Guilty Guppy

On the second morning of my new aquarium, the water was clear, the sand smooth, and one of the two powder blue dwarf gouramis with its iridescent red tiger stripes sank dead.  

Just two days ago, I’d felt excited as I filled the new tank with water. This was going to be a joyous little community of swaying leaves and swimming colors. It’d been a few years since I’d had a fish tank, and I’d learned a lot, so this was going to be my best aquarium yet — only real plants and non-aggressive fish. This was going to be a tank of ease. For me. For the fish.

But already there was a foggy-eyed gourami motionless at the bottom. As I examined its inactivity, I felt a commensurate amount of pity arise for both the deceased and me. Grabbing a Ziploc bag in one hand and a small fish net in the other, I sighed and took to the task of body retrieval. As the net entered the underwater world, the nine living fish of the aquarium sprinted to the opposite side. Most of them jostled for spots behind placid pennywort, but there were two exceptions: the Black Mystery snail, who kept right on snailing as if nothing mysterious were happening at all, and one of the two male guppies. 

Instead of hiding, this gumptious fish interrogated the net by swimming straight at it. After his charged burst, he quickly retreated, only to charge and retreat again. The net ignored his attacks. This irked the guppy, made him more insistent. Again, he flapped his flared red tail and charged, charged, charged.

Unfazed by the attacks, the net swooped along the sand and, in one upward motion, scooped up the gourami’s corpse. The net’s swift movement sent a swirl of water curling around and through the ornamental log in the center of the tank. The swirl was enough of a commotion to coerce another corpse — this one a lyre-tailed molly — to emerge from one open end of the wood-like decoration. She came out sideways.

Two deaths in one night. Two. In less than twenty-four hours, twenty percent of this dorsal-ed community was now Ziplocked.

I surveyed the tank, searching for obvious clues. Having recovered from the net’s intrusive presence, the eight survivors now swam steadily. All appeared fine. No fogging eyes or lopsided swimming. No gasping for breath. The thermometer checked out okay too. And the filter was running. Not knowing what else to look for, I silently decreed the cause of death to be new-aquarium shock. Or bad luck. Either way, I felt fine with my determination.

Later that afternoon, I returned to the pet store to take advantage of their 48-hour guarantee. I handed the bagged bodies to a red-bearded employee in a blue-collared shirt. Along with my receipt, I also presented him with a small plastic bowl of aquarium water. The water was autopsied first. It was fine, he said. The bodies were examined next.

“See these little marks here, along the gourami’s belly? And these on the tail and fin of the molly? Those are bite marks,” the beefy employee explained.

“I see,” I responded as I brought the bag closer looking for the little spots the employee said had been ripped by super small teeth. On the gourami’s belly, a few scales were raised, as if they’d been petted against the grain. On the molly’s tail, a small section of the edge had a less defined line. The employee’s evidence was sound.

“But I only bought schooling fish. No aggressive ones. For this exact reason,” I protested, not wanting to admit my aquatic community was already in shambles.

“Well, community fish can still be territorial, and can still be competitive for top-dog status. Especially if you have multiple males.”

“I see,” I repeated. As my mind shifted from protest to acceptance, I compiled my list of possible suspects. The snail was not among them.

Driving home, I resolved to solve this Whodunit. While I’m no pet detective, I had successfully cracked a few cases in my day. I’d figured out who created the late-night crashing sound — the cat. I’d solved the riddle of who left the milk out all night — my youngest son. I’d discovered who made a mess of the compost pile — a family of raccoons. 

Once home, I began my now more formal investigation. Within minutes, I noticed one of the red-tailed guppies getting all up in other folks’ fishy business. I was pretty sure it was the same swimmer who’d harassed the net this morning. Thus I labeled him Suspect No. 1.

I spent the next few minutes tailing the guppy. First, the suspect swooped around a plant leaf and nipped the fin of a mickey-mouse platy. Exhibit A, I noted. Then he darted behind the log and snapped at the tail of a spotted molly. Exhibit B. Then, in broad LED light, my top suspect sidled up to a drifting sunburst platy only to bite him right on his fishy ass. Or somewhere nearabouts.

Having accumulated such overt evidence, I snatched the net and plunged it into the water. The brashness of the net’s entrance must’ve tipped the guppy off, for while he had only interrogated the mesh earlier, this time the fish bolted to the other side of the tank. When the net followed, he ducked behind the broad leaves of the pennywort. Once the plant was pushed aside, the suspect dashed into the log. Then SpongeBob’s house. Then behind the filter. The net remained in pursuit. Once out of hiding places, the guppy dropped hiding and tried to outrace the net. He darted in fierce figure 8s. Around and around he sped, but around and around the net followed. At last, tired and cornered between borders of glass, the black net cuffed the frantic fish, escorted him to the surface, and hoisted him from his home.

I raised the net to eye level. The guppy flopped. A droplet of water struck my cheek. The little fish’s silver-lipped mouth frowned open, but he said nothing. Yet his silence helped me see this red-tailed bully’s only crime was obeying an encoded behavior much older and deeper than aquariums and nets. His instincts didn’t evolve in a tank. 

Staring at the netted guppy, I understood I was guilty too. I was the one who had decreed a “happy little community.” I was the one who emptied these fish out of plastic bags and expected them to be an instant family. The guppy had not volunteered for it. 

Still, it felt unfair to the other tank-dwellers to let this bully return. How many more bodies until he had the elbow room he craved? It didn’t feel fair to his fellow fish. It didn’t feel cool to stand by and watch the guppy nip and nibble and create ghosts. I felt he needed to be exiled. 

But where to send him? The toilet? That not only seemed cliché but cruel as well. Having no second aquarium lined with sharpie-drawn black iron bars — a thought I stowed away for another time — I was drawing blanks. The confidence I’d felt as detective and even as judge waned as I wrestled to determine the guilty guppy’s sentence.

Searching the room for inspiration, I found my yellow lab staring up at me, her whiskered face stoic, unblinking. As Maggie peered at me, her eyes suggested she understood the solemnity and seriousness of the task she was volunteering for. Her temperament was perfect for the job: calm yet sure, direct yet respectful. Her self-discipline, evidenced by the way she can pause and hold and wait to take a treat I’m offering until I give her verbal permission, made her a perfect bailiff.

So I lowered the net. Maggie gave the guppy a quick whiff, her own silent verdict. I flipped the mesh net over, and the red-tailed guppy spilled onto the hardwood floor. His silver sides, slicked with wet scales, bent light into a burst of angles. His orangish-red tail splayed into the shape of a perfect gingko leaf. His mouth was closed. He may have been guilty, but he was also beautiful.

I looked at Maggie. My bailiff looked at me. 

Then I decreed my final verdict by whispering, “Okay.”