It started innocently enough. My parents watched my kids yesterday while I worked on Project Blog, and took them to a church fair.
They ate fair-like food, played fair-like games. Including the one where you throw the ball in the bowl and get the goldfish.
My middle son, F, won.
So unlike days past when you got a little glass bowl (with food coloring usually) and a 10 cent goldfish used to feed snakes, this time you got a fish in a bag. Not even a bowl! So the poor thing was already on it’s way to the great big fishbowl in the sky by time he got to my house, even though my mom sent the kids home with a nice big bowl for him.
Within hours, he was dead.
Well, this wouldn’t do. My kids, especially F, were upset. He took out his ‘remembery box’ to put the fish in for burial. He wanted to take it to a cemetery. (Some of you may remember he took my grandmother’s death rather hard, this just added to his confusion and all that.) We decided, at least, the yard was good enough.
But we had to get more fish.
But I knew we couldn’t do it half-assed. I don’t want to deal with a yard full of ‘remembery boxes’ and a kid (or kids) having to deal with small things dropping dead on a frequent basis. So off to Petland Discount we went.
$25 for the basic tank with hood. $5 for 3 fancy goldfish. Small, but cute. One with the bugged out eyes, two beautiful shimmery orangy gold ones.
I think one is Sponge Bob and one is Gary, my daughter K refuses to name hers (the black one) something Sponge Bob related. Oh well.
So I spent the day setting up this tank, burying fish, trying not to get too grumpy over the lack of sleep, all over a fish that was won at a church fair yesterday.
How big is the tank? I’ve never had much luck with goldfish. Goldfish are major waste producers and as a result they need about 10 gallons per fish. When I was a kid, we had a gallon fishbowl, and I don’t think we got a fish to live more than a year or so. We just kept buying new ones. Goldfish should live MUCH MUCH longer than that. I’ve found Zebra Danios to be the best, hardiest fish I’ve ever kept. They are also lots of fun. You can keep a mini school of them and watch them all zip around and interact with each other. Betas also have a ton of personality and can be kept in regular fish tanks, but mine died after 2 years. I think that is short. I don’t know what I did wrong, except he was probably older than a year or 2 when I got him. It wasn’t something in the tank because he was kept with other fish (NOT betas).
Anyway, if you have any questions, let me know. I’ve got 2 fish tanks and have been keeping fish for a few years. I’m not an expert, but I’ve picked some things up along the way.