New Friends

So Madeleine has been asking for a new pet for a while. She really really wants a horse. She also really wants a dog or other furry animal (she'd settle for a guinea pig or bunny). But since her parents really don't want to take care of another furry creature right now, she started campaigning for a fish aquarium. She had a small one for several years and was too young to do the maintence herself and we got rid of the aquarium when it became too much work for me. So after all her pleading and arguing, we decided to go to the fish store and check out our options. It turns out that Brannon has always wanted a big aquarium and loves colorful fish, so we ended up with this:

 

It's 110 gallons and about 7 feet tall. When Brannon does something, he usually does it at 110%. The aquarium was installed last Monday and we had to wait for several days for the water to settle out so today was the first day for us to introduce fish to the tank. We are starting slowly and introducing only a few at a time to minimize any casualties. Each kid got a fish...

 

This is Pig, named by Madeleine because she is a "guinea pig" fish and is testing the water to make sure it is ok for other fish. She is a female Beta. 

 

This is Sharky. James apparently has the same thoughts on naming as his Granddad Stanley who once named our dog Girly because she was a girl. Sharky is a Red Fin Shark. 

 

This is Zebra, named by Charlotte. We have no idea what the gender is, but Charlotte really thinks it's a girl. She is a Honduran Red Point (a type of cichlid). 

Hopefully all three fish will survive the week and we can introduce three more new friends next week. Our guy at the fish store says our tank can support 20-30 fish, so it might take us a while to hit our capacity. Next up is a chemistry lesson for the kids on how to test the chemicals in the water.