The Blacker One

Apparently it's Animal Week all up in this place, so can we talk about the clownfish mystery for a minute? If you linger around the Instagram part of the world, you've seen the punchline to this story, but it's worth filling in so that later when the whole thing takes another twist, I can clearly recall how it all started.

So. The beginning. About a two years ago, the evil maroon clownfish (finally) died and in it's place came two regular clownfish. They were all sorts of Nemo, so much so that one was named Nemo. Alexis named the other one, too, but I've never paid attention long enough to know its name or which fish was which. Instead of playing by the rules, I've always called them "The Blacker One" and "The Not Blacker One" because one had more black on it.

I'm very fancy with my naming.

When the clownfish first moved in, they were roughly the same size, but then The Blacker One went and got bigger. I learned a long time ago that bigger in clownfish land means female. The crazy little things can change back and forth, but generally they're all male except the largest one.

So! The Blacker One was a girl! I knew that a while ago, but that was confirmed when she suddenly got super fat. Like, SUPER fat. One thing led to another and she laid eggs somewhere in the middle of the rocks. I couldn't see them, but based on her behavior, they were right below a piece of coral. If we pull out our Guide to Making Baby Clownfish, after eggs comes about a week of waiting and then babies.

Annnnnnd ... a week went by. And nothing. Which, that wasn't surprising at all. There are a ton of hermit crabs and predatory shrimp and basically I have quite the clean-up crew in the tank. I do that because I am too lazy to actually clean the tank. Given that I haven't cleaned it in ... um ... I'll get back to you on that. A while, anyway. I don't clean -- I leave the clean-up crew just hungry enough to clean up all debris.

I assumed "debris" would include eggs. The snail eggs have always disappeared that way, so it makes sense that fish ones would, too.

But I didn't count on a whole fish suddenly disappearing.

One night, The Blacker One was there. The next morning, she wasn't. There were no signs of foul play. There were no signs of death. There were no signs of ANYTHING. It was the most mysterious of mysteries because how does a fish disappear in a super small tank? Did she call her Seagull friend and make her way back to the ocean?

I still don't know.

What I do know is that the remaining fish, The Not Blacker One, is acting like he's on a leash and can't move more than an inch from the coral where I'm relatively certain the eggs were laid.

I could swear I've seen this movie.

I'm going in this weekend. Come hell or high water, I'm cleaning that tank and I'm going to move the rocks. If I find a baby fish with a gimpy fin, I'm calling Ellen Degeneres. I'm going to need her to narrate the extended tale of The Black One, The Not Blacker One, and their spawn.

Comments

[Mary]

You are going to have to update us because now I am all sorts of intrigued.