Antarctica Starts Here.

We lost another fish sometime today. Sidhe, the betta that used to live in the library, had taken ill late last week, swimming in an irregular manner (or should I say corkscrewing through the water crazily) and ignoring his food. This happened a couple of months ago with Ghost, who used to live in a bowl on my workbench in the office. This weekend he took to floating upright in the water, as if standing straight up on the tip of his tail. He still wasn't eating by the time I left for work this morning.

When Lyssa and I got home tonight from the allergist's office, Sidhe was floating dead on the bottom of his bowl, gills flared, quite dead. We think that it was old age and a blockage of some kind causing swim bladder disease, a common killer of bettas.

Lyssa thinks that it is because we can't have more than three bettas at a time in the apartment. Bettas are bred for a) beauty and b) viciousness. We know for certain that the betta Eris hates all carbon based lifeforms with a passion; he even went after Jean's dog, Chandler, when he tried to drink out of his bowl. The ambient levels of piscine hatred are such that if there are more than three bettas in the apartment at any time, the weakest will wither and die.

I'm starting to think that she's right.