When I came into office this morning, I realized that I'd just lost Red.
One of my adult fish, I originally bought him with an intention to start a crown tail line as he has this nice luminescent sheen showing thru his reds. Though he definitely wasn't showroom quality, his defects actually appealed to me when I saw him at the fish shop hanging with the rest of his species.
I tried to breed him with Blue but he didn't blow any nest and seemed to attack her furiously. So, I sent him to solitary confinement where he got his first round of swim bladder disease.
I thought he had been a goner and though I tried to treat him, I wasn't exactly optimistic of his recovery chances. To my amazement, he actually recovered.
However, after he recovered, he was never the same as he seemed to develop a slight tilt in his body whenever he swam and he had stopped flaring at other fish. No matter what I did, I could never make him flare again.
Last week, I saw him swimming rather poorly and tried feeding him some tubifex, which he ate greedily but it didn't seem to plump him up at all. He was also lying frequently at the bottom on his side and only came up on occasion for air.
Having been through swim bladder disease, I guess it took a toll on his little body and wasn't able to live past his prime (a colleague suspected that he wasn't ready for breeding yet).
Nevertheless, it was a good time having spent time with this little fella and wish him a fond farewell.
