The Corruption and Demise of SharkBoy

We have an aquarium. Steve gave it to me as a birthday present a little over two years ago. As with most new aquarium owners, we went through our share of fish dying. Luckily, the downstairs bathroom is directly opposite the aquarium, so the fishy Viking funerals were short and sweet. I'd say perhaps half a dozen fish came and went until we got the tank truly stabilized and the fish population healthy.

As I said to Steve, the nice thing about owning fish is you don't get particularly attached to them as pets. You can't stroke them, they don't make noises at you and they don't blink or rub up against you. So when one of them just doesn't make it, it's not an emotional tribulation. And then there was SharkBoy.

SharkBoy was a Bala Shark, more correctly known as Balantiocheilos melanopterus. We didn't know a whole lot about him when we got him, just that he was nice and silvery and about an inch long. We added him to the tank and he grew...and grew...and grew. Here's a shot of the tank from about a year ago, with an inset of just how big SharkBoy had gotten.

At one point we had gotten five little neons, thinking to add a small school of fish to the tank. One by one they mysteriously disappeared. And SharkBoy got larger. And the larger he got, the more confining the tank space was, and the edgier he got. It is not true that fish stop growing if the tank is small. SharkBoy grew and as he began to feel claustrophobic, he took to leaping out of the water and banging up against the glass top of the aquarium.

Recently, SharkBoy had dominated the tank, both visually and societally. We had a couple algae-eaters that just disappeared, and it's not like they can use a secret passage to escape from the tank. There was only one place they could go. We went to the aquarium store and asked if they would take SharkBoy back and resell him. They said no. We were stuck with him.

Then, last Saturday, Steve was checking for the two new algae-eaters he had purchased. They had large, splayed heads that would not easily fit down SharkBoy's gullet. We found the first one, but the second one, or shall I say the remains of the second one, half-eaten, were floating near the filter intake. More fleshy remnants waved among the plant leaves. A line had been crossed. We both knew it, though neither of us spoke a word.

Steve got out the net and opened the top of the tank. As he placed the net in, SharkBoy leapt up and over, falling six feet down onto the landing of the garage stairs then flopped, Slinky-like, stair by stair, ending next to the catbox. Steve flew down the stairs, got SharkBoy securely in the net and brought him up, where we took him to the bathroom, ready for his execution. Steve plopped him in the toilet and flushed.

But SharkBoy was just too damn big. He did not go easily into the whirlpool of death. I slammed the lid as he flopped and jumped. It was something from the Twilight Zone, this thing knocking against the toilet seat while we waited for the tank to refill. I got a plastic bag, put it over my hand and flipped open the lid. I pushed down, confining SharkBoy to the bottom of the bowl and flushed. I held the bag in place while the tank refilled. I flushed again. I removed the bag as the tank refilled a third time, then I flushed once more. All was peaceful.

Then, as I pulled the bag off my hand, from the corner of my eye I saw his head re-emerge in the bowl. "Oh, shit!" I screamed, "He's back!" I put the bag back on my hand, grabbed SharkBoy firmly around the body, inverted the bag and tied him inside and into the trash he went. I told Steve, "If you hear some flopping around in the kitchen, just ignore it." His response was, "I think I'll take the trash out."

Neither of us felt good about what we did, but it was a matter of reclaiming the aquarium. We're planning on getting some schooling fish now, little ones, that will bring back the peaceful and calming experience of watching a miniature underwater world in the living room. Rest in Peace, SharkBoy, you pushy little bastard.

In preparing the above photo for this confession/exposé, I checked online, and it turns out that, in their native Thailand, fish like SharkBoy are good eatin' fish. And damn if SharkBoy wouldn't have filled a small bun once he was filleted. But I don't think I want to consider the trauma of that experience.