The Golden Twenty

So a couple of days ago, we had a 'bad' day at work.
Not that it was actually bad.
It was just well...
It was a bad day for our fish actually.
Our feeder goldfish to be specific. 

As we usually get them shipped in separately than the rest of our fish shipment. 

And in that box...
Is anywhere from 300-2000 goldfish of various sizes from 1 inch to 3 inches. 

Now with any shipment it's not odd to have some fish die.
It's expected.

However, this particular shipment. 
:S Didn't end up...well....alive.

It's something that happens occasionally to them, especially with the changing of the seasons from cool to hot. 
Where somewhere, at some point in time....
Someone messed up.

Left the box somewhere where they shouldn't have....
Like on a dock.
In the blazing sun.
On a hot day.
For a couple of hours or so. 

So there are some shipments where you open them and a lot of the fish have died. 

But this day.
This day was a doozy.

My manager opened up the box.
and promptly had a bit of a freak out.

Because almost ALL the fish were dead.
And in this shipment...we had 1100 fish we were expecting in. 

My manager had thought that it was our fault, that we'd left the box sitting there, ignored, for who knows how long and we'd killed all the fish.

It wasn't.
I'd seen the fish delivered by the delivery guy. And my manager had opened the box only a couple of hours later.
A delay of opening the box a couple of hours isn't going to kill the fish. 
I mean....who knows how long they're in the box in the first place before they end up at our store. 

So I was quick to reassure the manager that all those dead fish weren't because of us.
But because they'd probably been left in an in ACed truck, or on a dock where they got too hot.

However, despite those conditions.
Some of the fish had made it.
Though with all the dead in the bags...it was hard to tell exactly how many goldfish had survived.

One bag was completely dead unfortunately.
But the second bag, we could see movement within.
So I pulled out a bucket.
Dumped the fish into it.
and set to work scooping out the dead to find the live ones.

Which isn't as easy as it sounds because some of those fish were playing zombie.
Where you think they're dead, toss them into the dead pile, only for ten seconds later for them to start twitching. *shakes head*

It took a bit of time.
And while I was sorting, my manager was like  "I bet only six survived." 
And I was like. "Nah I'm thinking it's more like 20." 

Which considering we were getting in 1100 fish....that's really really bad odds. :S 

When all was said and done with the sorting, 
We had 30-40 fish that were still alive.
At that point in time.
Due to the conditions they were in, it was quite possible that the survivors wouldn't survive at all. 

So we made the decision to not put the survivors on the floor to sell them,
Instead we moved them into a tank we had already set up in the back.
To keep an eye on them and see how many made it. 

My manager was still betting only six would live.
While I stuck with my twenty. 

We let a day pass. (since I had the day off yesterday) just to give them time to settle down and relax.

And when I was at work today,
I fished all the goldfish out of the tank to move them back onto the floor.

How many survived?

23. 

XD lol. I won the quiet bet between my manager and I. lol.
My manager was quite impressed with my guessing skills, stating that I know everything lol. 

In any case.
The feeder goldfish?
Yah, I didn't put them in the feeder tanks.
Since they'd survived dying in the mini fishpocolypse, I decided to give them a better chance at a longer life. 
So I placed one goldfish in each of our other fish tanks holding the fish we sell for pets.
Because we can do that since goldfish help us get rid of the pest snails in our tanks by eating them. 

Which means they will be able to help us out....until a customer sees them and wants to buy them as a pet. :) 

So hopefully these guys get a better chance at life than their other feeder buddies. :S 

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi