Our fish tank hasn’t been a happy place for awhile. And so a few weeks ago we totally drained it and put in an undergravel filter and got it all set back up. Then we just let it run for awhile before getting some fish. Last Friday we went and got some fish to put in our tank. We got a catfish, 3 red platies and 2 frogs (at Ethan’s request), and a female beta. The guy at the pet store knew a lot about the different fish, and Kyle and I were quite impressed to actually get someone who knew something about fish. Most of the time when we go and ask questions about our fish or tank, the person in the fish department knows nothing about fish tanks or the fish in them and so to get someone who knew what he was talking about was quite exciting. Well he knew enough about the fish that when fishing out the red platies that Kyle had selected, he got us two female and one male. And he showed Kyle how to tell the difference. Of course hearing that we had both male and female fish I was wondering if we were going to need a nursery for any babies that may come of it, and Kyle said that we didn’t because we have live plants in the tank for the baby fish to hide in.
Saturday our catfish died, I guess he got stressed out in the tank transfer or maybe our tank is still too clean and there was nothing on the bottom for him to eat, or something. The kids were quite sad, but we assured them that that is normal with fish, they don’t all make it, and it’s easy to stress them out. So yesterday we went back to the fish store to return our dead catfish, we got our money back and decided to use it to get a few other fishies. So we got 3 yellow mickey mouse platies (they have a mickey head on their tail fins, so cute) again, two females and one male. And we got 4 of the cheap 12 cent goldfish. Kyle made fun of me because I pointed to the specific fish that I wanted and made the girl fish those specific fish out. She did a good job, though I must say 😉 .
Today Ethan was looking in the tank, very excited to be watching our new fish, and he likes to come over and look for his frogs (frogs like to hide under plants and rocks at the bottom of the tank). Then he spotted a baby fish! He excitedly called to me to come look at the baby fish, and I said “what?” and I went over and sure enough there was a baby fish. But then as Ethan and I were watching it, one of the gold fish saw it and ate it! Oh well I guess it’s going to happen. There are plants for the babies to hide in, and the ones smart enough to hide will live to be big enough to not get swallowed, and I guess that will help with our fish tank population. It was tough explaining to the kids that sometimes fish see baby fish and it just looks like the fish flakes that we feed them, so they think it’s food….. Ethan and I did see some more baby fish in the tank. I watched one dissapear into the rocks at the bottom of the tank, and I’m sure there will be more baby fish in the future.