And then there were fish…

Austen used to be my animal person.  And he still is to a degree – he loves small cuddly furry creatures and has adopted every stray cat that has come into the house (that would be my mom’s cat and Tom’s cat).  But now he has competition for the animal person in our house.  Aubri has also adopted my mom’s cat Sneaker and has promptly renamed him Boo or BooBoo when she fancies it.  Anyway, she also has a put bunny – Oreo or BunBun as the rest of us call him.  Now she has acquired fish.

She has been after me to get her a small fish tank for quite some time.  My thoughts were that fish don’t really take that much time and you can pretty much leave them to their own devices as long as you feed them and have algae eating fish to tend to the tank.  They offer wonderful meditative properties (I have been known to sit and stare at a fish tank for hours) and the constant dripping of the filter is very soothing – like a fountain.  So while I was not apposed to her getting fish, she needed to clean a place in her room (well, the entire room for that matter) to put them.

So, boxes were procured and plans were made to move her current shelves from her room into the computer room right outside her door.  Of course the required ME to do some work!  As fate would have it, a friend of ours moved to a new house and while we were helping her with the move mentioned that I had this big desk that I wanted to get rid of.  Yep, Bill and I moved it to her place that weekend!  So now I had no excuse but to start packing up the stuff that had been in the desk and make room for Aubri’s shelves. 

A few weeks ago, I managed to get a space cleared out in the computer room (which is now called the library) to move Aubri’s shelves into.  After they were moved, I had to bring all my books from the basement shelves up to the new library….oomph!  I had three book shelves full to overflowing down in the basement that all my books were on and I carried every last one of them upstairs by myself!  I wonder how many activity points that was?

After getting all my books upstairs and organized, I left it to Aubri to pack her stuff that she had just dumped on the floor from her shelves into boxes so that we could move the three bookshelves from downstairs up to her room.  (You see, the ones in the basement were white and her bedroom furniture is all white except for the old shelves she had in there which were wood toned.  And the white shelves take up less space than her four old shelves did – that’s why we moved things around.)

I had to procure more boxes which stood outside her room for several days before she finally got around to using them this past weekend.  I came home on Sunday and she was all excited!  Her brother had helped her move her room around and carry the shelves upstairs to her room.  She was now all organized and ready for fish.

As fate would have it again, she has a friend at school who wanted to get rid of a fish tank and fish… free tank, free fish – sounds good to me!  So we head over there Monday evening after dinner to pick up her tank and fish.  Now I’m expecting a small tank – something that will fit on top of her dresser.  Imagine my surprise first when they bring down and a zip loc bag with a plecostomus catfish that was (I kid you not) 6 or 7 inches long!  He barely fit across the bottom of the gallon zip loc that they put him in!  OMG, if the catfish is that big – how big is the tank?

Turns out the tank is somewhere between 25 and 35 gallons we think.  It’s 36 inches across and 13 inches deep and 24 inches tall – it came with a stand!  Wow!  Good thing she cleaned her room or she would never have had a place to put it.  We need to replace the top or have Bill build us a new one as this is a flat back hex tank and we can’t find anyone anywhere that carries that kind any longer so we can’t find a hood.  I searched online and found what I think will work but I can’t get anyone to measure the darn thing to see if the dimensions are correct – plus it’s $41.99 plus shipping – I think Bill can build something less expensive!

A hood is very important because not only does it keep the water from evaporating as quickly, it keeps the fish in the tank and not jumping out and it keeps the cats out of the tank and not jumping in! 

I wish I had thought to take a picture of the tank now that it is set up and the fish are acclimating to it just fine.  Once we get a lid and not the screen that I found to put over it temporarily I will be taking a picture.

So, I walked into her bedroom last night and there she sat on her bed with her cat, her bunny and the fish tank bubbling in the corner…. I wonder how you wrap a fish for Christmas?