Requiem for Betta Fish

I like fish tanks. The calm burbling of the filter and a the flicker of a fish as it goes about its business in the minute, watery world. When my daughter wanted a pet of her own, the two family dogs not counting as personal pets, I gently steered her towards a fish tank and a few brightly colored guppies. She wanted a betta. We purchased our first, a brilliant red like a living ruby. At first, he lived in a betta tank, a dismal set up designed to provide nothing that a fish could find the least bit attractive. So we upgraded to a five gallon tank, complete with heater (a necessity for a tropical fish living at 7200 feet), filter and tank art.

It was then we discovered a few facts not included in the betta books. He was curious and alert to any movement outside the tank. He liked to hide in the tank art, popping out of the fake coral to peer through the glass at the great blurry things that moved without his kingdom. When we exchanged it for tank art with fake plants, he would wedge himself under the plants and watch. We added a few companions to the tank; two sucker fish and two crabs. We had been warned that the betta might attack the sucker fish, but we had more issues with the sucker fish chasing the betta around the tank and the crabs grabbing at his trailing fins.

The crabs vanished first. They had taken up residence in the filter where the supply of algae was thick for a crab's delectation. Then they vanished completely. At the same time, dog Shep had remarkably fishy breath. Sushi, anyone? Eventually, the betta got sick, slowly sinking to the bottom of the tank, and drifting aimlessly in the current of the filter. We buried him under a cairn near a lilac bush since the ground was too frozen to dig. The next summer, the lilac bloomed with a showy display of purple flowers.

The next betta was a tiny one, half the size of our first betta, and a brilliant blue. My daughter was certain that he would change colors to match the picture of the fish on the betta food container. But he remained blue, deepening to almost black. He was not quite as curious as the red fish, but he would investigate anything dropped into his tank. The clam shell with a hole in it was especially popular. The blue betta spent hours popping in and out of the hole. After a year, the blue betta got sick as well, collapsed on the bottom of the tank, head lifted and gills fluttering in a desperate attempt to get enough oxygen to live. Like the first, he was buried outside under the lilac, a second cairn joining the first, since again the ground was frozen hard.

The tank is barren now, only the seemingly indestructible sucker fish making an occasional foray across the bottom or hanging from mouth pressed firmly to the glass. The tank is an empty reminder of its former occupants, flitting blue or red through the water. Eventually, we'll replace the betta fish with another, and the tank will glisten with life yet again, as a fish lives out its short life in jewel-like colors.