The Fish Saga

One day back in August...

I made the silly mistake of  walking to the pond with nets. 

Sure it seems like a free, fun way to spend some time.

They caught and caught probably 30-40 tiny little minnows.  Well actually I am not sure you can even classify them as minnows. They were t-tiny. Basically two eyeballs swimming around with a tail.

Of course Pierson had his bug catcher with him. So they collected. And then begged me to let them bring them up to the house to watch for a while. Since we still had fish food from the tadpole saga last spring I said
"OK but only for a few days"

So they marched back up the hill. Pleased as could be.
The days turned into weeks and the fish grew little by little. They also became stinkier and stinkier. I was getting tired of cleaning the water and the bowl they were in.
So...
I drug out Mom's old 20 gallon fish tank out of the basement.
Cleaned it.
Resealed it.
Repainted the stand for it.
Cleaned all the rocks for it.
Bought a filter for it.
Filled the fish tank (one gallon at a time) and let the water sit for a several days...
After a few days we put the fish in the tank (with the same kind of water that had been in the bowl).
They did fine for a couple of days. Then we left for the beach.
The people who were feeding our animals while we were gone called about midway through the week to say the fish weren't doing so well. (aka they were all dead) Yes. I should have warned the kids but I didn't want to put a damper on our beach vacation.... sooooo I put that info in the back of my head somewhere only to be lost with all the other clutter up there. ;)
At the end of the week we headed home. When we walked in the house (I had still not recovered the information...) wouldn't you know that the first thing the kids did was go to check on those fish! UGH!

That started the flood gates. Maylin cried and cried. I tried to comfort her by telling her that it was my fault. I shouldn't have put them in the tank?... that was followed by "It's all YOUR fault Mommy! My fish are all dead!" continued sobbing
ummm... what does any logical person do?
"We'll get some real fish honey."
WHAT???
What did I just say?!! Why did I say that?!!! Ugh But it did calm her down a little.

So if we were going to do this for real...
we needed a top for the tank (Mom's old one had disappeared).
I needed a bigger filter.
Now I was reading that they needed a heater...
Turns out new lids for tanks don't fit the old style tanks...

In the end we ended up buying a whole new tank kit. Tank, lid with a light, filter, heater, net and food. (fortunately we found one for 1/2 price) Those things can be expensive.  The only thing we didn't have to buy were the rocks and the stand.  SIGH!

Without further ado meet the two most expensive $2 fish

Holly Shiftwell aka Holly

And Fin McMissle aka Fin
(we are Cars II fans around here)

All of that drama and money for two $2 fish. Yes, in hind sight I see the ridiculousness of it all. But it was one of those things that just snowballed out of control...
All because one day back in August I made the silly mistake of walking to the pond with nets for a fun FREE afternoon.
Since these pictures were taken we have added Beauty, Beast, Sticker and Casper to our little community.  One more thing for Mommy to take care of!