Who is watching Whom?

October 26, 2009 Monday

The fish will follow us around in their tank, if they want to be fed. It is rather funny. Casper likes to watch the fish, and Cea likes to help feed them.

The Big Fish Tank--AKA "the Fish Saga" continues

Here are some pics of the tank and fish in our 56 gallon tank. we have 4 South American Cichlids in the tank. We have 2 convicts, 1 electric blue Jack Dempsey, and 1 pink convict.

The Tank
The Fish like caves

The female Convict
I have no clue what is in her mouth

The Pink

The Jack

They seem to really love the caves we built for them. We all enjoy watching them swim around. At the moment one of the convicts is the bully, the other is the biggest wimp, the Pink is the boss and the Jack seems to tolerate it all. (we think the Pink and the bully Convict are dating! --the bully is the female and the pink is a male.)
Now, as long as none of them die. . . . . .

oh and as an update--the other fish are doing fine! AND, Bry is now talking about replacing the 10 gallon tank with a 35 gallon tank, and then just putting a frog by itself in the 5 gallon. sigh--and the hobby just keeps growing and growing and growing.

And another update--as I never posted the above. We now have a 10 gallon "temporary" hospital tank set up. (yes,that means we now have 4 (FOUR) tanks in our SMALL (TINY) living room.) The wimpy convict started bulging his eyes, and his fin split was getting worse, so Bry is trying to doctor him better. I will keep you all posted. . .

The 56 gallon fish cabinet

May 18th
Bry bought a 56 gallon fish tank for big fish. We didn't have a cabinet for it to sit on, and since we needed a cabinet that would hold around 500-600 pounds; Bryan built one.

Here is it being put in place, and the sand and water being added. We are still working on looking for some big rock, as well as picking out plants. Once the tank is completely established, we will get the fish--one of the fish Bry is considering is an electric blue Jack Dempsey--their coloring is bright blue--but a lot like an oil spill! They are quite cool!

Cea inside the cabinet (The door hasn't been put on yet.)

Looking up into the tank, while we look down at her

Dumping in the black sparkly sand

Putting together the filter

Casper is excited about what is going on.
If you look at the side of the picture, you will see the dishwasher open--that is what I got to do, while everyone else got to be excited about the fish tank and cabinet! Poor Porsche!

Go Fish. . . .

So what was the "ending" of our last fish saga?
All of them died but one. It was quite a bummer! Not to mention, the tank we had was starting to leak.
Well, I was done with Tetra's and wanted GloFish instead. Unfortunately, one of the tetra's just refused to die--what were we going to do?
The solution:
We have a 5 gallon tank for Tetra's
We have a 10 gallon tank for GloFish and a frog
and we have a 56 gallon tank, that Bry is picking the fish for.

The 10 gallon tank is my favorite, as we all had a hand in putting it together. Cea picked out the castle, Bry picked out the rock, the wall and some of the plants, and Porsche picked out the fish, some of the plants and insisted on a bubbler, and Casper likes to look and giggle.

GloFish are genetically altered to be the bright colors they are. We have 2 pink, 2 orange, and 2 yellow/green. I think these fish have ADHD! It is quite the fun tank to watch. When you feed them--they are pigs!!!! They will even eat from your fingers. The frog hides under the castle--I wouldn't doubt if he finds the fish a bit annoying. We are calling the frog, Rebel (again).

And in case you are curious--Bry is in charge of the tanks, so he does all the water changes, he and Cea do the feeding, etc. I just enjoy the results!

Here are pics of the 5 gallon and 10 gallon tanks.

Introducing: Nemo, Marlin, Dorie, Rey, Cody, Tom and Rebel

As you can see, we have now named the fish--well, Cea has named the fish. And we did get a frog--see we are just full of excitement and surprises in our household. The frogs name is Rebel. I don't know which fish is exactly named one of the above names--so just pick a fish and give it one of the above 6 names. If the next time you see that fish and you call it something else, I won't be offended! grin--and since Cea can't tell them apart either, she won't know the difference!
Now, I am sure you all want to know the history behind all the names that Cea picked for the fish. . . So here goes. . . Nemo, Marlin and Dorie are pretty self-explanatory--they are from the movie NEMO--and for those who have not see the movie--all 3 are fish. Rey, is who Bry carpools to work with (it is also the name of one of Cea's invisible friends--I will blog about them later--hmmm it will be interesting trying to take a picture of her invisible friends; I will have to think hard how to do that!). Cody is the name of a boy who was in a Barney movie; Cea fell in love with him. Tom is after Tom Sawyer, and Rebel is after Tom Sawyers pet frog Rebel--from a story.
You have just met our new family members--or should I say--surviving family members; and since they are all looking over my shoulder as I blog (I am sitting next to the tank) they all say, "Nice to meet you!"

Sorry, all I could get was a belly shot; but here is Rebel.

Feel free to count them--see, I told you there were 6!!!

The Fish, Bryan's trip to Canada, Learning to count

I am sure there are underwater candle light vigils being held right now across the country--maybe even all around the world; and that there are a lot of people out there on pins and needles, checking my blog every few minutes, just wondering how are those fish doing? OR, I wonder how many fish they have today? OR, did Bryan ever read Porsche's blog? OR, did Porsche sneak to Petco and buy more fish? OR, My blood pressure is rising, I can't stand the suspense! OR, How was Bryan's trip to Canada? OR, Does Cea even know that her parents are stressed about the fish? OR, ?????? . . .

Well, feel free to blow out your candles, please dry your eyes; the fish (the original 4 fish) are doing great!

Of course, a while after Bry got home, they started to not look so good--so we began to figure our fish had allergies!--they must be allergic to Bryan.
We went to Petco and bought some ammonia and water PH tester things, and some live plants to put in the tank. After putting Mircea to bed last night (she slept in the cart at Petco), we planted the plants and tested the water.
The water is fine, the fish love the plants, and the fish are swimming like they should. And Mircea and Bryan are right now at the store buying 2 more fish and another plant. (Personally, I am hoping they come back with a frog too--I mean how cool would that be!)
Now why are they buying 2 more fish? Because Bryan thinks it is really cute when Cea holds up 6 fingers to show how many fish she has. Sometimes she hold up one hand with 5 fingers and 1 finger from the other hand; other times she holds up four fingers with one hand and 2 fingers with another. I know many of you are probably thinking--Wow! Their child is a genius! Well, we very modestly agree! :)

As for Bryan's trip to Canada. . . He went with several other of his co-workers to go watch a hockey game. It is an annual trip that has gone on for several years now with his company. Anyway, he said while it was a fun time, he was mostly stressed/worried the whole trip thinking about the fish! GRIN!

I say, You should all get some fish too!--It is great DRAMA! Such an adventure! AND, they don't shed! (Of course the fish I did see Mircea flush--fish #2, she did kiss on the lips before she flushed it. That totally grossed me out!!!!!)

Anyway, I do believe my Fish Saga, should mostly be over! Hopefully all other posts about Fish will consist of boring information instead of a countdown! We appreciate every ones thoughts and concern for us during these past few "dark" days.

WAHOOEY! There are 4 fish

For all of you worried about our fish situation, it is looking positive today!! Bryan just came home from his 2 days in Canada--it is 4:30pm. Things were looking VERY grim last night, as you can tell by my blog post--but today I am seeing 4 fish, and they are getting their color back, and they were excited when they got fed. PHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So life is happy in our house.
I don't see any reason for anyone reading this to mention the previous post/story to Bry! Grin! I suppose I should feel guilty about asking people to lie--but in all honesty (snicker) I would do the same thing all over again, if I had too.

On another positive note--Bry bought Cea and Casper t-shirts, and also brought back a hockey puck for Cea.

Anyway, Hooray for 4 fish! and Hooray for the responsibility of the fish switching back to Bryan.

Actually, the one positive aspect of the fish dieing is that Cea is learning to count backwards! *snicker* 6 5 4 . . . (she would even hold up 6 fingers, then 5, then 4 . . .)

Fish update/countdown CRINGE

ummmmm. . . so, I am only seeing 3 active(ish) fish in our tank that should have 4 fish. . . and as I am the one responsible for the tank today while Bryan is gone--GULP! Not to mention that the color is bad on the 3 I do see! Unfortunately, I do believe it is considered impossible to pretend that there are 4 fish when there are only 3 fish--especially since he is an engineer--and can do complicated Math--including knowing the difference between 3 and 4! aaaaargh!!! Hmmmm both my sisters were here today with their kids--maybe I will tell him that one of their kids must have eaten one?!?! I mean that does sound plausible--kids will eat anything! Yes, I think that is what I will say! So if anyone is reading my blog--please don't tell Bryan about the missing fish--OR just back me up on my story about my sisters kids! (uhhhh, try not to mention this to my sisters either!)
or we can just hope, that because I am NOT an engineer, that my counting is off! (I am guessing #4 is hiding/dieing inside the little sculpture thing.)
. . . in reality it looks like we should soon have more offerings for the porcelain god.

are we on a countdown?

So I have been thinking about starting a count down regariding our fish! grin! --as we lost another one! However, we are hoping/thinking this will be the last one--as they were the ones looking the worst when we brought them home. We shall see. . . .

Flushed Away . . .

Today, Mircea kept telling me about the fish and the toilet. I couldn't figure out what she was talking about?!?!?!? . . . then I counted the fish. . . 1 2 3 4 5 ???? there was NO 6th fish! I called Bryan, and learned that one had passed away, and they flushed it.
The Fish Funeral Service went as follows:
Bryan scooped him out, dropped him in the toilet. Mircea spoke, "Bye Bye Fishie, I love you!" *FLUSH*
I called Bry and told him-- "when important events like that happen--please tell me, so I am aware, of what is going through her head the rest of the day!"
She doesn't quite understand what death is--and I am beginning to think that she associates it with *FLUSH*

Our New Pets

Well, it all started when Bry told Mircea, "If you do well in swimming lessons without me, we can go get some fish." This wasn't really bribery as it might sound--the truth of the matter is--Bryan wants a fish tank and some fish. As per previous post, Mircea has been doing well in her swimming class (she is the splashiest kid in the pool). On Saturday, when I was conveniently gone to a baby shower, Bryan and Mircea when to Grandma and Grandpa's house to borrow their old fish tank that used to house "Fetch". Grandpa's pet fish; who died a couple years ago (thankfully not on our watch).
A moment of silence for Fetch. . . . . .






Anyway, after borrowing the tank, that evening we went and bought 6 Tetras (the red and blue ones). We have since learned from Marina, that these kind of fish just won't die--and we heard of some of the things their fish have endured through! grin.--it was entertaining. So now we are a family of 10. (we are hoping that the big belly on one of the fish does not mean anything! grin) If this fish experiment goes well; we might get an even bigger tank, and hopefully at some point get some upside down catfish. But I digress. . . the following pics are of Mircea and her fish. She is quite excited about them! She LOVES them. In fact she was sooo excited that almost all of Sunday she had her invisible friends around--so she could spread out the excitement.

Decoration for her tank--she picked it out

The fish getting acclimated--can you tell she is excited?!?

The fish are in the tank!

Look Casper!

Mircea through the tank!