Powder Jumped

We have a 20-gallon fish aquarium. It was given to us by my buddy Ben around 6 or 8 months ago. We filled the tank with various fish and an albino African clawed frog. Our tank has been infested with Ick on two seperate occasions, and all of our fish died both times. Ick is a disease that can overtake an aquarium, and is a fish-owner's worse nightmare. We keep getting new fish from the petstore each time the Ick takes them out.

The frog has been strong however, and has lived through it all. He has been quite a tough little frog. Because of his white color, we named him Powder. It's been quite fun watching him grow over the past several months. He eats like crazy, and will eat anything you put in front of him. We had a pair of guppies that produced countless babies, and he ate them all. He eventually grew large enough to eat the grown-up guppies. Two weeks ago, we bought 32 feeder guppies, and 5 feeder gold fish. Feeders are only 7 cents, and are meant to be fed to other fish in your tank. Powder gorged himself, and ate 30 of the 32 guppies, and 4 of the 5 goldfish. He became quite fat.

Last Thursday, I went home for lunch as I always do. I went over to the tank to feed the fish and frog. Powder was missing. I looked all around the tank, inside the ship, and couldn't find him. He had jumped out! I guess all of the guppy food gave him a boost of energy.

I looked all over our apartment for the rest of my lunch hour. I crawled on my hands and knees, looking under stuff. My hour was over and I had not found him. After work, I continued searching and still did not find him. After looking in every possible place that I could think of, I gave up the search.

the wife started getting ready for bed around 9:00. She was on her side of the bed fixing her pillow and the sheets. She picked up a pillow that was on the floor, and Powder was wriggling underneath! The wife screamed and yelled for me. I grabbed a napkin and picked him up and took him to the kitchen table. He was covered in dust bunnies and hair. We put some tank water in a bowl, and tried to wash him off. He was suffering pretty bad. He was now pink and brown, and in dire need of water. He started kicking frantically in the water, and we thought this might be a good sign. We got as much of the dust off of him that we could, and dropped him back in the tank. He floated around for a long time, kicking randomly here and there. He was definitely weak, and it would be a miracle if he lived over night. But, he had survived two rounds of Ick, so he must have been strong to do that.

The next morning, little Powder was dead. He had been through too much. I gave him a 1-flush salute and sent him off to the sewer which led to froggie heaven.