While helping a surgical patient take his afternoon walk, I noticed the delivery girl from a local floral shop delivering plants and flowers to our hospital unit. Later, when I returned to the nurse’s station to chart, a beautiful bank of flowers lined the front desk. Deciding that my charting could wait, I began to deliver the flowers to their specific rooms.

One arrangement caught my attention. It consisted of a large, clear glass vase filled with water and topped with a bareroot peace lily, secured so that it would neither sink in deeper, nor fall out. In the water among the plant’s white roots, was a lone betta fish.

Holding the vase up, I commented to a nurse, “Look, this is the latest fad. People have been giving these fish and floral arrangements as gifts to our patients for the past month. What do you think of it?”

The nurse studied the fish and the greenery above it, before answering, “It’s pretty, but I always forget to water house plants. Neither fish nor plant would do very well at my house.”

I carried the vase into the room that was written on the gift tag, and announced, “Someone loves you and they’re saying it with flowers!”

The patient tiredly studied the vase on her bedside table. She’d had surgery earlier in the day and wasn’t feeling very well. Deciding to let her rest, I turned to leave the room to continue delivering flowers. She suddenly commanded, “Stop! Take that plant and fish out of my room. I don’t want it. If it dies while in the room with me, I’ll feel like I will end up dying, too!”

Back at the nurse’s station with the fishy arrangement still in my hands, I told the nurse, “The patient doesn’t want it. She said if the fish dies, it will be an omen of her own death.”

The nurse critically looked at the arrangement and commented, “The fish has only a small area to swim around and nothing to eat but the roots of a plant. I don’t see how it could survive very long in there.”

I ended up taking the small, unique, peace lily aquarium home with me. Not knowing how long the fish would live, I never bothered naming it. It probably survived as long as it did because I got rid of the bare root plant and bought fish food.

Recently, I thought it would be nice to get a fish again. This time I Googled how to care for a betta fish before buying one. The article I read mentioned the fad where betta were put in clear glass vases along with the bare root of a peace lily. The author of the article strongly denounced the practice, saying to do this was inhumane. Betta fish should never be put in a small tank without oxygen or filtered water.

Betta fish are also known as Siamese fighting fish and have been known to fight to the death if placed in a tank with another betta. They are popular pets because they are not only brightly colored and beautiful, but relatively easy to care for. These fish need tanks no smaller than two and a half gallons. If stressed, they get sick. Losing parts of their fins or tail is a symptom.

To prepare a suitable habitat for one of these fish, I read what they need to be happy. One fact came to my immediate attention. The water betta lives in must be at least 70 degrees. During the winter, even mild winters like the one we are having this year, my house temperature is lower than that. To remedy the situation, I bought a small water warmer to put in the fish tank.

I washed the new tank, a plastic aquarium plant, and stones to decorate the aquarium floor. Considering myself ready to humanely adopt and care for a betta fish, I went to the pet store.  The female betta I picked out was beautiful. She had a light blue body with white, fluttery, ruffle-like fins. Confident she would be happy living with me, I named her Mary.

Mary seemed happy in her new home. She swam around a lot…at first. She ate when I dropped fish pellets into the water…at first. Her aquarium water felt warm when I dipped my finger into it. After a few days Mary stopped moving around and I noticed that her blue body wasn’t such a pretty color anymore. Then, I noticed that a part of her tail was missing.

One morning I got up and checked on Mary and discovered that she had died during the night. Her lifeless body at the bottom of the tank made me think of the patient who didn’t want the fish in her room because if it died, that would be a bad omen for whether she would survive her hospitalization. I didn’t have a fear like that. What troubled me was the certainty that my ignorance had caused the poor little fish to die.

To figure out what had gone wrong, I Googled “water too hot for betta fish” and “water too cold for betta fish.” The symptoms Mary exhibited before her death completely fit what happens to a tropical betta fish in cold water. I had thought the water in the aquarium was warm enough, but it clearly wasn’t. If I wanted to get another fish, I would have to do things differently.