A few weeks ago, Thomai and the girls gave me a small aquarium and 2 Mollie fish for my birthday. It was a great gift, as I have wanted some pet fish for some time. One fish was a Dalmatian Mollie and the other was a Creamsicle Mollie. I named them "Frank" and "Chloe" (respectively) after an old Daffy Duck cartoon entitled "The Impatient Patient." In the cartoon, Daffy plays a telegram delivery man who has to make a delivery to a customer named Chloe. Chloe lives in a castle that belongs to a mad scientist and when Daffy is first greeted by Chloe, he is surprised to find that Chloe is a giant monster.  Chloe greets him with the words, "Duuh...My name's Chloe.  Let's you and me rassle."  Daffy responds by reading his telegram aloud: "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Chloe, happy birthday to you STOP, Signed Frank N. Stein."  I guess the important thing here is that at least I think this is funny.

Anyway, Frank and Chloe got off to a rough start due to something called new tank syndrome.  The water in our new tank quickly became cloudy and nasty-looking despite the fact that it was fresh tap water and that it was treated with aquarium conditioner.  Within a few days, Chloe died.  This apparently happens from time to time as a result of the new tank syndrome.  Most pet stores have some kind of warranty when you buy fish, but you have to bring in the dead fish with two water samples to start the refund process.  If the death of the fish isn't covered by the terms of the warranty (this is determined through tests run by the pet store), then you're out of luck.  It's kind of a hassle.  So we simply bade Chloe farewell with a very unceremonious flush of the toilet.

Chloe II
Chloe II
We tried to tidy up the tank a bit shortly after Chloe's untimely demise.  We changed out some of the water, scooped some of the crud off of the gravel, and rinsed out the filter while Frank got used to life as a single fish.  But shortly thereafter, we tried our luck again and we introduced another Mollie to the tank.  She was a Gold Dust Mollie and I named her Chloe II.  Chloe II was bullied relentlessly for a few days by Frank who insisted on making it known that he was the boss of the tank. Eventually, things calmed down and Frank and Chloe II began to coexist peacefully.

By this point, a decent film of gunk had accumulated on the floor of the tank and it was clear that the time had come for a thorough tank cleaning.  I purchased a gravel vacuum which was supposed to operate like a siphon, but the vacuum required a significant amount of back and forth movement to begin the siphoning process and the result of this attempt was that I created a much bigger mess than was necessary.  The tank actually became a bigger mess because of all the movement that was needed to get the vacuum running.  I returned the crappy vacuum to the pet store the following day and I got a battery-powered vacuum instead.  The new vacuum seemed to work very well, but after a thorough cleaning, there was quite a bit of debris that was still floating in the tank.  I am now of the opinion that this was the cause of the demise of Frank, who passed away about one day after I had finished cleaning the tank.

The following evening, we took Chloe II out of the tank and put her into a separate bowl and we completely drained and cleaned the tank.  We thoroughly cleaned the gravel and plastic plants and returned Chloe II to her home.  A day or so later, I brought a new Marble Mollie home to join Chloe II.  This time, it was Chloe II's turn to play the part of the "tank bully" and for the rest of the evening, she chased and  badgered Frank II. Frank II died about 24 hours later.

Chloe II is alone again and the water in the tank is now very murky despite our best efforts.  Tonight, I vacuumed out some sludge off the bottom of the tank and I switched out the filter.  She is hanging in there for now, but the odds seem to be stacked against her.  We're going to keep at this until it works.  Who knew it could be this tough to take care of some little fish?