Book Commercials & Misanthropic Observations

Today’s small joy

Is seeing Toby swim around his tank. Let me explain.

Toby is a betta fish. Hannah brought him when she moved in and I immediately declared his true name to be Kunta-Kinte. So now we use the names interchangeably. He came in a vase with a bamboo shoot in it and we placed him in a central spot. Like all things green in our home, (just ask us about our recent attempt at an herb garden in the kitchen) the bamboo shoot promptly died.

Toby wasn’t doing very well either. He caught fungus from the rotting bamboo and, we later learned couldn’t thrive in our cold home. Mom & Dad’s house averages 84 degrees so the tropical betta fish that the kids kept had tropical water, averaging 79 degrees without any effort. Our house hovers at about 68- Toby was getting a weakened immune system from the cold water. Of course Hannah didn’t know she needed to heat the water since she never needed to do so growing up.

A few weeks ago, I expressed my concern for the deteriorating state of the fish, and Hannah agreed. We set out to nurse him back to health. His fins were gone, he just had sticks, a condition we learned was fin rot and very serious. He also had red swollen gills- a sign of ammonia burn, and literally just lay at the bottom of his bowl.

Our first task was to treat his fungus. We moved him to clean bowls twice a week (cleaning the used bowls with bleach and boiling water) and treated him with anti-fungal. Hannah went to the pet store and bought a few more recommended supplies. This has been going on for a few weeks. While his gills were looking better and his fungus was gone, he wasn’t really growing his fins back and still laid at the bottom of his bowl. So I went to borders and got a book- and learned that he was COLD. Hannah read the book too and learned that we were overfeeding him- he only needs, like 2 pellets a day max- and only one at a time, and we should skip a feeding every once in a while.

I went to a store off 77- by the airport – called “A World of fish” and when I explained the situation, they picked out the supplies I needed and gave me 40% off out of solidarity for our fish rescue mission. He has been in his new, heated, filtered tank for 2 days now, and actually takes little swims around the tank from time to time. His fins are growing back a deep red and metallic blue. He is beautiful.