For the love of my son ... and his two fish.

We have a Betta Fish problem. Cricket, the small one, decided that she wanted to go on a field trip on Sunday evening and that was when the problem all started.

I was in my son's room tucking him into bed, waiting for him to complete his task of feeding his fish a bedtime snack, when all of a sudden little Miss Cricket jumped and squeezed herself between the plastic divider and the wall of the tank. She found herself next to Panda; in Panda's water space. The look on our two faces and the two fishes faces were shock!

First, the amount of clearance between the divider and the tank is literally less than centimeters thin. We are dumbfounded how she did it, but she did it fast and successfully. While we stared in shock, my son finally blinked, and ran to get the net from under his bathroom sink. Within seconds I had scooped up Cricket and placed her back on her half of the tank. We sighed relief as both fish were still alive.

However, since that evening, Cricket has been wild!! She no longer swims gracefully; rather she jumps in the water and bounces from one fake plant to the wall to the other wall to another fake plant. She is like an out of control ping-pong machine. Then there are times when she rests at the top of the water, correct side up, breathing, but motionless. If you get too near the tank, she goes into ping-pong mode all over again.

Tonight, we witnessed Panda fighting with her through their divider. While they can not literally nip each other because they can't open their mouth between the slits, she was poking at her. I believe Cricket feels challenged by Panda, and Panda feels threatened by her unwelcomed Sunday night visitor still lurking around. The friendship period is ooovvver!

This was supposed to be a cute little fish tank fostering responsibility and care of animals for my son. It has turned into a babysitting job of toddler girl fish; or perhaps even worse, my son feels like the camp counselor dealing with two teenage girls!

I am going to Petco tomorrow morning, buying another (but smaller tank) for Cricket to move into. Placing them on each end of my son's long dresser, we hope the two girls will chill out and continue life on a happy beat.

All for the love of my son, and two Betta fish.