It's a fish eat fish world

There has been a terrible occurrence in our fish tank over the weekend. Almost too horrid for words, almost. Back story-my hubs finally cleaned out our fish tank around a month ago. We have a small freshwater tank which was mainly for bubs to enjoy. Up until the point at which he finally cleaned it, we had an algae overgrowth. Bubs thought it was seaweed, he was so excited. It looked like the scene in nemo where they clogged the filter with the pebble. Once the tank was cleaned out we found the water to be terribly cloudy. Almost so thick you could hardly see the fish. We took a sample of the water to our local pet store, which happens to have an enormous aquarium department (it's a really cool place). They said that there was bacteria in the water and we would have to keep the light off and only feed them every two days. Now, I am no fish tank expert, but in my opinion that seemed a little abusive to me, almost criminal. However, we had faith in our pet store experts and we wanted our tank to clear up.

We have been doing the 'protocol' for almost two weeks and the tank is starting to clear up. But it came at a price. My husband was checking all the vital stats for the tank (temp and water level and stuff) and he discovered a brutal event had taken place. I was taking a shower and he came in to tell me that perhaps feeding them every two days wasn't such a great idea. He found the remains (part of the tail) of a neon tetra in the filter. It seems that one of the 'not so fit' fish succumbed to Darwin's theory in a moment of fish tank starvation. My thoughts immediately turned to that crash in the Andes, (I never did actually see that movie) and I was really disturbed to realize that I am harboring such crazed little creatures in my living room . I was also overcome with guilt that we drove them to it. I will never look at my fish tank the same EVER again.

I am also making sure to feed the little bastards every morning from now on.