Fishy Business

Yesterday, Luolly died. The day before, Snakey died. So sad.

Snakey is Alicia's pet leopard bichir. She chanced upon it at the fish farm a few months ago and immediately fell in love with it. Initially, we put it with Luolly but kena bullied so we put it with the smaller cichlids. 2 days later, it jumped! Molly woke up one morning and found it moving around near the fish tanks. It survived the fall and seem none the worse for it.

About 2 weeks later on a raining Sunday morning, it jumped again! This time, Mom found it outside her bedroom about 8 ft away from the tanks. She thought it was a snake grabbed hold of a plastic bag, scooped it in and flung it out of the window! When I woke up for my run, she told me about it. Straight away, my thought was - it has to be Snakey. True enough, couldn't find Snakey in the tank. By then, Alicia had woke up. She started crying.

Mom went downstair to look for it. Whoa and behold, she returned with Snakey still inside the bag motionless but still alive! Somehow, it managed to survive the 6 floors drop! Put it back in the tank and it swam and went to hide in its usual corner under the rock. It must have suffered internal injuries cos it never swim around anymore. And then yesterday, it just died. It must have suffered during these past few months.

Yesterday morning, woke up to find Luolly lying on its side barely breathing. Luolly has been with us since it was a tiny fry given away by the fish shop during the days when Luohan fish was the craze. It has grew from a tiny 3 cm to a whopping 8 inches. Luolly was not beautiful. It has no colour, no obvious marking and only a tiny little hump. Don't even know its pedigree. But the kids couldn't let me dispose of it so it has stayed with us for the past 3 years! Really surpised to see it in this condition. No choice but to put it out of its misery! Coincidentally took a photo of it the day before using the new phone. Maybe it is 'pantang'?

The other cichlids have also been dying recently. Snakey could have got something from there but Luolly was in another tank - hmm maybe fish flu?

Time to change the tank set up and maybe keep some other type of fish?