When we moved into our house, the folks who we bought it from left behind a tank and five goldfish. The "leader of the pack" of these fish was a cool guy we named Roger.
The first summer we had the fish, two of the five died. Roger thrived though, him and Skid and Mojo (the other two) seemed to be doing really well.
As you may know, goldfish love to dig around in the gravel in the tank. They are looking for stray bits of food and they pick the rocks up with their mouth and spit them out again, with a fair bit of force at times. Roger loved to do this, he did it so much and with such vigor that he injured his mouth last year. Eventually it healed but he did it again earlier this summer. This time though, it never really healed properly.
While nursing the injured mouth, he developed a fungal infection. We isolated him from the other fish about 10 days ago. Mark started treating his fungal infection and while he still had his appetite, Roger was a really sick guy.
This morning when I went to feed him, I discovered that Roger had died through the night. We're both a little sad about this. I said to Mark that we could have taken him out of the big tank last summer and let him live in a gravel free zone. Now, that may have allowed him to live longer but would he have been happier? Without friends to play with and rocks to throw around, he might be healthy but he might also be miserable and lonely.
Anyway, I just felt like I should tell you all a little bit about Roger because he was a really cool fish and I know that we're gonna miss him.
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