One day we noticed Bass was getting some sort of cobwebby fungus, so Matt transferred him to a very small tank just for a few days for intensive medication. The fish would hover in his small tank and stare longingly back at the big tank.
One afternoon, Matt came home to find Bass on the floor. He'd jumped out the thin opening in the back of the tank where the florescent light had been removed. He seemed to have been trying to get back to his old tank. But he must have lain on the floor for a half hour. He was dried out, his eyes were black, his gills barely moving.
Matt scooped him up, put him back in the big tank, and started dragging him through the water, back and forth, by the mouth, like you'd do a shark to revive him. He did this for about a half hour. Finally Bass started breathing on his own, but he just sank to the floor of the tank and lay propped there like a zombie for days. His eyes were black and glassy, he didn't eat, didn't respond to anything... and his tail, which was thin, had dried out and simply fell off.
Gradually, however, Bass started to make a come back. After about a week he started swimming around again, slowly, kind of dazedly. Then he started eating again. His eyes gradually lightened to hazel again, and he became aware of us once more. And ever so slowly, his tail grew back, but much darker, almost black.
When he was completely recovered, we took him back to the lake where Matt had caught him. We sat the bucket in the water with him in it and added lake water a little at a time so the temperature change wouldn't shock him. Finally we tipped the bucket over, and Bass swam forward about three feet and stopped. Then another three feet. Then he gave a twitch of his new, dark tail, and shot off into the lake, out of sight. I hope he lived long and prospered.
you should have eaten him.
that would have been a better ending.