The Problem with Being a Benevolent God.

22 weeks, 4 days.

Yesterday was a tragic day. I know that there are things in life you can't control and in the end you have no choice but to accept them and move on. Sometimes, life malfunctions. Yesterday was such a day.

Griffin sent me an urgent email: "something is catastrophically wrong with the fish tank....it seems like the filter is not working...what should I do with it? I have no idea how it operates."

Something is wrong? Well, it was much worse than that. I called him and he told me that there were 5 dead fish floating at the top of the tank and that the tank water was hot, like tropical hot. I couldn't think. My fish were dead!?! I love my fish - I created their world, I am their benevolent god, what have I done?

The day before I had done a water change and finally disconnected the extra filter that I had been meaning to get rid of. I had simply put it in the tub to be cleaned and put away later. My tank is a well planted tank and the plants provide a lot of oxygen for the fish. I didn't know what could be happening - how hot was hot? what was with the filter? was there disease in the tank? It was going to be 3 more hours until I could get home to find out.

On the phone I told Griffin to just shut everything down. When in doubt - turn it off. I asked him to stir the water every half hour to help with the oxygen exchange. He sounded almost as upset as I was. It also occurred to me to have him scoop out the dead ones and put them in a bowl of water. I didn't want their dead bodies contaminating the tank and yet, I needed to see them to know if it was a disease attacking them. The rest of the work day went very slowly and then I raced home.

I got home to find another floater. The expletives started pouring out of my mouth, but I quickly got under control. I needed to do something productive now. My head thumped and throbbed. I changed my shirt and got to work. I reattached the old filter to get some more water moving. This filter is simple and noisy. I had gotten it in a pinch when my big filter, a canister that sits under the tank, started leaking right before vacation.

I then pulled out one heater. Seemed fine. I adjusted the temperature to 75 degrees and put it back in. I pulled out the other heater. Something was wrong here. It sizzled as I took it out of the water. It was so hot I couldn't touch it. Well, that explains what happened, at least partially. The water had gotten so warm because something in the heater fried and it just kept getting hotter and hotter.

Griffin also told me that the canister filter seemed to have stopped. I plugged it and sure enough. Nada. I asked him to carry it to the bathtub for me - it was way too heavy for me to carry in my current state - and I disassembled it. I cleaned all the parts, replaced a few elements and put it back together. Before I reconnected it, Griffin spotted a couple of more dead angels. It was so depressing. I scooped them out and added them to the bowl of dead ones beside the tank. I could see their little bellies starting to puff up with gas. They did not die from disease, it was the heat and lack of oxygen that did them in.

After I got the other filter running I sat down to look at the remaining fish. They seemed okay physically, but they were in shock. They hung around near the bottom of the tank in a cluster. I turned off the light and let them relax. Later on in the evening, I tried to feed them. They didn't even look at the food. They seemed to be traumatized. I turned off the light again.

Today, I checked on them in the morning. Not much change. No floaters, but they weren't their usual, greedy selves. I clicked off the light and left for work. When I got home this afternoon, I checked again. The striped angels still have no stripes. They are pale and huddled together. The three black ones are black, but somehow pale too.

Anyone who believes that fish have no feelings, no memory and are just emotionless ornaments has never raised or observed them. My remaining angels are sad. They are frightened. They have post-traumatic-stress-syndrome! I gave them a bit of food and they just picked at it and then went back to their huddle. Normally, these fish live to eat and will beg for food every time I walk by the tank. Now, they don't care about food. They are barely eating just to stay alive.

One of the other survivors was my smallest Clown Loach. I had five of them and all the big ones died. The littlest one had hid for many hours and showed up late last evening. I was happy and surprised to see him. These fish love to hang out and play with a group of their own kind only. Unfortunately, I guess the other fish don't speak their language. The little survivor swam back and fourth in the front of the tank - either he was looking for his tankmates or perhaps he understood what took place and was devastated by their deaths. He was not swimming up and down and round and round in the goofy way loaches usually do.

I also spotted a lone Flag Fish, peeking at me through the grasses. These, too, prefer to live in groups and he looked very lost and frightened. I knew I could not let these fish live alone for long, they have been known to go off their food and die of loneliness. I felt they had suffered enough and must do something for them.

So, today, I ordered some new fish online. I am hoping that a few new lives will help perk up the rest of the tank. They all look so sad. My new fish will come on Thursday, and yes, you can order fish online and have them overnighted to you. It's easier to get better quality fish than going to Petsmart, trust me.

I also ordered a new, top quality heater and a digital thermometer with an alarm for temperature changes above or below a certain degree. There is not much more I can do to prevent another disaster. Some things cannot be predicted or prepared for.

So what have I learned from all of this? Well, that life is unpredictable. I guess I already knew that, but life has a funny way of reinforcing these lessons. No matter how happily and uneventful things may seem to be going along, that can all change in a moment, or in a few hours, days or weeks.

The last four miscarriages all happened in slow motion and in the blink of an eye, but there was nothing I could have done to prevent them and there was no reaction that could have taken them back. Yesterday, I could have screamed and cried and thrown a fit, but it wouldn't have revived my dead fish. All I could do was try to make the survivors comfortable and thank Griffin for all of his help. He felt so bad that so many fish died. I felt lucky that so many fish survived. I feel lucky that I have survived. I know they will recover in time. After a traumatic event we all recover in time.