Dakar... in memoriam

On the last day of 2006, it's appropriate to publish an entry on our late goldfish Dakar who died out of gluttony in mid-December. He finally expired due to overeating. We knew he would one day die either out of a burst intestine or constipation - he was that greedy - but when it finally happened it was still unexpected - we think it was a burst intestine, we didn't have the heart to do an autopsy. He was no doubt born without a gene that told him when he was full, and with a large mouth, well, that was a recipe for disaster.

For a long while he kept us very occupied - preventing him from eating, de-constipating him but greed finally got him in the end. The Biorb seems a much emptier and less entertaining place without him.

I don't have much problems with my goldfish, other than just the normal feeding them and changing their water, and the occasional breeding, so Dakar was the majority of the work - keeping him away from the food while finding ways for Arithon to feed despite himself - Arithon is our telescope eye who usually lost out to Dakar in the food grabbing stakes. The ideal situation for Dakar would have been to not be given any food for a few weeks, but Arithon would have just wasted away in that situation. If we had space for another Biorb, we could have separated them. Funny thing is that now that Dakar has gone, Arithon and Lysaer have suddenly grown out to fill the void (or rather they have finally got enough food).

Dakar has a very cute huge mouth that curves down so he always looked somewhat grumpy, and a broken dorsal fin, which added to the grumpy look. It is rare that a goldfish has that much personality - Lysaer and Arithon though also with personalities of their own don't quite have Dakar's charisma somehow.

Some pictures of Dakar's antics...

Camping out over the food bowl - he must have been a mud-skipper in a previous life


Recovering after a bout of over-eating but still staking out that food bowl

Begging for more food




Stoned out on the log after yet another session of bingeing.

Slumped in the bowl... Dakar was usually struck severe constipation that was only periodically relieved when we starved him for 3 days then fed him peas for 3 days. As soon as we put in proper goldfish food of an amount that was sufficient for all 3 goldfish, he would just eat everything, not allowing Arithon nor Lysaer anywhere close where able.
Recovered slightly.


He will be sorely missed.