Thursday, September 04, 2008

Aquarium

So Aron's obsession with all things aquatic has lead us to the purchase of a 28 gallon aquarium. With Grampa Tom's help we spoke with the fish guy at PetSmart who gave us a 3 day crash course in all things fish. We bought 26 gallons of distilled water so that we wouldn't have to wait through an entire nitrogen cycle before actually purchasing fish. We bought the thermometer and a little alligator that blows bubbles every second.

When we went back the second day to get the "Starter Fish" the guy gave us various options. He strongly recommended some algae eaters to help keep the tank clean. Apparently you can have 1 inch of fish for every gallon of water in the tank. But the algae eaters he showed us don't count toward the inches of fish.

Grampa Tom had convinced us we wanted to get Sword Tails because they are live bearers and are fun to watch have little babies.

The PetSmart guy told us that Blood Fin Tetras were one of the good "Starter Fish" options. So that day we took home two Blood Fin Tetras and two algae eaters. They seemed to thrive okay for the 24 hours they were in the tank.

We went back to PetSmart and picked out the Sword Tails (one male one female) and also 4 Neon Tetras and two more algae eaters.

Let me tell you the tank is beautiful. It's actually very relaxing to watch it. It's sitting right next to the television and is almost (not quite) more popular to watch.

The kids feed the fish once before school and once after school (they are supervised). Yesterday (Wednesday) Eric did the after school feeding because we have church until 9.

Last night when we got home we saw one of our little algae eaters not moving. We waited a bit and finally stuck the net into the tank. Sure enough, he was "so dead." Aron wanted to flush him, but we have a 14 day guarantee on all the fish we bought so we're trading him in. Got him in a zip loc bag, a grocery bag and holding at arms length while carrying to the car.

This morning when we woke up we found another of the little algae eaters - same spot as the first one - not moving. Yep, that one's dead too.

So sitting in my car are two little dead fish. I'm wondering if this is going to be a recurring theme.

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