My least pragmatic moment ever...

[snakeynewbie]

Wow how stressful. Tonight i went downto get my sons bed sorted ut and was horrified to see the tank of his much adored axylotyl 'Swimmy' a telling murky colour. My worst fears were confirmed upon looking into the tank and touching the tank i knew exact,y what had happened it was so hot.

Initially i assumed the heater(which was only in there set at 22 simply to maintain a couple of guppies that already lived in the tank) had malfunctioned and switched it off imediately. But on closer ipnspection it was set at the highest setting and I now realise that my oldest who has a disability probably fiddled with it(he is obsessesed with gadgets, buttons, switches, etc).

I'm so heartbroken for my little fella who only got Swimmy for his 5th birthday about a month ago and has been so careful about taking great care of him, making sure hes fed and sits and chats to him. Hes such a quite little fella who so often is the target of his older brothers hassling and I cant bare to tell him that Swimmy has gone.

So in a seriously non-pragmatic moment I told a white lie and put him to bed in my room, I've cleaned and scrubbed the entire tank, refilled and added cycle and tomorrow I'm going to try to replace Swimmy without letting on. It's not my style at all but he doesn't deserve this...

 

[woody101]

Sorry to hear about Swimmy

 

[saximus]

I don't envy you. I've always thought that would be a seriously tough part about kids with pets. This is one of those times when lying is ok in my book

 

[snakeynewbie]

I'm normally very pragmatic about it, when the kids pet rabbit died of old age we buried him in the garden, talked about death and the universe, etc. this is different though and all i can think is that if i tell him what happened he'll blame his brother and it will further damage their already fraught relationship and if i dont tell him it was his brother he would blame himself unnecessarily.

 

[Em1986]

sorry to hear of the loss.
Just be very careful with the water because it hasn't really been aged and they don't have scales so are more sensative to water conditions. Maybe ask the pet shop (if you get a replacement from a shop) if you can please get a bag of water from the tank they have kept their's in (a separate bag to the axylotyl) and mix it with the fresh water you have now filled the tank with just to try to help the condition of the water a bit.
I hope you get a replacement and everything turns out well.

 

[SteveNT]

I'm with you. Good plan. So sorry.

 

[snakeynewbie]

I've used cycle in the tank which will condition the water and also add good bacteria so it should be ok, its quite a large tank so the chance of water chemistry issues is low.

 

[nagini-baby]

wow. thats a bummer. hope it all turns out well in the end.

 

[Bel03]

I know how u feel! Im usually the same, very honest with the kids about death etc. However when my son's guinea pig died, (he was almost 5yrs old, so it was just 'old age') Izaiah was heartbroken, he literally cried & cried for days after we buried it.........so when his cockatiel died........i replaced it before he realised. I just wasnt ready to go through all the tears again I hope all goes smoothly for u & u get his new pet without a hitch!

 

[snakeynewbie]

Thanks guys, just waiting for 9am ow so i can ring the pet shop. Unfortunately where we live there are veryfew pet shops as we arent in the big city so hoping that our local has a white one in stock, they usually order one when they do their fish order so just comes down to whether anyone has already bought it this week, hope not!

 

[PythonLegs]

Couple of things for you for the future- walking fish originate from cave systems, they have no need of any heat at all..they tend to struggle at room temperature here in brisbane.

They're very sensitive of water conditions, and tend to lose their gills in even slightly dirty water. The gills grow back, but it's a good warning that you need to do a 25% water change asap. If you can find a product mde by seachem called 'prime', this is what should be added to water before putting it in the aquarium..amazing stuff.

Also..when ours died I added a load of malachite green medication to the water. It makes the water dark green and lasts a few days. That way he's not gone, but he's hard to see with all the medication. Ahhh, kids. So gullible.

 

[snakeynewbie]

The heater wasn't here for the axylotyl it was onlyto keep a couple of leftover guppies happy. Now that they are gone I've removed the heater anyway so it won't be an issue anymore. The water in tank was sparkling it only went murky because he died and I didn't realize until he started to foul the tank water. He does an excellent job of caring for his pet so I'm not always in his room checking up and with the tank being so hot it didnt take long to go from dead critter to foul tank. Mondays and tuesdays are the only two days he attends childcare all day and therefore doesnt spend much time with swimmy or he might have realised sooner that there we problems.


Anyway operation Swimmy is complete, i managed to distract him long enough to put the new one in when we got home as well as a couple of white cloud minnows to replace the fish and got it donpe before he realised. He went racing down to see Swimmy and commented onnhow much hes grown, this guys a little bigger than Swimmy, lucky hes not old enough yet to realise that axylotyls dont grow by 4 centimetres overnight. :lol:

 

[Nighthawk]

I'm glad it all worked out; I would have done the same thing. Poor little guy.

 

[Bel03]

:lol: Isnt it great how kids minds work! My son asked why his bird was no longer talking.......i told him it had a sore throat, & then spent ALOT of time getting his new bird to say the same things his old one could! So glad it all worked out for you in the end, it sure does beat having a broken hearted baby!