Last week Hubby got the aquarium ready. Then on Sunday we ventured to the pet store to buy two goldfish. Did you know goldfish aren't always gold in color? I didn't know that either until Sunday.
Anyway, our aquarium can accommodate two to three goldfish. I bring up this point because the pet store employee emphasized this fact, even though the tanks at the store had 30 or more fish crammed in them and aren't much bigger than our tank.
The pet store employee was clearly exasperated with us. We didn't want him putting just any fish in a bag and sending us home. No, for our 13 cents a fish we wanted the ones we picked out. First into the bag was Mo. He's gold in color and has a black stripe down his back, sort of like a mohawk, hence the name. Next came Rocky. He was black in color, very pretty. He was a slippery sucker and kept dodging the net. Apparently the worker gave up because when we were in the car we noticed Rocky was suddenly silver. Oh well. He was ours and that's all that mattered.
When we made it through the first night with no dead fish, Hubby and patted ourselves on the back. We're good fish owners! Unfortunately, when the girls and I went to feed the fish this morning, poor Rocky had passed. Believe it or not, he found his way into the castle and used that as his final resting place.
The girls and I were slightly disappointed, but not overly upset. It had only been 2 1/2 days. Yesterday Hubby pointed out that Rocky never used his left fin. We're guessing he was injured and dying before we ever brought him home. My explanation to the girls was that Rocky knew he only had a few days left and really wanted to get out of that crammed fish tank at the store. I like to think he enjoyed a few days of having room to move in the princess tank.
As for the title of my post? Well, the store has a 14 day guarantee on fish, so tomorrow Hubby will be heading there to bring home Dorothy.
4 comments:
Poor Rocky! I hope Mo and Dorothy have long and happy lives!
Oh no! We had fish as kids (along with mice and cats and dogs) - ours never lasted long either! A tough but important lesson for the kids though, no?
Good luck with the fish! My grandmother gave me a small fish aquarium when I was in jr. high, and, I swear, it was just a place where fish went to die. And they seemed to always die in the pretty little castle. I tried several different kinds of fish, but the outcome was always the same. Hopefully you'll have better luck than I did.
I'm a known fish killer. For some strange reason I just don't have much luck. I have learned though that goldfish produce A LOT of ammonia. If there isn't a filter in the tank, they will die for sure because of all the ammonia. I've had better luck with platties (which come in many pretty colors too). Zebra danios are a small pretty fish as well and you can get about 5 in the tank you have. Neons are really cool if you have a lighted tank. I started out small and eventually made my way up to a 10 gallon tank. After a few years, I finally gave it up because I had an Cichlid/Oscar who attacked other fish and I didn't have time to clean the tank as often since I was at college.
Maybe when the kids get older a larger aquarium would be nice, but it is a lot of work.
Good luck with Dorothy and Mo!
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