Our goldfish committed suicide!

[koeeoaddi]

After 17 years of life, Darryl chose to join his other brother Darryl in the aquarium eternal. Sometime after midnight he said farewell to Larry, jumped out of his tank and died alone on the hard cold floor. I've always expected to find him floating one day, but this? Never this!

What could drive a fish to despair?

R.I.P.

[Jenaroph]

Goldfish occasionally jump out of their tanks for a number of reasons: http://www.goldfish-emergency.com/vi...php?page_id=36

I'm as much amused by the fact that someone else also had fish named Larry, Darryl and Darryl. Ours were cherry barbs though.

[Telemark]

He might have been having trouble at school.

[Chefguy]

Were you watching Nemo last night?

[lieu]

Peer pressure?

[Agent Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by Chefguy

Were you watching Nemo last night?

Or Free Willy?

[LilyoftheField]

I had a betta once that lived in a bowl that was kept on the fireplace mantel. One day, I came home from work and went over to feed the little guy. The bowl was empty! I immediately started looking around on the floor around the fireplace and found my suicidal fish - laying on the hard stone hearth, coated in dog hair. (We had two dogs at the time, and he had apparently been flopping around for a while...) I scooped him up and plopped him back into the bowl. I'm not sure why 'cuz he was obviously dead - no telling how long he had been out of water, never mind the six foot plunge to the stone floor! Five minutes later, he was lazily swimming around his bowl, shedding dog hair into the water...

Yeah, he survived that and lived out his life without any further attempts to off himself.

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by LilyoftheField

I had a betta once that lived in a bowl that was kept on the fireplace mantel. One day, I came home from work and went over to feed the little guy. The bowl was empty! I immediately started looking around on the floor around the fireplace and found my suicidal fish - laying on the hard stone hearth, coated in dog hair. (We had two dogs at the time, and he had apparently been flopping around for a while...) I scooped him up and plopped him back into the bowl. I'm not sure why 'cuz he was obviously dead - no telling how long he had been out of water, never mind the six foot plunge to the stone floor! Five minutes later, he was lazily swimming around his bowl, shedding dog hair into the water...

Yeah, he survived that and lived out his life without any further attempts to off himself.

Probably because they can breathe air directly. Perhaps he was just checking to see if he could force himself to evolve some legs?

[ftg]

Originally Posted by Chefguy

Were you watching Nemo last night?

Oooh, speaking of Nemo and suicidal fish. Many years ago in Mrs. FtG's old house there was zebra fish that kept jumping out of the tank. You'd be walking by and there'd be a fish flopping on the ground. Scoop, dunk, rinse, repeat.

His name was "Rover", btw.

[Scumpup]

I blame cyberbullying.

[Renee]

Goldfish can live 17 years? Wow.

[Marley23]

My first goldfish did this the night we got him. It was a dark and stormy night and the bastard decided he'd rather asphyxiate than be with us.

[Lute Skywatcher]

The family kitty tried to jump out a window we were driving down I-55 from northern Illinois to New Orleans. Good thing the window was closed!

[AClockworkMelon]

Originally Posted by Renee

Goldfish can live 17 years? Wow.

Goldfish can live for decades- just like hermit crabs. Both are often viewed as short-term pets but they're really not. They can and will outlive your dogs and cats. Very, very few die of old age, however. Most are killed by their owners somehow.

A friend of mine has a tank with two fish in it: An algae eater and a goldfish. The goldfish is like 14, IIRC.

[Sleeps With Butterflies]

I'm sorry for your loss

[koeeoaddi]

Originally Posted by AClockworkMelon

Most are killed by their owners somehow.

I tired to be supportive.

[needscoffee]

My cat will scoop out the fish if he's able to get to the tank while the cover is off, and then not actually eat them. Do you have a cat?

[kapri]

Originally Posted by ftg

Oooh, speaking of Nemo and suicidal fish. Many years ago in Mrs. FtG's old house there was zebra fish that kept jumping out of the tank. You'd be walking by and there'd be a fish flopping on the ground. Scoop, dunk, rinse, repeat.

His name was "Rover", btw.

You couldn't put a screen over the tank?

[Alice The Goon]

Originally Posted by needscoffee

My cat will scoop out the fish if he's able to get to the tank while the cover is off, and then not actually eat them. Do you have a cat?

That was my thought. Have you questioned the cat- "Where were you last night after midnight, Fluffy??"

[Johnny L.A.]

Blubber, the suicidal goldfish

[Asimovian]

My ex and I had a catfish that had a different method of attempted suicide. Jaws had a habit of ramming his head into the side of the tank by swimming at it going full speed. He was not a small fish, and it would make quite the thunk when he did it. He'd just sit there, stunned for a while. And after a few minutes, he'd go back to swimming around calmly.

He was...not normal. (I hope.)

[koeeoaddi]

Originally Posted by needscoffee

My cat will scoop out the fish if he's able to get to the tank while the cover is off, and then not actually eat them. Do you have a cat?

No cat, needscoffee. Just a small indifferent dog.

Originally Posted by Sleeps With Butterflies

I'm sorry for your loss

Thank you, Sleeps. We're still trying to make sense of it. I guess 17 years of swimming around in a circle was enough, ...or maybe it was the Tori Amos I played yesterday.

[AClockworkMelon]

Don't think of it that way. For all you know Darryl and Larry have been planning this for years. What's on the other side of the glass? What are those shapes we keep seeing? Those sounds we keep hearing? To steal a line from a favorite book/movie- like the first monkeys shot into space, sacrifices had to be made. Celebrate the bravery of your little explorer.

And buy a lid for your tank.

[Contrapuntal]

Originally Posted by Telemark

He might have been having trouble at school.

Well I liked that, FWIW.

[CWN]

Do not look at it as a suicide, but Darryl's bold and heroic attempt at a better life

[conurepete]

My math tutor was once startled by her entire school of neon tetras leaping from the tank in a mass suicide attempt. She got them a lid.

[needscoffee]

Originally Posted by koeeoaddi

I guess 17 years of swimming around in a circle was enough, ...or maybe it was the Tori Amos I played yesterday.

Why didn't you say that in the first place?!?!

[Edward The Head]

I had an eel that would get out of the tank every so often. I was able to put him back in a couple of times, but he got out one night and the cats got him. Found him in the bathroom with claw marks in him.

[dobieman]

Originally Posted by Edward The Head

I had an eel that would get out of the tank every so often. I was able to put him back in a couple of times, but he got out one night and the cats got him. Found him in the bathroom with claw marks in him.

Well, there's the reason why all these fish seemed to be committing suicide! It suddenly dawns on them one day they are swimming in their own wastes, no matter how efficient the filter, and they want to try and use a proper toilet.
I'd jump, too, if such a realization came to me.

[dobieman]

Originally Posted by Asimovian

My ex and I had a catfish that had a different method of attempted suicide. Jaws had a habit of ramming his head into the side of the tank by swimming at it going full speed. He was not a small fish, and it would make quite the thunk when he did it. He'd just sit there, stunned for a while. And after a few minutes, he'd go back to swimming around calmly.

He was...not normal. (I hope.)

Quite possibly he saw his reflection in the glass and was trying to attack it in a fit of territoriality.

[Anaamika]

I am sorry for your loss. I have had two aquarium pets make a break for it - a small turtle, which I did not find until weeks later, thoroughly dessicated. Why did I not find him? Because he had managed to crawl three rooms away, to the spare room, and hide under a bookshelf. Do you know that he didn't smell at all? I never smelled him, and I do have a fairly good sense of smell.

The other was an electric blue lobster. He managed to climb up the cord for the heater, overnight. We found him quickly, but he was already dead.

Why do they try to escape? Where are they going to go? Food and a predator-free life is here for the taking, you nitwits!

In other news, I have three arbor vitae in my backyard that we have dubbed Larry, Darryl, and Darryl.

[Tangent]

I used to keep aquariums, and this happens occasionally. The first time it happened to one of my fish, I thought the other fish had eaten the missing one. Eventually I found his dessicated little corpse behind the aquarium.

Swordtails are a popular variety that are notorious for jumping out of their tanks.

[Staver808]

Originally Posted by Anaamika

Why do they try to escape? Where are they going to go? Food and a predator-free life is here for the taking, you nitwits!

Any bowl, no matter how free of predators and full of food is still a prison. Oh! To dream of endless depths of the ocean and to swim for an eternity, that is what little goldfish dream of. Well, maybe not the ocean since they'd die in salt water, but probably something similar, you know, without the death part. Well, seeing the result, maybe they do dream of the death part as well, who knows. They are fish after all, maybe it all makes sense to them.

Originally Posted by Anaamika

The other was an electric blue lobster. He managed to climb up the cord for the heater, overnight. We found him quickly, but he was already dead.

I've never heard of someone keeping a lobster as a pet before. How is this done? Is it just in the tank with water? But you said it climbed up the heater cord, so I'm thinking it sounds like the lobster was in a dry tank? I've heard that lobsters can breath air, but I thought they still needed to be wet? How does this work? Why does the lobster need a heater anyway? Don't they live at the bottom of the ocean and it's cold there? I'd think they were used to the cold.

[Anaamika]

So many questions! It's actually a crayfish, and I am trying to find some links on him:

http://ezinearticles.com/?All-About-...ter&id=2978346

This page has some pictures:

http://www.bluecrayfish.com/
http://www.petfish.net/articles/Inve...e_crayfish.php


It needs water, of course, and the water needs to be between 60 and 80 degrees F.


Speaking of escapes - My gecko, on the other hand, shows no interest in trying to escape, except occasionally he will hang off the door and look at us all blase. I keep trying to get a picture but he always falls off before I get the pic. (He's a desert gecko and severely overconfident in his climbing abilities.)

[handsomeharry]

This sort of thing may be suicide...maybe not. Question Larry more thoroughly, try to get inside his head- but don't let on as though you are suspicious. You never know what other skeletons will pop up.

Best wishes,
hh

[Count Blucher]

Originally Posted by handsomeharry

This sort of thing may be suicide...maybe not. Question Larry more thoroughly, try to get inside his head- but don't let on as though you are suspicious. You never know what other skeletons will pop up.

Best wishes,
hh

Wait, the fish is dead, but he's grilling Larry? Dammit, I just can't keep up with this Nouvelle Cuisine...

[gravitycrash]

If my Red Devil Cichlid (his name is Damien) bites my hand one more time while cleaning the tank I might make his demise look like a suicide.

Not really but he is a mean bastard.

[blondebear]

Even a dead fish can still be a good chum.

[Taters]

I had a suicidal paku (kind of a vegetarian Oscar) once. That damn fish was a foot long and afraid of his own shadow. He was constantly banging around the tank and jumping out. It was all well and good until he jumped out while I was at work.

He had the good grace to land on a stack of newspapers which made for easy wrapping and disposal.

[Leaper]

Are you sure it was suicide? Are you sure it wasn't a hit to silence a witness?

[TokyoBayer]

Originally Posted by Leaper

Are you sure it was suicide? Are you sure it wasn't a hit to silence a witness?

Wins best user name to be posting in this thread!

[yuzarsif]

its a clear cut identification of the fact that every organism strives its best to spot out a change in their daily routine living standards , irrespective of the matter that they can end the time line of their life in doing that so. as in gold or other fishes .
but the difference is their the animals brought a very little change in their life after continuous hardship of centuries and gain a little.......but humans achieve peaks after every such an action even a time of a moment..........great humans!!!!

[Zebra]

Did you recently change his diet?

[amanset]

Either Goldie or Fishie did this when I was a kid. Went right down the back of the fridge.

[dogbutler]

Originally Posted by conurepete

My math tutor was once startled by her entire school of neon tetras leaping from the tank in a mass suicide attempt. She got them a lid.

Led by a little neon Jim Jones, I bet.

[Sailboat]

Sorry to hear about that. Years ago, we tried to keep some fish (so-called "feeder" fish, they were some sort of goldfish) and went through a long series of fungal infections eventually leading to the deaths of all of them, despite medicating them and cramming on tank chemistry like I was taking a college course.

On the topic of jumping out -- long ago I read a newspaper account of "Karl the Wonder Trout." He was an older trout kept as a pet at a Fish & Wildlife service breeding facility. He was apparently kept in one side of some kind of tank or trough system that had an aisle down the middle for workers to check on the fish fry, and the staff also had a tank of piranhas as pets. One morning the staff found Karl had leaped out of his enclosure -- but entirely across the aisle into the piranha tank -- where he had apparently proceeded to eat all the piranhas and appropriate their living space.

[lieu]

Tough month for goldfish.

[Hypno-Toad]

Originally Posted by Sailboat

...On the topic of jumping out -- long ago I read a newspaper account of "Karl the Wonder Trout." He was an older trout kept as a pet at a Fish & Wildlife service breeding facility. He was apparently kept in one side of some kind of tank or trough system that had an aisle down the middle for workers to check on the fish fry, and the staff also had a tank of piranhas as pets. One morning the staff found Karl had leaped out of his enclosure -- but entirely across the aisle into the piranha tank -- where he had apparently proceeded to eat all the piranhas and appropriate their living space.

Heard this tale on an episode of Nova: An octopus in an aquatic research lab would climb out of its tank at night, crawl across the room to the crab tank, eat the crabs and then crawl back to his own pad. The only reason the researchers figured out what was happening to their crabs was by leaving a camera in the lab overnight.

[Count Blucher]

Originally Posted by Zebra

Did you recently change his diet?

He jumped for joy!?

Possible last words:

SPOILER:

"Its Bacon!!!! Bacon, bacon, bacon... Oh wait, Goldfish can't Fly...!

[blondebear]

Originally Posted by Sailboat

On the topic of jumping out -- long ago I read a newspaper account of "Karl the Wonder Trout." ...One morning the staff found Karl had leaped out of his enclosure -- but entirely across the aisle into the piranha tank -- where he had apparently proceeded to eat all the piranhas and appropriate their living space.

Heh. A google search turned up a similar story from the Weekly World News: "Tiddles the gobbles up tankful of killer piranhas". (no mention if Tiddles had ever been abducted by aliens)