Old Gregg April 8, 2008
Old Gregg was the fish that looked at me on Friday. When I went back on Sunday he was the only one left. We seemed fated to be together.
When we first put him in his tank he seemed fine. After I fed him, though, things changed. He initially spent a lot of time huddled down in a bottom corner of the tank. After a while he changed to hanging out at the top, leaning against either the filter or the heater. When he wasn’t resting against something he tended to list to one side. More than once I’ve thought he was dead. If I put my finger in the tank he won’t move until I touch him. He does move on his own, but rarely.
After reading Joanna’s entry I’ve done a couple of things. I checked the thermometer in the tank with my glasses on and it was indeed a bit warmer than the heater was set to, so I’ve turned the heater down a bit. After following her link (thanks very much for that) I read a bit about swim bladder disorder and, while he’s not upside down, I do wonder if perhaps he does have a slightly dodgy tummy from that first feed. There’s still a bit of food floating around the tank so I’m going to scoop it out and replace some of the water to clean things up a bit. Then I’ll do some more reading on that site.
While I feel bad that Old Gregg is not happy, I’m getting less concerned that he’s going to die any minute. His condition has been basically unchanged for the last 2 days - he hasn’t improved, but he isn’t any worse either - so I’m reasonably optimistic that he’ll hang on while I perfect my betta keeping skills.
