At the beginning of August of 2015, after a spontaneous trip to PetCo, I came home with a new friend. He was a tiny little baby betta fish, whose black and red scales prompted me to name him Rufio. Though generally people don't consider fish to be a high maintenance pet, I was determined to be the best fish mommy I could be. I did a bunch of research about bettas and fish in general to make Rufio's living conditions as great as possible. So, when he stopped eating toward the end of the month, I was naturally disheartened. Sadly, despite all of my efforts to make him well again, Rufio went to fishy heaven by the beginning of September.

A few weeks after staring at my empty fish tank, I decided it was time to try again. This time, I got an adult betta who, after seeing the golden flecks on his scales, I decided to name Rumplestiltskin. Everything was fine and dandy with him until, like Rufio, he stopped eating. I tried changing foods, giving him medicine, cleaning the water more frequently — basically, everything I had done for Rufio, but Rumple continued to ignore any food I gave him. He also started floating to the top of the tank and seemed to have trouble swimming down at all.

So, I resigned to the fact that I was simply not meant to have a betta fish. Practically another month went by and Rumple still wouldn't eat, yet he hadn't joined Rufio, either. One day, I grudgingly dropped some food in the tank, assuming it would just go to waste as usual, and to my surprise he went and gobbled them up! From that day on, he ate daily, though his problems with swimming and floating hadn't gone away yet. Still, sensing that there was hope after all, I continued cleaning his tank and feeding him regularly.

This went on for about five months. During those five months, without seeing any improvement from my fishy friend, I was seriously considering just giving up on him getting better. I thought that perhaps he would be like this for the rest of his life, and it made me sad that I couldn't do anything to help except to continue feeding him and cleaning his tank.

Then, I noticed it just a week ago; he was swimming around without having any trouble at all! After all this time, whatever had been wrong with him seemed to clear up and he was back to how he was when I first brought him home. I was absolutely thrilled.

The moral of the story is, fish deserve to be taken care of. I know people don't often consider fish "real pets," but the fact is, they're animals. They're alive. They deserve to be treated as such. They are as much a pet as any other animal, and if you bring one into your home you are responsible for their well-being.

To quote "Finding Nemo": "Fish are friends."