New Addition to our family

Before you get excited, no, I didn't have a baby. Wednesday, our cat, Mary, turned 4 years old. I was happy wishing our cat Happy Birthday and giving her the traditional can of cat food with a candle in it while singing "Happy Birthday". But, no. My daughter had other plans. She wanted Mary to have a "companion", so that she wouldn't be so lonely. She decided to get some fish. Wednesday night, after I picked up Corinne, I took her to Walmart to get an aquarium and some fish. Seemed simple enough, simply because I have NO IDEA how to care for fish.

We picked out a 6.3 liter aquarium (a little over a gallon) because we didn't want a big aquarium, mainly because we didn't have the room. We got some food and some gravel. Nothing else. Then we went over to the fish tank and it took forever before someone finally came over and helped us. I talked with a lady who only spoke in Spanish about her son's fish. They had a tank, but all of the fish died within a week after receiving the tank. They were there to get more fish.

Like I said, I didn't have a clue on fish. We picked out 4 very, small goldfish, went to the register, paid for them, and took them home. As best as we knew how, we tried to prepare the tank according to the directions on the bag the fish came in and on the aquarium box. One good thing we did do was we introduced the fish to the new water by putting the bag in the tank for a good 15 minutes so that the water in both the tank and the bag can be the same temperature. Then we released the fish in the tank. We fed the fish, and introduced the fish to Mary. (Afterall, this was her birthday present). We picked her up and put her up to the tank. She looked at all of the fish zipping around in the tank, and then tried to leave! She was scared of them! Her curiosity got the best of her, and she finally settled on watching the fish from across the room on the arm of the sofa.

We went to bed and in the morning when I got up for work, I looked in the tank and found that one of the fish had died. I told Corinne to get the fish out later because I had to get to work. Then she left for work. Later, when we both got home, we discovered that another fish had died. Now we were down to 2 fish, and a cloudy tank. Then, while we were getting settled down for the evening, we noticed that another fish had settled on the bottom and wasn't moving. He had died as well. Corinne had to "fish" him out from the bottom. Now, we had only one. I was getting worried that this one fish wouldn't survive.

The next day I started doing research on fish, and found out a lot of information. I took care of the cloudy water situation, and was surprised to see the one lone fish still surviving. I named him "Goldie" (very original, huh?) and made a list of things we didn't get the first time. For one, we didn't even have any plants in the tank. It was just an aquarium with an air hose/filter/pump in the tank. The other important thing we forgot to get was a net. With all of the fish dying, Corinne had to scoop them up with a cup.

Saturday, I took Corinne to a job interview, then we went to Petsmart for supplies, and possibly more fish. The guy that was there was very helpful. We were going to buy a test kit, and he said, "To be honest with you, you don't really need this because you can always bring us a sample of the water in your tank and we can test it for free." Wow. Free is good. We ended buying two small plants, a net, and a mini pump to get the debris out of the tank when cleaning it. We also bought some solution to help with the PH levels of the water. (See, I'm learning!!). And I finally bought Mary a REAL birthday present: a pot of wheat grass.

Well, I think I'm finally on my way to having an aquarium (finally). From what I learned, we could only have one, maybe two goldfish because of the size of the tank we have. The guy at Petsmart confirmed this, and he recommended that we wait a week before introducing another fish in the tank. So, I went home without another fish, but hoping that maybe in a week I can bring home another fish. Meanwhile, I arranged the plants in the tank, and put that solution in, and fed Goldie. Goldie seemed happy with the new plants and the food.

We'll soon see how this works out. Meanwhile, Mary is getting more and more comfortable with Goldie. She has now managed to get close enough to Goldie by sitting right next to the tank. She hasn't tried to get in the tank yet, but she won't while we are watching. Hopefully, she won't ever.