Bert is dying.  In fact, by the time I see him again, he might very well be dead.  For those of you who don't remember, Bert is the skinnier, paler of my 2 office pets, and he was NOT doing well last week.  I contacted the company who was sure my description of his behavior was normal.  After having the frogs since April, I assured them it is not.  He is floating, which they DO in fact do a lot.  But he physically couldn't sink.  He was stuck at the top, every time trying to go down, his rear section lifting him in the air, as if he were wearing a flotation device down there.

Poor guy, I was sure he would be dead by the time I got to work on Thursday, but Thursday morning I discovered that only Siskel and Ebert were dead (the snails).  I was worried about the balance in the tank, but the company said the snails just help clean up stuff, but they are not essential for the frogs' lives.  Weird, though, since they seemed fine the previous week as well.  But Thursday, poor Bert was floating, looking almost dead, and I debated putting him out of his misery but just couldn't bring myself to take his life.  Surely by Friday nature would have taken care of it.  But no.. he hung in there on Friday and, though he still hadn't eaten anything, he had swam down to the bottom and was holding himself down by latching one of his webbed feet into the rocks at the bottom.  He lost his grip once and floated back up, but immediately tried to swim down and grab it again.  I know he's not long for this world, but Ernie just sits, eats all the food and is absolutely no help.  That could explain why Ernie is now almost 3 times the size of Bert and looks quite buff and healthy.

Anyway, I'm not looking forward to checking in tomorrow.  Plus, I don't really have the time to deal with this at work.  At least not right now.  And what do I do with Ernie alone in the tank once this happens?  Do I get him new snails and change his water, or do I think I just let him ride it out and consider this aquarium experience near an end?  I mean, I'll change the water, but I can't while Bert's still there, and do I really want to start from scratch with new snails?  It was fun while it lasted... but not quite sure.  Funny, though, I'm not at all attached like I would be to a pet in my home like my beloved cat, but I did get used to checking in on my office buddies, and I do admit, it's hard to watch poor Bert suffer.