My fish died today.
All of them.
All 8 of them.
They were healthy, happy, absolutely beautiful goldfish with long 4 inch tails. I rescued all the pretty ones from the Oscar when they were bought as feeder fish 7 years ago, and a couple that made it through the night in her tank. I put them all in our pond, and they survived floods, droughts, heat waves, and stray cats. Two of them even had a little kid.
He would have been 3 inches long this summer.
And my baby, the calico shubunkin, is no where to even be found. I can't even bury him with his family.
Apparently, the de-icer that's been keeping them alive for the last 7 winters, lost control of it's thermostat and heated the water up to over 130 degrees.
My fish literally cooked to death.
There was steam flowing off the water like a hot tub. Their shiny scales had fallen off their bodies and there were just little holes where their eyes had been. Needless to say, the smell was quite strong.
I only recovered four bodies. Three gold and the one white guy. I believe I found the spine of the tiny baby. But the other two gold ones and my shubunkin must have inevitably disintegrated in the bottom sludge.
Earl and I are heart broken. It's a terrible thing to see. Not only were they part of our family for so long, but they had their own family starting. Earl swears we'll never use a heater again.
And we had no idea that they were suffering such a painful death. I hope they just fell asleep after the water got to a certain temperature, and didn't feel anything, but how will we ever know.
RIP my little friends. I am so sorry the fate you all suffered.
I know heaven has a big lake waiting for you.
All of them.
All 8 of them.
They were healthy, happy, absolutely beautiful goldfish with long 4 inch tails. I rescued all the pretty ones from the Oscar when they were bought as feeder fish 7 years ago, and a couple that made it through the night in her tank. I put them all in our pond, and they survived floods, droughts, heat waves, and stray cats. Two of them even had a little kid.
He would have been 3 inches long this summer.
And my baby, the calico shubunkin, is no where to even be found. I can't even bury him with his family.
Apparently, the de-icer that's been keeping them alive for the last 7 winters, lost control of it's thermostat and heated the water up to over 130 degrees.
My fish literally cooked to death.
There was steam flowing off the water like a hot tub. Their shiny scales had fallen off their bodies and there were just little holes where their eyes had been. Needless to say, the smell was quite strong.
I only recovered four bodies. Three gold and the one white guy. I believe I found the spine of the tiny baby. But the other two gold ones and my shubunkin must have inevitably disintegrated in the bottom sludge.
Earl and I are heart broken. It's a terrible thing to see. Not only were they part of our family for so long, but they had their own family starting. Earl swears we'll never use a heater again.
And we had no idea that they were suffering such a painful death. I hope they just fell asleep after the water got to a certain temperature, and didn't feel anything, but how will we ever know.
RIP my little friends. I am so sorry the fate you all suffered.
I know heaven has a big lake waiting for you.
posted by Sp00kalot at 10:33 PM
4 Comments:
I am so sorry for your pet loss. I've heard of heaters failing and the fish freezing, but not this opposite extreme. We too dread the death of our 23 fish, snake, dog, and cat. They are very much part of the family. We are only one year into Coy (at Jes' parent's house) and we brought them in for the winter into a 55 gallon. We didn't do so well in that a power outage killed two from loss of oxygen and then we lost another two in a murder suicide betwixt them. Three remain, and we'll put them out as soon at is it is a little warmer. I'll post pictures when we do -k-
I'm so sorry about your fish. That must have been awful for you to discover.
Our almost 4 year old pet white rat died over the weekend. She'd been my daughter's pet until she went into the extended care facility (nursing home?) and then became Elcie's.
Not nearly as sad as your fish though. 4 is a long, long life for a rat.
Amy---Oh sweetie, I'm SO sorry! I know you told me on the phone but reading this I still started to cry. You are such a kind hearted person and you care so much for all life that I know this is especially hard for you.
I believe they are in a big lake up in heaven and they are swimming around happily wanting you to be happy! I think all pets want us to be happy and I also think that no matter what happens to them they know we loved them and never wanted anything bad to happen to them, so take comfort in that.
BIG HUG!
Thanks guys. Its still hard to look at the empty pond. I'll let you know when we get some new friends in there. I was just telling Granny that my theory on fish is the nicer the tail, the longer they'll live.
:)
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