the old man of the tank
When I got up this morning and went to feed the fish, I wasn’t expecting to discover it was the end of an era.
My nine year old male cherry barb (pictured as the blur to the right in the above photo) finally succumbed to old age. This guy was really my success story – he lived through all my early aquarium mistakes, and kept on kicking. He outlived two harems of females, and finally settled into cranky retirement, staking out a corner of the tank and chasing all of the young whipper-snappers away when the got too close. He kept a nice bright red color (a sign of happiness and health) right up until the end.
I’m sad to see him go – he as an institution in my tanks. However, he lived a long life, more than twice what all the posted estimates say. If he had been able to read, he’d have seen that “four years in captivity” business and went “bah!” while shaking his cane in his gnarled fin.
See ya, little dude.
