Our house may not get redecorated every month in celebration of each upcoming holiday, but Fashionista makes sure Slewis, the Betta fish, is not denied any grandeur. Had I thought to take the picture at the beginning of the month, there'd be less scum- so please forgive that and take a moment to enjoy the Valentine theme of this fish home.Tomorrow Fash will make the changeover to green shamrock beads in the bottom with a smiling leprechaun dancing about in the waters. Who knows, maybe she'll indulge Slewis a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow painted on the side of the bowl.
The thing is: no matter how good Slewis (named after C.S. Lewis) has it, he always seems one half of a breath- from death. We have no idea what he lives on. The food beads Fash drops in there, sink to the bottom and never appear to have even a nibble taken out of them. Slewis just clings by a lip to one, tiny air bubble- and hangs vertical to the vase.
It's really depressing. Just today, driving home from church, Fash says to me, "Mom, I just want to kill Slewis. I don't know how he stays alive. He depresses me."
And I thought: so flush him. Cut him in half with a pair of scissors like Aunt A. tried to do to Aunt B.'s pet goldfish one time, when we were little kids.
But somehow it doesn't seem right to flush or slice Slewis. It feels wrong. Somehow.
?
10 comments:
SLICE your fish??!!! how gruesome. flushing is one thing, but SLICING???!!!! i didn't know you had such sadistic tendencies, heidi.
i won't be coming for fish dinner at your house any time soon.
slewis is a very cute name, btw, and the jar/bowl decor is great. you will have to keep it up after fash leaves for college-- or better yet, make sure she comes home once a month to change the fishbowl decor.
so you never gave me your opinion on using a certain name of a certain street in my blog name. "a life on..." clever, eh?-- but a very bad idea, no doubt.
No slicing allowed! You may flush, but you may not slice.
I like his name and his surroundings but I can see that it may be depressing to see him hanging on like that!
What would she decorate???!!! Tell Fash to hang in there! Hopefully, nature will take care of this so she doesn't have to!
While Beta pellets will work out. But Live or frozen brine shrimp will change his appetite. It is a he, you can tell by the fancy fins. The females are rather bland in color an fin size. Slewis is hanging out at the top because his water is dirty. Thy come from the sometimes polluted waters of South East Asia. And they have a rudimentary lung that allows them to gulp air and breathe. But if left too long they will stress and succumb to something else. Change out his water once a week, or before it gets cloudy. And if he starts to build clumps or clusters of bubbles at the surface, it means he's happy and has built a nest in hopes of meeting a girl. And yes I keep fish and have since childhood.
Heidi,
From what I can remember they hang out at the top of the bowl because the water isn't oxygenated all the time, so he is breathing in air from the top. If you were to add bubbles to his bowl he wouldn't be hanging around the top.
Does he eat when you feed him or does it just fall to the bottom? Ours used to be able to eat some but not all of the food before it sunk.
You can always donate him to school for a pet rather than flush him even though like Nemo thinks, all drains lead to the ocean.
I would refrain from slicing him up sushi style.
Love this post and can't wait to see him in shamrocks!
Love and Hugs ~ Kat
Sounds like you have gotten some good fish advice here!
Yeah, I think the flushing and slicing sound rather morbid. My sister once had a goldfish that fell out of it's bowl when she was moving into her dorm - as in, while she was driving there - and it stayed under the seat in the car while they unloaded all of her stuff. When she finally got around to finding the fish, she put it back in water, and it was still alive! I guess sometimes they just wanna hang on! *grin*
**off topic** I missed the guanlet throw down too. If I had known that, I would have used google instead of guessing! LOL!
Some people are jealous of our brains and our looks. heehee.
Be blessed!
Heidi, I can soooo relate. We had a beta that used to play dead. It became quite the funny thing when guests or the sitter would report to us on the demise of our fish and then there would me some little movement as he swam sideways. We were longing for him to go on to his reward as well.
hahahahahahahahahahaha. Slewis was ill or on the brink of ill for pretty much the whole time I lived with him also. I think he's going to live forever because he doesn't do much...thus stretching out his basic life expectancy.
Hey, here's an idea. THE VET! haha. That's where we take our pets when they seem sick. Of course we have dogs, not fish. :-)
Teasing you. Hope the fish is feeling better.
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