New Friends for the Kids

A few months ago, Meg asked to get some fish again.  We had some back in St. Louis and moved them here, though at the time, Calvin couldn’t open doors and we could keep Sam away from the fish bowl.  This time, however, Calvin’s older and isn’t know for following directions, so if we were going to get a fish tank again, we’d have to be a bit more careful about where it goes and whether it had a lid or not.

Brooke found a starter kit here in town that came with a 10 gallon tank, some peripheral fakery for the inside of the tank, and a nice lid that should keep small paws and hands out of the tank.  However, we had to get the fish from Sedalia, as our options were non-existent here in town.  Meg decided she wanted to go with tropical fish, which meant we needed to get a small heater for the tank.  We also got a filter system, but it didn’t actually come with tubing, so that had to come from Sedalia, too.

Anyway, we ended up with over 10 small fish of varying types and 2 snails for the tank.  So far, the fish have survived, and the kids feed them twice a day.  We’re hopeful that the filter system and snails will limit the amount of cleaning we need to do, as this system is quite a bit more sophisticated than the small bowl we had for years awhile back.  The filters can be picked up here in town and are supposed to be switched out around once a month, and the water should be exchanged at about 1/3 volume at the same time as the filter (or so we read).  The tank is in the kid’s bedroom, which is close to a bathroom but not really close to the kitchen at all, so if it really is just a water exchange every once and awhile, along with the filter, we should probably be alright.

The kids seem enamored with it so far!  All the fish have names, of course.  🙂