The Nameless Fish…That May Be Dying
My family has a legacy of fish as pets. I think the first one that we had was the one that I won at Cedar Point when I was a kid. You had to throw a ring around the tiny fish bowl, and you got the bowl with the fish in it. My prize fish actually died on the way home, and my parents stopped at a pet shop before we got home so that I could get another fish. They made me buy the new fish, though, and I used one my precious Susan B. Anthony dollars to do it. It was the only money that I had. Do not be sad though, I still have a couple of those same Susan Bs to this day, and good old Fast Freddy the zebra fish lived for quite a while.
So from then on, we have had fish for years and years. Right now my mom has a huge healthy tank with some very big kissers and some other kind of fish. Some of the fish recently had babies, and the babies, for the first time, actually survived and grew to be bigger than the parents without being isolated in a birthing net (which did not seem to save many baby fish from being eaten in the past anyway)!
A few months ago, when I got my place, my mother bought me a Siamese Fighting Fish (or Betta). She got a red one because that is my favorite color. I have already been through several months, three tanks, and three different kinds of fish food with this fish.
The fish has no name. When I first got it and it would not eat, and I was afraid that the fish would not be around for long anyway. Still I had thought of some names. I just never found one that I thought was fitting. None of them seemed to stick. After a while, I just stopped trying. So, the fish never got named.
The fish started out in a plain old fish bowl. I knew that would not last too long because of the frequent water changes. Plus, the temperature seemed to be too cool for the fish while in the fishbowl. So, as soon as I could, I trekked down to Petsmart and got a fish tank. Well the tank that I got did not meet up to my expectations. The filter did not spin like it should, and the water got almost as dirty as it had in the fishbowl.
So, I did some further research and found the BiUbe that you see below. The BiUbe tank keeps tank water clearer than I have ever seen, so I am satisfied with it. It was hard to get this tank because no one had it in store, and many online retailers did not have it in stock. I eventually ordered one from Petco but it had not shipped after a while. I found a retailer in Michigan that sold them and ordered one there intending to cancel my order at Petco. Well, when I got home that day, the fish tank from Petco was sitting outside my door. However, I did not know it was the fish tank. I thought it was just accessories because that was the only thing about which I got shipping notification. I did not open the box until the next day, when I got another box and was totally confused. Then I had to cancel my order with the Michigan store. It was not until a few more days later when Petco sent an email saying that the tank shipped. Come on! The fish was in it by then.
Feeding the fish was another issue from the beginning. When I first got the fish, all that I had was the Betta Pellets, well the fish never did eat those. When I bought the second tank, I looked for food. I had read that Bettas really like blood worms, but the guy at the store said that I should go with frozen shrimp instead. The blood worms were freeze dried, and he said the fish would like the frozen food better because it is fresher. Well, that is what I get for listening to a teenager at a pet store. The fish ate the frozen shrimp for a couple of days and then stopped eating it. I finally went back to the store and got the freeze dried blood worms
I recently changed the filter and water in my tank, and the fish has been acting weird ever since. I could not tell for sure if the fish was eating. Most of the time, the fish would just hide at the back of the tank above the heater. My mother and I just figured that it was the warmest right there.
Well, yesterday, I took the picture below. The fish was swimming around happily and looked normal. But when I got up this morning, I could not find the fish. Eventually, I was able to spot the fish at the back, bottom of the tank. The fish came to the top briefly when I tried to turn the tank to get a better view, and that is when I noticed that the fish was not swimming properly. It was swimming sideways and even upside down at times, and, eventually, the fish went back to the bottom of the tank. I am pretty sure that it did not eat the food that I put in the tank today.
So, I went online to try to find out what might be wrong with my fish, and I figure that it has Swim Bladder Disease. Apparently, this is a common illness for Bettas, but it is not supposed to be fatal. Unfortunately, I am not sure what is causing it, so I do not know exactly how to treat it, or what to do at all. I let the water level down a little bit, and I am going to try to feed it less, but basically I am just sitting and waiting to see what happens. Nevertheless, I feel it may be the end for my fish. It refuses to come to the top to eat or take a breath. While Swim Bladder Disease may not be fatal, I am pretty sure that starvation and suffocation are fatal. 
Maybe the fish is getting back at me for never naming it. I know this is a long post (as most of mine are), but this might end up being my fish’s obituary…
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