[RML] tragedy, or why are fish so dumb

Piabinha at aol.com
Fri, 11 Dec 1998 21:16:48 EST

i just had a tragedy and i'm rather upset about it. thinking of treating my
fish, i bought some small crickets for my 29 gallon tank which houses congo
tetras, boesemani rainbows and betta pugnax. i normally don't feed fish any
live foods, but i went to the store and got some blackworms and small crickets
today. after i fed them, i turned to my living room to feed other tanks.

when i came back to look at it, the big male boesmani was lying on its back at
the bottom of the tank. i immediately knew what was going on: the dumb fish
had swallowed a cricket and was choking. since i don't know how to perform
the heimlich maneuver on a fish, i couldn't do anything but watch it die.

i'm really upset. why are fish so dumb? can't they judge how big a morsel
is? i have lost 2 catfish in the past (a giraffe cat and a debauwi) who had
also swallowed food that was too big for them...

tsuh yang