"Moooooooooooooooooom!! Oh no! Quick!!"
My stomach sank. I already knew what I was going to see, so I was unprepared for how sad I was to see Firefly, the big fat goldfish, floating upside-down with his white belly bobbing on the surface. The night before, Acacia had run her hands through the little stones at the bottom of the tank looking for something, and it kicked up food the fish hadn't eaten. The crystal water became super cloudy and I knew we should have cleaned it right then, but it was 10:30pm, we were all tired, and, really, I thought these two critters were indestructible.
"He's still alive!"
And she was right. His tail was flicking and he was trying to flip over.
I grabbed the tank, rushed to the bathtub, scooped out both Firefly and Neptune and put them in a bowl of fresh water while we cleaned out the tank and all the stones.
I'm not a goldfish connoisseur. The girls won these teensy orange minnow-sized aquatic vertebrates tossing rings onto bottles at the county fair. They were never supposed to live this long, grow this big, need an aquarium, nor steal our hearts. Wasn't part of the bargain.
So I naturally assumed, with my limited fishy expertise, that Acacia had killed poor Firefly, just like I had done to our family goldfish back in the day, although I was too young to remember so it might have been all made up by my big sisters. I do remember flushing our gerbils Twinkle Toes and Powder Puff down the toilet, but that's another story.
Firefly forced his distended belly over, swam for a few seconds, and then rose upside-down to the surface again where he'd lie motionless - over and over and over. This was painful to watch. I wondered if we'd bury him next to Lupine the Baby Mouse we kept alive for ten days (she even went to a music festival in Telluride).
I googled floating goldfish and learned that a bacterial infection can cause so much air in their abdomen, they can't stay upright. Peeling frozen peas and breaking them up can be a trick to help move their bowels.
Huh?!
Or you can just drive the kids to school and go to work, and then come back to two swimmingly happy little fishies. Phew! It was touch and go there for a bit.
I emailed the girls to let them know it was a medical miracle. Firefly just needed to fart!
