A fish raised on Kit-Kats is being forced to give them a break after getting too big for his tank.
The fatso fish is named Gary, and he's a 15.7-inch, 8.8-pound gourami, an exotic Asian freshwater fish that is considered a delicacy in Indonesia.
Gary was in the care of a private owner until he was donated to the SeaLife Aquarium in London after becoming too large, a common fate for many domesticated fish, according to center spokeswoman Rebecca Carter.
However, despite being supersized, Gary was not eating the normal aquarium fare he was being served. Officials were perplexed until they checked with the previous owners and discovered he had been raised strictly on a diet of Kit-Kat candybars.
“I have never heard of a fish being fed chocolate, let alone being brought up entirely on the stuff,” Carter said in a statement on the aquarium's website. “Gouramis usually eat a diet of fruit but Gary doesn’t appear to have suffered any ill effects from his chocolate addiction. However, we would NOT recommend feeding fish confectionary of any kind!”
Aquarium employees tried to give Gary a taste of normal gourami food by stuffing Kit-Kat crumbles into grapes before shutting this chocoholic fish off cold turkey.
He's not eating sweets anymore, but he is getting a taste of fame. The aquarium is now featuring Gary in an exhibit called "Tank Busters" that showcases a number of large fish that simply grew too big for their owners to manage.
Carter hopes it inspires potential aquarium hobbyists to hook themselves up with proper information.
“Many people don’t do the right research when they buy fish and end up unable to care for them,” Carter said. “Catfish are a good example and we have a number here that outgrew their homes. Terrapins are another –- they can live for 40 years and are actually quite costly to care for.
"We’d urge people to think before they buy. We’re delighted we could find a home for Gary but the fact is we simply do not have the space to accommodate the vast number of re-homing requests we receive.”
John Costantino a aquarist based in Austin, Tex., says gouramis are notorious in the fish hobbyist world for getting too big for most owners.
"We call them 'yo-yo fish' and 'boomerang fish' because people will buy them and return them," he told HuffPost Weird News.
Like Carter, he's never heard of a fish who was sweet on chocolate.
"However, some people feed their fish cat food, baby mice or cockroaches just for kicks," he said.
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