The sign we put on the tank said Hi! My name is Jags! I like
People but I don’t like them to tap on my tank!
If that is true then
I’m not a person because that fish hated my guts and I’ve got scars to
prove it. That’s okay, I never liked him either (her they said,
she doesn’t like you because you never feed her). As far
as I was concerned he could starve to death before he
extracted another drop of my blood. He bit right through my
fingernail one day and it took six months to heal. Customers would ask
how old it was and I would just pick a number at random. They asked if
it was a male and I said yes (everyone else said no). They asked how
long we’d had it. I’d reply that I’d Had It with that fish for
years. In my boss’s mind it was always five years old but even he
can’t remember where it came from or when we got it. It seemed that it
had always been in that 35 gallon tank on the top next to the
Discus. For a time it had a tank-mate, a Cichlasoma dovii which
snuck out from time to time and bit off pieces of its tail. To me that
provided good evidence of its gender because I couldn’t imagine a
large female cichlid tolerating such abuse from a male half her
size. People would bring their friends in to see it and on rare
occasion I would stick a turkey-baster into the tank to see how far
his teeth could dig into it.
That kind of frivolity ended when he approached the
twelve-inch range and responded to tank-tapping by blasting the glass
top off of his tank onto the feet of the offending customer. I
cleaned up the broken glass but didn’t replace it. Within a few months
he (or she as others would insist) came to realize that it was quite
easy to flip a a half-gallon of water onto the head of any person she
(I would say he) found annoying. This was often myself or a
young male so I naturally assumed that she(?) was a sexist and still
harbored a deep resentment toward me because I refused to feed her
(it). Certain people were regular targets but women and children
seemed to be immune from the cichlid’s baptismal rites. Many times the
fish leaped from the water in an effort to get hold of me and more
than once I swore out loud in an unprofessional manner. I narrowed the
field of offenders to fans of the San Francisco football team and
myself. My boss suggested that Jags might find brightly-colored
baseball hats and bald-spots intrusive. None of this could be verified
because Jags was shortly thereafter moved to larger quarters, not
because her (his) health was in jeopardy but because we got tired of
people asking Isn’t that fish too big for that tank?
So Jags got her(his) own 60 gallon tank. Jags broke the tank. We (not me) moved Jags to another tank, acrylic this time. She(he) did well in that tank and Jackie Bergstrom and Kellie Greer kept it mollified by talking to it and feeding it daily. I kept my distance and stayed relatively dry. After closing time Jags would tear the airline tubing loose and wrap it around the wood ornaments and drag them about the tank. I pretended not to notice, even when she gripped the airstone in her (his) teeth and struck it against the sides of the tank.
I wouldn’t clean algae out of that tank to save my life so my boss found a 12-inch Plecostomus to do the job. Jags thought it was a chew-toy. We sectioned the tank off with a large piece of glass, thinking that the two might become friends later on when the Pleco had time to heal and find a place to hide.
Next morning, 10:00 A.M.: I open the shop. I start turning on the lights, etc.
10:02: I hang up my coat and start to check the fish.
10:04 Walking toward the bathroom I see a fish on the floor. It’s Jags. There are scales around it. The fish is dry and seems rigid. I panic. I peel off my sweater (that my sister gave me for Christmas), dunk it in the nearest fish-tank and wrap it around the jaguar as I carry it to an aquarium (home to a pair of Oscars). No movement by the fish.
10:05: The fish is wet and I pry its gills open to get some water in them. Bubbles come out. I use a swear word (see above).
10:06: Avoiding the teeth I force the jaw open and attempt to get water moving past the gills. I think I see one of the eyes move.
10:08: I let go of the fish and take an air line from a neighboring tank to get more oxygen near Jags face. I try to force water through the gills by squeezing them shut and then gently prying them open
10:09: Possible movement, I’m not sure. Started draining the tank and running fresh, aged water into it. Male Oscar comes over to investigate but doesn’t interfere.
10:10: No noticeable movement. I continue pumping
the gills and
moving the fish through the water. I decide to hold the fish’s mouth
up to the powerhead to get water flowing through the gills. Trying to
remember the location of the heart in a cichlid I apply gentle
rhythmic pressure to the area between the ventral fins.
10:13: Fish bites down on outlet of powerhead. I squeeze gills shut and they flex open. I check the clock...it’s 10:13. I take out a pen and write this down on the back of my hand. I lightly massage the body to encourage the blood circulation.
10:26: The fish gasps occasionally but stops breathing if I don’t stimulate it. Powerhead seems to encourage some type of gagging reflex which I think is good.
10:32:Customer comes in. I tell him we’re not open yet, to come back later. Fish shows signs of breathing on his(her) own.
10:38: Fish is breathing. I let it float by the airstone near the powerhead outflow. I discontinue the water-change and add some stress-coat to the water. The Oscars think we’re having a party but they stay out of the way.
10:40: Pectoral fins are moving! Fish is unable to right itself so I move it around a bit from time to time.
10:43: Phone rings and I answer it. No, we don’t sell birds. No, not bird food either. I put my sweater in the sink and try to rinse out some of the rust stains.
11:00: Tell this whole story to Jackie and Bruce as they come in. Go about my regular work.
11:30: Jags is breathing well and moving her pectoral fins and the anal fin (I think). I consider adding salt to relieve the osmotic stress due to the damage to her slime coat but decide against it.
12:00: Erik and Kathy come in, look at fish, and mention something
about Against All Odds
articles for the G.S.A.S
newsletter. Nothing comes to mind. I excuse myself and go to
lunch.
12:45: Back from lunch. Jags didn’t make it. I think she could have used some salt, maybe some methylene blue as well.
I took her home. I don’t know why. I thought of taxidermy but in the end I buried her under a dogwood tree in the back yard. She measured 15 inches when she died. I was going to dissect her and prove to everyone that she was really a male, but there didn’t seem to be much point.
And I never did like that fish anyway