Charlie (Lil' Yellow) Plays Dead

We have two guppies. One is big and orange and the other is little and yellow. Last night, Casey and I decided to name them both Charlie. They're named after a unicorn from a YouTube video that Erin sent me. The two other unicorns in the video say Charlie's name over and over again in a dazed, little-kid voice. It's a really funny video.

Anyway, last night I noticed that Lil' Yellow was lying on the rocks upside down. Now usually a person would think their fish was dead if he acted like this, but this isn't the first time Charlie's done this. A couple of months ago he was floating upside toward the bottom of the tank, looking quite ill, but when I fed them, Big Orange and Lil' Yellow both came swimming to the top.

But last night Charlie did look a little worse off than usual. He's tail looked like Big Orange may have been nibbling on it or it was just falling off. I thought his illness might have been caused by the fact that I hadn't changed their water in an eternity. So, Casey put the Charlies into a cup, and I cleaned their tank.

Once we put them in their clean water, they both started swimming happily along. But then about an hour later, Lil' Yellow was curled up looking quite dead on the bottom of the tank.

Before bed, Casey went by their tank and said a little prayer for Charlie. A few minutes later, Lil' Yellow was swimming again. Then when I looked in their tank this morning, I only saw Big Orange swimming. Probably when I get home tonight Charlie will be back to his old self again . . . or dead.