We clean out your nice little tank before we go to Kentucky for Christmas. You had clean water and plenty of food, thanks to the vacation feeder. We even had my MIL drive a whole hour and a half to our house just to check on you guys.
You were waiting until we left the house for a few days to attack Sheba (the Betta fish), right? You three always seem to have gotten along. We specifically got a girl Betta so there wouldn’t be any fighting.
But nooooooo. You guys just couldn’t behave, could you? We come home to find Sheba MISSING from the tank. After some prodding, we find her under the vacation feeder, DEAD, and her FINS had been chewed off!!!
WTF? You chewed her FINS? And don’t sit there and mouth your little fish mouths at me, you know darn well she couldn’t have chewed them off herself! And don’t give me the “we were hungry” routine, you were well fed the entire time.
I’m mad at the two of you and I’m tempted to flush you little bastards! She was a good little fish and never did you assholes any harm!
I move the cases against Nathan and David be dismissed on the grounds that thier puny fish minds cannot comprehend the extreme and grievous nature of thier act.
SnoopyFan, it’s possible that the fin-chewing occurred post-mortem, and that Nathan and David are only guilty of desecration of a corpse, not ichthyocide. Goldfish and bettas are not really a good mix, thermally-speaking, because goldfish prefer cooler water temperatures, and bettas need warm water. Possibly Sheba died of natural causes, and Nathan and David were just pecking at her fins in an effort to revive her…
Male bettas mostly attack only other male bettas, but will often nip at anything with longer fins. Are your goldfish the long finned variety?
My guess is what gluteus said. Any fish will bite at another fish that is sick or dying. Bettas don’t have a very long lifespan so she could have just died of old age. Could be a number of reasons.
I’ve had two male betas for about four years now and am sort of on autopilot care-wise, but when I first got them all the books and sites I read said that while it was possible to have them in a mixed tank you had to watch the tank like a hawk. Either the beta or the others, depending upon fishy politics, could become lunch at the drop of a hat.
Poor little Sheba, she ain’t comin’ back… where’s the sad smiley when you need one?
I have been retained by Mr. Nathan* to defend him against these outrageous charges. Mr. Nathan wishes to enter a plea of “not guilty.”
I would also make a motion to throw out any testimony given by Mr. SnoopyFan, the key investigator in this case. Mr. SnoopyFan has a long history of favoritism towards the CANINE species and, by his own words above, an extreme predudice against goldfish. I will prove how every piece of damning evidence against my client was collected by this known goldfish hater, and as such is tainted.
I will also illustrate how Mr. SnoopyFan in his single-minded, zealous pursuit against my clients due to his foregone conclusions regarding their guilt, failed to pursue leads relating to my clients’ claim that a band of marauding piranhas was seen in the vicinity of Ms. Sheba’s abode shortly before the discovery of her body.
I will also show that the crime scene was so corrupted by Mr. SnoopyFan’s flea-bitten and filth-encrusted hands in his zeal to recover the body that any evidence linking him to the victim (like, oh, say, dental impressions) must be DISREGARDED! He admitted as such right here in the pit: “After some prodding…”
It’s in the Pit
You must acquit!
Respectfully submitted and hopefully time stamped,
PunditLisa
*who is too stupid to realize that I am not an attorney
I’m with gluteus maximus in thinking the chewing happened after the fact. Perhaps Sheba gorged herself on the vacation feeder.
I am sorry you lost your beta. I once had a very cool girl baby who was purchased from a science class that used her in an experiment. I encouraged her to make baby bettas with a handsome blue betta named Boniface. She was more into chewing on Boniface, however. She bit off his fins whenever she had a chance. I had to pull them apart when she started sinking her little betta teeth into his side. Boniface made lots of nests but he never got to use them for eggs.