A few weeks ago when Abby and the kids were in Minnesota, I ordered a fish tank online. I'd been thinking about getting Maggie a goldfish in a bowl for a while. My thinking was that we'd get a cheap bowl and cheap fish so that if it died, we'd flush it and buy a new one. But I went a little overboard and bought a bookshelf fish tank complete with a filter, overhead light, and thermostat. I also got a bunch of "ruins" decorations, so that we'd have a cool little fish tank with an ancient Greek theme.
We didn't get any fish, however, because we knew that we'd be heading out of town shortly thereafter. Finally, we took a trip today out to NoVa where we dropped off a bunch of baby stuff at Goodwill, bought a bike seat for Teddy, and stopped at PetCo to buy some fish. Consistent with our goal to avoid dumping too much money into the fish tank (especially given my childhood experience with fish - more on that below), we bought five fish for about ten bucks. We came home, filled the tank, placed the rocks and decorations, and let it sit for a while with the fish in their transport bag.
We had fish at various points during my childhood. However, it never worked out well. My recollection is that we either went on vacation and the fish died, or the tank grew algae and the fish died, or the fish just died. Our newly purchased fish were no different. In fact, if anything, they were worse than I remembered. After a couple of hours, Margaret and I went up to look at the fish. "Hmmmm," I thought, "That guy floating near the top doesn't look good. Where are the rest of the fish?" I then spotted three of the others lying on the bottom. The only current survivor is a bigger fish who doesn't look like he's in good shape. "Did you give them food?", Abby asked, as if that would've warded off whatever poison killed them. Which, it turns out, probably resides in DC water. The chlorine and other chemicals in DC water appear to be pretty bad for fish. We didn't spend too much money on them, so I'm not too disappointed, although I do wonder whether PetCo's 15 day fish guarantee will apply when you've clearly slaughtered your fish. But even more important, I wonder whether the toxins in DC water that are bad for fish might also be problematic for the kids. That's why we mainly give them bottled water.
By the way, if any of our dedicated readers have any info about how to care for fish (such as introducing them to a new tank, etc.), please let me know what we should do. Because as pathetic as this experience has been, we'll probably try again. With distilled water, or something like that.
Some unrelated photos (except for the bottled water in the background):
