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.
Goldfish occasionally jump out of their tanks for a number of reasons: http://www.goldfish-emergency.com/viewpage.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.
He might have been having trouble at school.
Were you watching Nemo last night?
Or Free Willy?
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! :eek: 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?
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.
I blame cyberbullying.
Goldfish can live 17 years? Wow.
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.
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!
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.
I’m sorry for your loss
I tired to be supportive.
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?
You couldn’t put a screen over the tank?
That was my thought. Have you questioned the cat- “Where were you last night after midnight, Fluffy??”
