Need advice from a Mom ...and Lu

[BettyBetta]

Okay, so everything had been going great. Our fish (who actually was my son's) was thriving. Happy little swimming fish.
The tank had been set up as prescribed by this fine team. NIce size tank, big enough to play in, sponge filter, live plant, aquarium salt in the water, the recommended food, smallest heater. Like I said, everything was working fine, till yesterday. Not sure what happened, I came home from Christmas shopping. He was dead. My heater must have shorted, water was too hot! It was just horrible just horrible.
My question, do I tell my son or just try to replace it??
Lu, what happened to the heater?? So tragic.

[hvincent]

I personally think replacing a pet that died without telling the kid is a pretty cruel and deceitful thing to do; what if he notices the difference and asks about it? Pets die; it's a fact of life that your son should learn if he's going to have other pets. I don't know how old he is, but wouldn't this be a good way to teach him about how to treat the death of a pet? Respect it, mourn it, and move on; accidents sometimes happen and sometimes things are just out of our control. I'm very sorry to hear that your fish died as the result of one, but I personally just take that as another reminder that lives are pretty fragile sometimes, including our own. My own fish is being treated for an illness right now and all I can really do is cross my fingers and hope he gets better.

Anyway, I don't mean to rant about this, but my mother pulled tricks like this one me when I was too young to know better and I was furious with her once I was old enough to figure out what happened. I don't believe in lying to children for the sake of protecting them from sadness; letting them experience basic human emotions is a great way to let them grow.

It's your choice what you end up doing with your son's fish, so I don't want to tell you that you absolutely should not just replace it and pretend nothing happened. This is just an issue that I feel pretty strongly about. I hope whatever you do turns out alright!

As for the heater, sometimes they just have an electrical fault without much reason. I keep the heater for my snake enclosure closely monitored and I just picked up a thermostat for it the other day; it has a temperature probe that you can attach to the heater and set the temperature you want, so if something goes wrong with the heater and the temperature rises dangerously, the thermostat will just cut the power. It's a generic thermostat that you can get at hardware/home improvement stores, but I've never really heard of people using the same thing for fish tanks. My betta's tank keeps a spot-on 80F temperature all on its own, so I don't really have any experience with heating fish tanks.

[BettyBetta]

Thanks for the advice. You're right. You think I'd know better, I'm a Hopice nurse. We have experienced the death of a pet before. We lost a tortoise that was part of our family for eight years. We had little prayer service and made a nice cement stone for her site.
It just really shook me up, I thought I was doing everything right.

[hvincent]

Sometimes you try and do everything right, but something still goes wrong It doesn't sound like it's anything you could have prevented or have been better prepared for if it was just a freak accident like that.

[mdellasalla]

You may have been. The heater faulting wasn't because of you! If it was one of those large heaters with the dial and the temperatures on it, those don't keep it at the temperature you set unless it is a super fancy super expensive one. I have to set mine at 76 to make the tank 80. You just have to test out the heater before you add the fish.

[bettalvr]

BettyBetta, do not beat yourself up. It's definitely sounds like you took all the precautions and really tried to do what was best. As everyone has stated, tragedies happen regardless.

As for you knowing what to do, remember. . .sometimes we're so close to a situation that our professional skills don't always kick in immediately. You know how to handle this probably better than most. . . it's just harder when it's your own family, especially a child.

[BettyBetta]

I appreciate all your kind words. Still, I'm sure you're like me. YOu'll always wonder if you could of/should of..
Anyway, you're right, when it your own kid, its harder.
By the way, I told my son. Was very sad.

[Oscar Betta]

Awwwwww, thats too bad that his betta died

[bettalvr]

BettyBetta, unfortunately what you're doing is natural for most of us. . . always shoulda, coulda, woulda syndrome. But you did all that you could. There's really no way you could have known that about your heater.
My heart goes out to your and your son. I know it was/is hard. You're in my thoughts!

[mdellasalla]

Yeah at least you went and got him a nice tank large enough for your fish and a heater! So many people (including myself a few months back) don't even realize bettas need a heater, so you did better by your fish than most

make sure you clean out the old tank very well before you get a new fish just in case he had something you didn't notice.