Fish!

We have fish! Or to be more accurate, Peanut has fish, and it was quite the ordeal! Who knew getting fish would be so hard! We had bought her a fish tank for her birthday. We got it all set up and filled it with water, using "AquaSafe" that helps the balance of all the...nutrients, or whatever it is fish need, and then we let it sit for 48 hours (the instructions said at least 24). Then we went to Petco, talked to a worker there and came home with four GloFish. She got a purple, green (looks yellow), red, and blue. We took them home, let their bag float in the water for the recommended 15 minutes, and then released them. 

 

They stayed together in a clump, but seemed happy. They swam all over and checked things out.

 

 

Peanut drew some pictures for them. :)

  

 

 I was looking up info on how often to change the water and noticed lots of other people Googling "why did my GloFish die?" and "why can't I keep GloFish alive?" So I warned Peanut that they might not live. Thankfully she was prepared for that option because the next morning they were all dead. :{

Who knew that you could exchange dead fish? I sure didn't, but I was thankful that you could because they were $10 each. We took them back to Petco the next day (an hour each way). This time we talked with a manager who explained that we didn't have a big enough tank for 4 fish. Even though it is a 5 gallon tank when you put the castle and plants in there the water capacity is about a 2 gallon tank which means you should only have one or two fish otherwise there isn't enough oxygen to go around. We got our water tested and they said it was fine.

He said if we were only going to get one fish a Betta fish was hardier and easier to keep alive so we came home with a bright blue Betta fish that she named Shimmer. Apparently I forgot to get a picture of him. He lived for three days and then sunk to the bottom of the tank. :( We did learn that Betta fish have to get air like dolphins so they go up to the top every so often for a breath. 

The next trip to Petco we talked to the "Aquatics Specialist" who told us about something called New Tank Syndrome where your water can test fine, but it just doesn't have to proper bacteria needed for fish to survive. He said you should let a new tank sit for 30 days before adding your fish. So I actually purchased a bottle of live bacteria :P and followed the directions. A full dose, let the tank sit for 6 days, a half dose, let the tank sit for 6 days, and then you can introduce fish. 

 

We also purchased a heater because even though the Petco people said it wasn't necessary, everything I read on the Internet said you need a heater for tropical fish. Unfortunately I forgot to get the heater before we were ready for new fish so that added another few days that Peanut had to wait, but we were FINALLY ready for our third try so a fourth trip to Petco and we came home with two GloFish, a red and green (yellow) named Fire and Moon.

 

 It's been a couple of weeks and they seem happy so maybe we finally got it figure out! Phew. Who knew it was so hard to buy fish!?