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This is a legitimate rescue story. not like all those people out there who say "I rescued a betta" when in reality the betta was never really sufferring in its temporary pet shop habitat...

anyway..so i went to *moderately sized pet store chain* tonight to pick up some food for my cichlids and a bio bag...but being a fish addict, i had to take a look in their small aquatics section. I took a look at these tanks and they looked very unhealthy and it seemed there was a dead fish like in every other tank...

so i took a look in the gold fish tank, and on the bottom saw a very gruesome sight. There was this little fan tail gold fish..probably about an inch long....its eyes completely both missing, fins...threads, and its mouth not even in tact. and not to mention, visible blood clots in its sides could be seen through its skin...and not to mention, some of the skin on its back can be seen peeled off and hanging off of it. I thought to myself "ew, look at that nasty dead fish!"

the horrifying part was when i looked a little closer....i looked in its mouth, and a loosely hanging piece of flesh inside its mouth was moving back and forth. ....i thought to myself "there is no way this thing is alive...that has to be the water current or something"...but i watched it for about a minute...and sure enough, it was breathing...and it would even swim periodically...i was pretty horrified at this moment, and ill even admit that a tear came to my eye. it was sad to see this victim suffering.

so i went over and asked the manager if i could adopt it. and she looked at it and was like "oh my god!...yeah definitely" so they gave it to me for free.

its still breathing. i tried feeding it, and it didnt really do much...i set up a 2.5 gallon tank for it, added some stress coat, some aeration, some TLC (same thing as Cycle), and threw in a handfull of gravel from another cycled tank, so that the good bacteria can grip onto it. i highly doubt its going to make it through the night, but at least it will die in peace, alone, and not getting beat to death as it was in the other tank. poor thing. im going to say a prayer for it tonight. if it survives the night, im going to pick up some antibiotics tomorrow for it. it will probably be a waste of money, but at least it will buy me some hope.

:-(

ive already decided that if it survives and recovers...slim chance...im gonna name it "Blinky"...cuz it will be like a joke since it has no eyes.

~*~ Caviar? no thanks! ~*~

so i just went downstairs and checked on it...i think its already dead..



~*~ Caviar? no thanks! ~*~

That story makes me sad, I will say a little prayer for Blinky... I dont know if fish have feelings and all that stuff, but I hate to hear about that kind of suffering, it cannot be a happy time for the fish...

yeah...i just flushed him...already. :-(
but im gonna say a prayer for him anyway so that he has a nice afterlife in goldfish heaven.

~*~ Caviar? no thanks! ~*~

wow. I have so much respect for you after hearing that story. If I ever come across a fish like that, I'm going to do the same thing that you did.
I'll pray for Blinky and ask God to bless you for the amazing thing that you did.

1 Ocellaris Clown: $14.95...1 Pink Dottyback: $12.99...1 Three Striped Damsel: $4.50...1 Blue Velvet Damsel: $8.95
The Problems that come with them: Priceless

Ah well , thats the way it goes sometimes.At least you tried.

I'm pretty sure keeping fish in that condition contravenes a law or two, even for a pet distributor. This is after all, prolonged animal sufferring. Perhaps its time for the local animal welfare agency to take a little look at that shop. Anonymous phone tipoff maybe?

Yeah, it's definitely saying something if you said that you saw multiple tanks in bad conditions. Try to find number you can call. haha like a fishy ASPCA

1 Ocellaris Clown: $14.95...1 Pink Dottyback: $12.99...1 Three Striped Damsel: $4.50...1 Blue Velvet Damsel: $8.95
The Problems that come with them: Priceless

i think your story is very sad but on the bright side it did help me dicide on a name for my new goldfish*blinky* mind if i use it? i will take great kare of him and never let him die(last gold fish was 5 when we gave him away)

33 gallon 7 neon tetras-5 platys-3 bleeding heart tetras-2 corys-1 rainbow shark-2 L83 gibby plecos