Farewell, Mo

Sometime during the last 24 hrs or so, Mo the miracle fish crossed over into the great beyond. About Mo: Mo was a dalmatian molly who far exceeded his predicted life expectancy, given the obstacles facing him when he first came to us. We had chosen dalmatian mollies to live in our living room aquarium when our neighborhood pet store didn't have a blue male betta I liked. We named the first two George & Gracie, but after a month or so, Gracie passed on, in a rather emaciated state. We bought Mo to keep George company, but when I went to fish Mo out a few weeks later, since he seemed to be dead, we realized what was happening: George was bullying his tank mates out of their food. Mo was not actually dead then, but he'd gotten so weak that he could no longer fight the current and had gotten stuck on the side of the filter. George got sent to live with the goldfish, where he lived prosperously until his mysterious death a few months later (probably a pH problem or something; the goldfish were and are still fine). Meanwhile, although Mo never had and never did look particularly robust, he nevertheless hung on until today, even after contracting some sort of unknown fish disease that attacked around his gills. So, today we bid Mo farewell, but we are glad that he is out of pain.

Funny story about Mo's name: Big girl Amanda likes to have a say in naming things, so after we bought Mo, I started offering her suggestions of names to pick from. After Amanda rejected seemingly hundreds of names (exaggeration, but it felt like it), I finally said "Mo," to which Amanda said "That sounds good." So, Mo it was. The "miracle fish" tag got added when he survived the incident with George and the filter. Mo came to us in the fall of 2008, so he spent at least 6 months with us, if not a little more.