how do I thoroughly CLEAN the tank so we can get him some new fish in a few months?