Final Fish Update

I've had a few posts about our fish and the issues that we had trying to move them from Colorado to Washington. All along, the main concern was the black Ghost Knife. It's an Amazon River fish, and it costs about $20 to buy one. Fortunately, we've had good luck with this breed in the past, in that they tend to live quite awhile. This one was about 3" long when we bought him, and he grew to about 8".When it finally came time to move, Shawn and I decided to buy a 10-gallon tank and put all the fish in it. The movers were then nice enough to put the heavy tank into the backseat of my car. This tank was too small for the number of fish we have, but we figured it was their best chance of surviving the trip. So the entire way to Washington, I had a tank full of fish riding behind me! I had to be really careful every time I drove over a bump (especially getting into and out of parking lots) because I could hear them sloshing around back there. I was also worried about temperature. The Ghost Knife likes warm water, and we couldn't have a heater in the tank. I also realized that they'd have to stay in the car overnight while I slept in Boise...where the low temperature that night was 37! So I covered the tank in a fleece blanket to try to keep them warm.

Once we got here, the fish had to stay in the small tank until a guy came to "uncrate" our big tank. A day or two before we were able to move the fish into the big tank, I told Shawn that I hadn't seen the Ghost Knife in a couple days. I didn't think this was a huge deal...he likes to hide in the rocks and the castle in the tank. Shawn decided to look for him, and he removed the big rock where the fish normally liked to hide. No Ghost Knife. Shawn then turned the rock over...and found the fish. Dead. The Ghost Knife, for whatever reason, had managed to wedge himself into a hole in the rock that was much smaller than he was. We obviously don't know if the thing suffocated once he got stuck, or if he freaked out and gave himself a heart attack, but he was very definitely stuck in the rock, and very definitely dead.

So after all the trouble we went through to get him here, the dang Ghost Knife goes and kills himself in the tank. Stupid fish. At least this one didn't commit suicide by jumping out of the tank while no one was home (like another Ghost Knife did at Shawn's old house a couple years ago). And the rest of the fish are now happily swimming around in the big tank, with clean water, brand new gravel, and even a nice new filter and air pumps.