Murder And Mayhem

There was a death in the family last night (or early this morning; the autopsy hasn't been completed yet for an exact time of death). We lost one of our beautiful black clown fish. Now, that's sad enough, that one of our pretty (and not cheap, oh no) fish died, but it gets even sadder because he was brutally attacked by another fish in the tank. Also, I was the only witness that didn't have gills or paws (Molly was not even slightly disturbed by the incident, which worries me some, I can't lie), so I had to bear witness, alone, to that asshole ripping the fins off the other.

Here, let me show you the tank back when everything was sunshine and roses and before all the bloodshed:

The culprit, in case you can't tell, is ALSO a clown fish. Dabbling in cannibalism? Drugs? Fighting over a female fish? Or, better yet, Roid Rage? See, the culprit is huge for a clown fish. He is three times the size of all the other clowns in the tank. (Don't let the above picture deceive you. He's monstrous.) And, he, obviously, has some aggression issues since he randomly cornered the other fish and PLUCKED HIS FINS FROM HIS BODY. I think all the signs point to performance enhancement drugs.

I was on the phone with my sister when it all went down, and I started yelling and freaking out and then I started getting very angry. (Like a good hormonal pregnant woman.) I may have mentioned filleting the bastard or at least taking him out of the water for a solid minute to show him I wasn't someone to mess with. Rachel, understandably, had to let me go.

I e-mailed Mike and said, "AHHH, THE BIG FISH IS ATTACKING ANOTHER FISH. WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO? Also, can you bring home Chick-Fil-A?"

The little de-finned fish hung in there for a while. He tried to swim haphazardly and hide in corners, and Mike even tried to put him in his own container, but, sadly, we both woke up to a fish corpse this morning.

I think we should take that stupid big bastard fish and rip off his fins until he cries uncle, but Mike thinks we should donate him to a pet store. Someone is going to be a rational, together parent and someone else is going to need a well-stocked liquor cabinet to get through the day.

Comments

[merrymishaps]

I wonder if any pet stores would trade him for a fish that plays well with others ...

[nanette]

That happened to me and my one and only foray into the fish world. One fish methodically knocked off all the other fish by biting off all of their fins. So not cool. :(

[Pickles & Dimes]

That sucks! I'm sorry about your little fish.

One of our bubble goldfish started dying and went belly-up (but was still alive). That didn't stop the bigger goldfish from GNAWING ON HIM. We finally did a preemptive flush to put him out of his misery. I'm convinced he's doing pull-ups down in the sewers somewhere, awaiting his revenge.

[rebecca]

i think this shows a remarkable sense of mama-bear protector sense. The same sense that makes me want to de-limb bad drivers when my daughter is in the car.
Maybe the clown fish just got tired of everyone asking him to tell jokes. HHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Kitty]

Awww. Poor little bugger! I totally had a killer fish at one point. Well, actually a frog, but still...He ate my huge goldfish, a massive algae eater and everything else we put in the tank. We ended up giving him away to a friend who had a massive tank full of minnows (seriously, like 1500 of 'em) and he ate his way through most of them before he went to the great froggy heaven in the sewer.

[Larissa]

When I was a kid, we went through like eight different fish. They kept dying, so we eventually got a dog.

[Nicole]

And that fish looks big, even in that picture!

[Kristie]

Fish are so mean! And so odd. We had a fish once that kept trying to commit suicide beause he was strong enough to open the tank and flop onto the ground. He was also the same fish that ate his own tail.

Eventually he did follow through and killed himself. Stupid fish.

[Camels & Chocolate]

HA! We have a whole aquarium of fish, too, and I'm just waiting for this to happen! We had a red-tailed shark (that's tiny, not really shark-like) that was a threat to the others, so we had to separate them when we first got them all!

[SparklieSunShine]

That's horrible!

Also...I know it sounds horrible, but I really think you should get rid of that fish before it murders again.

That poor other fish.

[Sensibly Sassy]

I read parts of this post to Jon and he said you should take advantage of this and turn the tank into a gladiatorial arena...just a thought. (As I was about to write this Jon said, "no dont put that it makes you sound demented" and I said "Oh don't worry I will say that you said that, so it makes you sound demented.")

[K]

I worked at a petstore in the fish department and we would take back any animal including fish. even if we thought we couldn't get rid of them elsewise.
I've seen lots of fish eat other fish... as well as hamsters eating other hamsters (please try to never let your child have a hamster... mean little bastards)....
That is a HUGE clown fish if I may so myself.
Also- chic fil a is the best... but why do I always crave it on Sundays????

[K]

I just had a drink for you since your are preggo... thinking of you

[Katie]

Fish are so mean! Sorry you had to bear witness. Perhaps this is part of why I don't like fish...you never know what you'll come home to with a tank full of them!

[Seriously, Jess]

Well...there are lots of people who are jerks. I guess there's no reason why a fish can't be a jerk too.

[Jess]

I knew betta fish did that, but I didn't know clown fish did it! The illusions have been stripped from my eyes.

[Dianna]

Holy cow, what a jerky fish you have! I don't think I'd tell the pet store about the fin-ripping incident...he'd be banned for life!

[Kristabella]

What a bastard! I didn't know fish did that to other fish.