Betta Fish
by Liv | Published on December 28th, 2005, 8:04 am | Life
How was I supposed to know the fish I bought like to kill one another? I saw no sign at Wal-Mart warning innocent parents like myself in search of that perfect Christmas gift for their children.
You see the whole thing started out with my son wanting a dog. I advised him to think a tad bit smaller, and thus he came up with the idea of a fish.
Now I admit, I'm a complete idiot when it comes to fish. I never would have thought you could buy a Chinese fighting fish AKA Beta Fish so easily. I certainly would have never assumed Walmart would sell these cannibals of sea life.
I was wrong.
The mistake was going Christmas shopping 2 days before Christmas. I went over to the pet center at Walmart and picked out an aquarium. I waited patiently for someone to show up and help me with a fish. No one ever came, and the store was packed. Then I saw they had some fish in little Tupperware bowels. I figured hey, they'll work. So I grab one male and female, thinking I have just started my own National Geographic breeding experiment. I'd like to note, I saw no sign saying "deadly betta fish" or "do not place with other beta's" or "Caution, Ninja Fish with an appetite." Nope, at this point I was confident and happy, because I had purchased a gift that was simple, easy, and best of all affordable.
I would later of course learn, Beta fish are very mean. Like the neighborhood chihuahua who lost his burrito supreme, these are nasty little critters. The night after Christmas, we came out to the tank and realized our little girly Beta had half of its tale missing. It suddenly occurred to me, "how do these fish reproduce, if they keep eating one another?" So last night after going to the movies we, swung by Pet-co and picked up a handy dandy tank separator. Safe and sound, they can now both live in their aquatic beta oasis. I just hope that she didn't get knocked up in those 48 hours of tail biting suspense.
