Don't fret, too much. Big Momma is one of our guppies.

She earned her name by being one of the earliest and most prolific fry producing fish in our tank, and also one of the largest. She stood out as always being one of the biggest fish, and was easy to spot, as she always had a strong following of other guppies.

We lost her in the most true sense of the word, as she seems to have disappeared. I've been preparing the kiddos that she's probably expired, and was consumed by the cannibal guppies, or one of our now fairly large plecostomus. The daughter has noticed we don't see any dead fish any more (they happened about once every week or so for a while), and I reminded her that part of what we like about the plecostomus is how clean they keep the tank.

I have had to defend the plecostomus as the daughter calls them "stupid" and "mean" for probably eating Big Momma. I remind her every time that it's very unlikely that the plecostomus hunted Big Momma down, especially since she tended to stay on the top half of the tank. Within the realm of possibility, sure, but they're optimistic eaters, not generally aggressive, especially as well as they're fed in our tank.

We started with 10 boy and 5 girl fancy guppies. This was an accident of not realizing the aquarium had them separated, and not being specific when we first got them. If I had been paying attention, I would have probably reversed the numbers, or gone for a 6-4 ratio. We now have more than fifty fish, according to the girl child who believes she has counted them well while they continuously swirl around in the tank. I think the real number is somewhere between.

With the loss of Big Momma, there hasn't been any reduction in fry, though, having seen new small fry since the noticed disappearance of Big Momma.

Big Momma has left a sad spot in our aquarium.

Everyone's healthy.