I am thoroughly bummed out.
Last Friday, I fed the apurensis cat as usual; he seized the rear half of a frozen/thawed mackerel with his usual gusto and gulped it down. I then sat down in front of my goldfish tank to do a water change (valves and pumps, no actual work involved) and make a few phone calls. An hour or so later, I was done, stood up to leave...and spotted the catfish lying uncharacteristically in the open on the bottom of his tank. Just didn't look right...checked more closely...and he was stone dead.
l literally could not believe my eyes. I went so far as to leave him untouched, in case he was in some sort of stupor and might recover. He had no outward signs of damage or trauma, but was simply completely unresponsive. I tested the water, something I don't do often, and found all readings as expected; nitrates were about 5ppm, temp. 75F, ammonia/nitrite undetectable. He had a roughly 90% water change three days before...just like all the numerous other near-total water changes I have done throughout his life with me. Nothing was done differently, all conditions, parameters and other factors very typical.
I was in such complete disbelief that, after moving him back and forth in the water to ensure that oxygenated water was reaching his gills, I simply left the room. Checked several times over the next 30 minutes, but it became obvious that he was gone; within an hour he was beginning to bloat and floated to the surface, belly-up.
This fish wasn't a pet... he was a fish. Heartless fiend that I am, I don't "love" my fish; I respect them as living creatures but there is no emotional attachment as would exist with a dog, a cat, a bird. But, wow...I was and am so pissed off that I avoided even posting till now. I had him for less than 4 years; my only other experience with the species was an individual that I kept for over ten years, and who went on to live with a couple of other keepers for something like another twenty years. This guy was, if not a baby, still a very young fish. I measured his carcass at a hair over 21 inches, a bit bigger than I would have thought. Didn't weigh him, but he was neither obese nor thin; I feed well but don't "power-feed" and don't strive for maximum growth in minimum time. He "seemed" perfectly healthy...and went from acting perfectly normal to being stone dead within the span of an hour, and possibly much less.
I did a quick-and-dirty necropsy, pretty much the same as if I were gutting the fish in preparation for cooking. Couldn't see anything that my untrained eye recognized as a problem. If this were a fish I had caught and planned on eating, I would have said he was perfectly healthy and perfectly edible. Buried him in the corner of the yard; not a funeral, just an attempt at recycling without risking contamination of the environment with exotic pathogens.
Totally. Bummed. Out.
