Charlie

We joined the pet owner world in January. Marah wanted a red Betta fish for her Birthday. When Nana was in town she gave her an early Birthday gift on January 8th, her red Betta fish.

After a week of Dad and Mom calling the fish everything but Rainbow, we convinced her that Rainbow was not the name for the fish. She finally settled on Charlie.

We all loved Charlie and he seemed to love us. He would swim to the top of his tank every morning and evening to get fed. He loved to sit in the sun light and at night enjoyed the warmth of the bathroom.

The main problem with Charlie was the temperature of his water. We have been experiencing a lot of cold days here and the house has been really cold. We headed out to the pet store to look at heaters for the tank, but they didn't sell them for his size tank. So we purchased a thermometer to keep a better eye on the water.

We continued to love Charlie and talk to him, but things started to look bad for Charlie on January 27th. The kids had off school and we noticed that Charlie was not as active. He would just lie on the bottom of his tank and did not come to greet us. Marah kept saying his head was changing colors.

When Michael came home that night we decided to clean out the tank and give him fresh water. It seemed to perk him up for a while. We fed him and put him back in the warm bathroom and said good night to Charlie.

Around 10 pm that night Michael came in and told me that Charlie had passed away. I went in to see it for myself and there he was just floating. Poor Charlie, poor Marah. Charlie, her birthday fish, did not even make it to her birthday.

The next morning the kids, again, had no school. Grant decided to let me handle telling Marah the bad news. When she woke up I broke the news to her, that Charlie was sick and had died. Her comment to us:

"I told you that his head was changing colors and he was not blowing bubbles!"

After dinner that night we said our final good byes to Charlie. We had to convince her again that the best way to say good bye was by flushing and not throwing Charlie in the front yard for the birds to eat him.

We promised her another fish, but first must solve the cold water issues. Marah has decided to move onto another type of fish, the Bubble-Eye Goldfish.