I've had some pretty big set backs with my critters and it's a hard blow to get over, especially when you think you did something wrong and are responsible for the incident. the worst one for me was when I was young, I was transferring a 30 gallon salt water tank of critters to a 100 gallon and it took way longer than I thought, well into the wee hours of the night, and I got so tired I had to stop and get some sleep. In my exhaustion I placed too small an amount of water in the transfer tank with all my prized fish, a beautiful chestnut cowry, clown trigger and several others. without thinking of it I put the non-submersible heater in the tank but didn't get enough water in it to keep the thermostat functioning properly. when I woke up in the morning my entire collection of salt water fish and inverts were cooked... I cried on and off for days. Harvey Fell of Fell's pet shop in Wilmington DE did his best to comfort me over the phone and promised to help me build my collection bak up again by giving me some deals. it took time but I got back on my feet. more recently I hatched a bunch of chicks in a homemade "coolerbator" for my daughters 1st grade class. we had great success with hatching but later more than half died and most of the remaining ones turned out to be roosters and had to be put down... I felt like such a heel! the next spring we tried our hand at it again, reviewing all our practices and after making some changes, we had much better luck.

It's always good after something happens to get into detective mode and try and figure out if some aspect of your husbandry can be perfected, regardless of whether it was the cause, there are many shades of gray between surviving and thriving. You may never know what happened, sometimes even natural causes takes a pet early, sometimes even a birth defect to a critical organ that you can't see. If you loved having a BP, I'd take some time to mourn your loss, then get back on the horse and have another go at it. and as others have said, after disinfecting everything. there are an amazing array of reasonably priced BP's out there, many on craig's list that need a new home. take a look at all that are available and see if something between the breeders and the rescues calls to you.