The epic saga of Bob the Betta

Bob in happier times

This spring I took my first voluntary foray* into the world of pet ownership** by letting Mabel pick out a betta. She named him Bob. He’s maroon and was a perfect, healthy, feisty fish, who quickly learned to jump for his “Betta bites” food (which shall hereafter be referred to by Mabel’s name for them, “kibbles.”)

Cleaning Bob’s bowl has always been a fiddly project. We have soft water, which doesn’t seem good for a fish, but we do have hard water in our cold kitchen tap, so for Bob’s water I have used cold water and heated it in the microwave to get it to room temperature. Not having a plastic pitcher or bowl that would hold a gallon of water, I would use a vintage (but microwave-safe) glass bowl to heat the water . I would also heat water in a Pyrex 2-cup pitcher, which is where Bob would hang out in his little net while I rinsed the dirty water out of his fish bowl and then scooped the gallon of heated water out of the vintage bowl and into his fishbowl, one measuring cup-full at a time. Tedious.

Bob had one brush with death a couple of months ago when I either dropped him or he jumped out of the net when I was cleaning his bowl. He flopped into the sink, and I tried to slide him into the little scrap-catcher thing that sits in the drain, but he fell from that and landed on the flap of the disposal. Mabel and I were screaming, and I had on rubber gloves and didn’t trust myself to retrieve him without pushing him into the disposal, but Dean was fortunately nearby and he came to the rescue; he scooped Bob up with his hands and put him back into water. Bob recovered fully from that particular scrape.

Well, a few weeks ago I got the bright idea that while Bob waited in his Pyrex 2-cup temporary holding tank, I could heat his water directly in his fishbowl. I did that for a while and it worked well, until we hit a snafu, as described by Mabel in this email to my family (reprinted here in full, with permission):

Subject: this e-mail is cool and and it is not from mom it is from mabel who is not using capital letters

hi,its mabel.agh!i’m getting the bad habbit of never typing with capital letters because of a website called woogi world that no matter what you do,it will not let you type capital letters. i have tryed everything and it still won’t let me capitalize.guess what? bob’s(my fish)bowl cracked at the bottem of it last week. mom was cleaning his bowl,and she had started that week to put the bowl in the microwave when she put the clean water in it because bettas like warm tempetures.(she didn’t put it in the microwave with bob in it!just when she was cleaning his bowl.)but she didn’t know(thats why i’m not blaming her for the crack)that bob’s bowl was made of a certain type of glass that would brake if it got too hot.so when she took it out of the microwave,there was a crack on the left bottem corner of the bowl.my dad put a speical kind of glue on it to keep it from leaking while we went to saint george.when we came back,we all knew we would have to get bob a new bowl.we came back on a wendsday,and we didn’t get bob a bowl untill monday.during that time,i notised that even though dad had put the glue on it,it was still leaking.it wasn’t leaking fast at least.finnally,on monday,we went to petco(TM)for a bowl.there were some BUITIFUL birds there!but we didn’t find very good bowls.so then we went to pets mart. there we had the choice of a bowl just like his old bowl,or a fancier bowl like spencers.me and mom chose the one of the fancy bowls.come on over any time and check it out.then we decided that if we were going to get him(bob)a new bowl,why not get him some new plants and things too?(yeah?why not?)in his old bowl,bob had this shell he really loved.but then,he started actuelly sticking is head INSIDE of it.it was creepy!then one day,i woke up to find bob sticking nearly all the way inside of it.i could only see his tail.i clapped to wake him up so i could feed him,but he just wiggled and didn’t come out.i clapped again,but he just did the same thing.i got worried,so i told mom.she came down and i clapped again,but bob did it again:he wiggled and didn’t come out.mom thought he might be stuck,which he probably was.she put the tongs in the water and lifted the shell upside down,but bob didn’t come out.well,finnally,he did.me and mom took the shell out of his bowl because we were worried that would happen again.so, anyway,at the store we thought we needed to give bob more privacy.but we couldn’t find anything that was pretty,fit in the bowl and wouldn’t ever make him stuck.so dad had this great idea that we could bye some of the glass pebbles there and insteads of putting them at the bottem of the bowl,dad could super glue them together in the shape of a tunnel to hide in.so when we got home,mom put bob into his new home while dad worked on the tunnel.right now,the tunnel is sitting on our counter drying.so thats the story of bobs new bowl.phew!i can’t touch type yet,so this has probably tooken an hour.ooo…my leg fell a sleep and my fingers hurt BAD.bye.ouch,ouch,ouch,ouch…..

The possibly-poisonous tunnel/castle Dean made for Bob.

Deadly seashell. Bob really did get himself almost all the way in here, so that only his tail was still sticking out.

The playground equipment tunnel that Dean made for Bob was actually glued with silicon, not super glue, and Dean said it should be inert and not poison Bob. (In fact he says that it’s the same glue that’s used to seal aquariums, and Dean is something of a glue expert, so we took his word for it.) Unfortunately, while making microwave rice krispie treats the week after Christmas, I had dropped my pretty vintage glass bowl and shattered it to bits. So to heat the water for Bob’s new bowl, I had to use two medium-sized glass bowls. VERY tedious.

We put Bob in his new bowl with his new tunnel, and for a couple of days he was fine, but suddenly he seemed sick. We feared it might have meant that his new tunnel’s glue was poisoning him, so I removed the tunnel from his bowl and replaced his water (AGAIN,) but he has not recovered. He is sitting at the bottom of his bowl, occasionally swimming frenetically to the top or in circles around it, and he won’t eat. With great effort (waiting until he would surface, and dropping a kibble directly in front of him,) I managed to get him to eat three kibbles two days ago, but he hasn’t eaten since. We have several theories of what might have caused Bob’s illness:

-He might have injured himself or his slime coat swimming too far into the narrow seashell we used to keep in his bowl.

-He might also have caught a fungus because of this.

-Whether from jamming himself head-first into a shell, or from the possible resulting fungus, or from silicon poisoning, he seems to be having difficulty seeing clearly to catch his kibbles, so we think he may be partially blind now.

-He might have been poisoned by his new toy tunnel.

-He may have been traumatized by all the changes to his environment.

-Room temperature water at this time of year is colder than in summer (and I DON’T want to have to buy a heated aquarium,) so the cold water may be slowing him down (but I don’t think this alone would kill him.)

-He might have lost his will to live after we took away his favorite shell to hide in.

As a last resort, I am thawing some frozen blood worms to try to feed him, (he’s eaten these as treats before, so maybe he’s now rejected kibbles in their favor?,) but it does look likely that he’ll be dead soon. Oh, and I guess I could go back to the pet store once again and get some anti-fungal medication, which I might try tomorrow if he’s still alive by then. Mabel says that when he dies, we have to give him a proper burial (no flushing,) and she’s already composed his epitaph:

Here lies Bob Wheeler

Maroon Betta fish

With thanks to Spencer Hall

(She says that Spencer is mentioned to honor him for having trained Bob to jump for food.)

Update: Well, when we got home from church, Bob did one last quick swim around his bowl — but he was swimming on his side. Then he laid down on his side on the bottom of the bowl, and has twitched a couple times, but I think he’ll be gone soon. Mabel and I are VERY sad. I hate that he’s suffering, but I’m not really sure how to put a fish out of its misery (especially since we’re not planning to flush him.) Mabel is at least prepared; she says: “I guess it’s just time for him to go to heaven.”

I’ve been telling Mabel that when Bob died I would get a blue crowntail betta, but I don’t think either she or I will have the heart to get another fish for a while. (Mabel, reading over my shoulder, wants me to say: “One, because we’ll never be able to get a fish as good as Bob, and two, every time we get a pet, it’s going to die someday, and it’s just hard to say goodbye.”) We really hoped Bob would have a longer stay with us.

————–

*I just had to correct this because while I was in the shower I realized I’d said “forage” instead of “foray.”

**Isaac was given a goldfish at a birthday party when he was about three years old. He named it “Fishy.” Knowing nothing about goldfish care, I put Fishy into cold/chlorinated water straight from the tap, and Fishy was dead by morning. For years, Isaac would still get tears in his eyes every time we talked about Fishy, and I know he is counting on meeting up with Fishy again in the resurrection.

Not wanting to repeat my role as fish-killer, when we acquired Bob the Betta I asked the pet store worker all about betta care, and also did more research online when I got home.

Explore posts in the same categories: Creative miscellany, Meanwhile in the real world, My kids actually are funny (and sweet and wonderful)