This past labor day weekend my husband and I went to Georgia for an event. Together we have a small zoo in our house so we got my parents to watch the menagerie. What is most relevant here is that one of my cats is super shy, and that I own an aquarium. Earlier in the trip my parents tell me that they cannot find my shy cat. No big deal, he’s great at hiding and doesn’t like anyone except me and my husband. I’ve told them this before and remind them of this. Other than this one issue they don’t mention any concerns. Fast forward to when I come home and I don’t manage to find all of my aquarium fish. I’m not super worried about this because the ones I am missing are super stealthy and I regularly lose to their hiding spots. 2 days go by and I’ve found everyone at this point except one rainbow shark. At this point I get worried and so this morning I flip all the decor over and hand search. There is no possible place for him to be in this aquarium. I’ve checked the filters and all the tubing.
So today I called and asked them if they had seen anything happen. Fish are super delicate so while I would have been sad I wouldn’t have been mad at all if anything had happened. I asked them once if anything had directly happened, and then I offered a few scenarios that could have happened… cats stuck a paw in while they had the lid off and preoccupied feeding (the cats are super quick and hungry for novelty), maybe the lid had been off while they were not directly looking at it and the fish jumped out, did the water seem visibly fouled at any point as though another fish had eaten him etc. My mom said no to anything. My mom did THEN inform me that they found a dead rat in my house and that they had put him in my kitchen trashcan. I thought that they might have mistaken a cat toy for a real mouse until she sent me a photo. This is definitely weird as we have never had a mouse inside the house before. At this point I asked my mom if my dad had seen anything and my dad comes on the phone nuclear, screaming how he “doesn’t want to talk anymore about (the/my) fucking fish. Your fucking cat disappeared for two days…” he kept on but I didn’t hear the rest. He WASN’T missing but hiding in his cabinet which is normal. At this point I told them they were being rude and hung up. Mind, the conversation had been civil sounding prior to my dad. My mom has since messaged me calling me rude for acting like she was a liar, and I don’t know what to do.
The water levels are testing just fine so I can’t see at all how he could have eaten him without fouling the water via test. It’s like he disappeared completely. Which doesn’t happen, and if it does, I need to figure out how it happened so I can prevent it from happening again. I’ve texted my mom off and on since then and it’s like she’s being deliberately obtuse about me being concerned for the safety of the rest of the fish.
TLDR: My fish is missing and my pet sitter DGAF.
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This past labor day weekend my husband and I went to Georgia for an event. Together we have a small zoo in our house so we got my parents to watch the menagerie. What is most relevant here is that one of my cats is super shy, and that I own an aquarium. Earlier in the trip my parents tell me that they cannot find my shy cat. No big deal, he’s great at hiding and doesn’t like anyone except me and my husband. I’ve told them this before and remind them of this. Other than this one issue they don’t mention any concerns. Fast forward to when I come home and I don’t manage to find all of my aquarium fish. I’m not super worried about this because the ones I am missing are super stealthy and I regularly lose to their hiding spots. 2 days go by and I’ve found everyone at this point except one rainbow shark. At this point I get worried and so this morning I flip all the decor over and hand search. There is no possible place for him to be in this aquarium. I’ve checked the filters and all the tubing.
So today I called and asked them if they had seen anything happen. Fish are super delicate so while I would have been sad I wouldn’t have been mad at all if anything had happened. I asked them once if anything had directly happened, and then I offered a few scenarios that could have happened… cats stuck a paw in while they had the lid off and preoccupied feeding (the cats are super quick and hungry for novelty), maybe the lid had been off while they were not directly looking at it and the fish jumped out, did the water seem visibly fouled at any point as though another fish had eaten him etc. My mom said no to anything. My mom did THEN inform me that they found a dead rat in my house and that they had put him in my kitchen trashcan. I thought that they might have mistaken a cat toy for a real mouse until she sent me a photo. This is definitely weird as we have never had a mouse inside the house before. At this point I asked my mom if my dad had seen anything and my dad comes on the phone nuclear, screaming how he “doesn’t want to talk anymore about (the/my) fucking fish. Your fucking cat disappeared for two days…” he kept on but I didn’t hear the rest. He WASN’T missing but hiding in his cabinet which is normal. At this point I told them they were being rude and hung up. Mind, the conversation had been civil sounding prior to my dad. My mom has since messaged me calling me rude for acting like she was a liar, and I don’t know what to do.
The water levels are testing just fine so I can’t see at all how he could have eaten him without fouling the water via test. It’s like he disappeared completely. Which doesn’t happen, and if it does, I need to figure out how it happened so I can prevent it from happening again. I’ve texted my mom off and on since then and it’s like she’s being deliberately obtuse about me being concerned for the safety of the rest of the fish.
TLDR: My fish is missing and my pet sitter DGAF.
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> I MIGHT be the asshole because I did ask multiple times if something had happened and I can see how that could give the impression I was accusing them of actively doing something to hurt them.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA.
Your parents have already decided that having to care for your animals was a ridiculous inconvenience, and judging by the description—the menagerie, etc—I’m guessing it was fairly involved. The appropriate thing to do would have been to decline an unwelcome petsitting request. Not do it badly and then martyr themselves.
You’re asking detailed questions, and the response sounds like complete exasperation; it’s I don’t know what happened to your fucking fish, I shouldn’t have had to deal with this anyway, quit asking. This is a remarkably uncharitable tact to take with your own child, especially when one of their pets went missing—from a fucking aquarium, of all things!—on your watch.
Your dad’s being an ass and your mom is hoping that if she can just needle you into apologizing, she won’t have to be in the middle—which she is, because she, too, knows that (1) it was their responsibility, even if annoying; and (2) your dad flew off the handle.
Tell them to get off the cross, you need the wood.
Sharks don’t just disappear. This isn’t Jaws. It’s a shame you don’t have cameras so you could find out exactly what happened. My mind is spinning a likely fictional scenario where the rat eats the shark, gets sick, and dies in your kitchen while the cat is hiding for fear of being framed for the shark’s disappearance.
NTA. I hope you get some answers. I’m sorry about your shark:(.
>I called and asked them if they had seen anything
>I asked them once again
>the I offered a few scenarios that could have happened
>I asked my mom if my dad had seen anything
You pestered and pestered and pestered because they didn’t give you the answer they wanted. I would have lost patience with you too!
YTA. It sucks that your fish is missing, but asking over and over again isn’t going to change the answer.
theres some lady on insta whose beta fish disapeared, according to the comments, it happens sometimes.
It sounds like they have no idea what happened to the fish. I can’t imagine why they’d lie about this. It’s not obtuse to not have an answer if you don’t know what happened.
Your fish died somehow. Maybe the cat got it when they weren’t looking, maybe it died in the tank and was consumed by the other fish so early on that the water parameters normalized by the time you measured. I really don’t think they know because they just sound frustrated with you insisting they know something they have no reason to lie about not knowing how it happened, and probably did not even realize happened unless they are deeply familiar with all your aquarium residents. Like did you have a task that they were supposed to do a headcount of every fish or just “here is the food, put this much in the tank” and otherwise they don’t do anything with it?
I can’t decide between N A H or E S H here because them blowing their tops about it isn’t great, but like… they said they don’t know. Do you have some kind of precedent to not take this at face value? Them caring emotionally about the fish or not isn’t really related to their awareness or lack thereof of one fish in a tank dying.
I dunno what kind of filter you have but check it even if there’s just no way to get in there.
At my work we lost a clown fish for over a year. One day I happened to peer inside the filter at the back of the tank and he shimmied up to the surface and scared the crap out of me. Bro was pale and developed a neurotic habit of swimming up and down but he survived.
Idk man if I watched someone’s animals and they came back and had a fish missing and I didn’t know I would not want to keep being asked about it. If you don’t know you don’t know. He probably just doesn’t care
Is there a possibility that your mom was getting upset with your questions? It sounds a little like they found looking after your animals to be kinda stressful, and you were pressing her about something she may not have known anything about. That may have been what set your dad off, was seeing her get upset, especially if they really did the best they could. I don’t think he should have sworn at you, though.
NTA…This is just ridiculous!!! The reaction from your dad was over the top!!! Maybe he is hiding something from you? People need to learn to effectively communicate without acting like you’re accusing them of some nefarious deed! It sounds like you’re just trying to figure this out so that you might be able to prevent it from happening in the future. BTW, you need to get a new pet sitter!
NAH. I completely get why you’re extremely curious and in investigation mode trying to figure out what the heck happened to the fish. But I think I also understand some of your parent’s frustration: your parents were concerned about your missing cat and probably spent the weekend worried sick looking for him, while continuing to care for your “menagerie,” dealing with a dead rat, and hoping they didn’t fuck up even more. Then when you get home and the cat is found instead of them getting to breathe a sigh of relief you’re grilling them on some fish that apparently went missing.
>He WASN’T missing but hiding in his cabinet which is normal.
BUT YOUR PARENTS OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T KNOW THAT OR THEY WOULDN’T HAVE THOUGHT HE WAS MISSING!!!
>My mom has since messaged me calling me rude for acting like she was a liar, and I don’t know what to do.
Neither of your parents have any fucking idea what happened to your fish. They most likely don’t even know what the fish looked like, or noticed it’s missing. They weren’t counting the fish and saying “Good day Mr. Fishy!” to them each day, they just dumped the prescribed amount of food in and moved on. So it’s not surprising that you not accepting their “I have no idea” is interpreted as “she doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m lying about the fish.”
Sometimes fish just die and sink to the bottom and other fish eat them.
They probably forgot to close the fish tank after feeding and the cat got into it.
You tested your parameters and none of your other fish are acting strange or ill. What else do you need? What if the shark jumped out, or the cat got it, or whatever? It changes nothing for your fish and it’s likely your parents didn’t even see it happen. Do a water change and move on. Stop badgering your parents about the fish, unless you wanna pay Rover pet sitting prices next vacation.
ESH
YTA for being ungrateful
Don’t give them the 3rd degree after they did you a huge favor
N T A about asking.
Im also an aquarium hobbiest so I gotta tell ya:
YTA for pressing the issue.
Fish die. Sometimes fish die while hiding.
As a fellow aquarium hobbiest, we both know the most likely thing that happened: his body was eaten by his tank mates.
If you dont find him dried up somewhere weird in 6 months he was fish food.
Ive seen my GUPPIES and snails eat a gourami in a day. He was dieing when I went to work and didn’t have time to euthanize and dispose. He was 85% eaten 6 hours later. After a water test I didn’t see any point in fishing him out. Eaten before I went to bed. I’m sure the kuhlis helped but they’re kuhlis (very shy noodle/eel fish) so no visual confirmation.
From expensive with our aquariums, if a fish dies and you don’t immediately see it to get him out the other fish will eat the dead one. Our tropical fish will eat the dead and you’ll never know or have any evidence of it. We’ve even seen our fish in other tanks do it. Especially our goldfish tank.
NTA that is weird. Could they find pet sitting stressful? Because it sounds like they’re super worked up about it. I’d be wondering if your fish died tbh and they’re extra stressed on how to handle that
Soft YTA. You have 7 cats and an aquarium? That’s a lot of responsibility for someone not used to it. I’m a former vet tech and I would say no if someone asked me to pet sit that many animals.
I would be annoyed as well if you repeatedly asked me what happened if I didn’t know. It sounds like this was stressful for your parents, and you kinda made it worse by hounding them about the fish. I’m guessing they did the best they could and it may have come off as ungrateful.
I’m no detective, but I’m pretty sure your cat grabbed the fish, took it to its lair or whatever, and ate your fish. Like you said, it happens fast so maybe your parents really didn’t know or notice. It sounds like you may have been badgering your mom which is what caused your dad to snap. Are you neurodivergent and is one of your hyper fixations your “zoo”? That would explain a lot tbh. I’m not sure if this is NAH or ESH yet.