We bought N a fish tank for his birthday a few years ago and immediately killed the fish with Ick. So, I kept making excuses after that as to why it just wasn't the right time to get more fish. The tank essentially sat empty after that until this year. N's teacher wanted a tank in his room and N offered ours. I was thrilled to haul it over to the school where the 5th grade class set it up and filled it with little fish and snails. Well, my evil plan was to GIVE it to the teacher, but he had other plans. He asked N if he wanted to take the fish home with the tank at the end of the school year (drats - foiled!). N has a parakeet he got last year so he decided to let D have the tank with the fish and so I was found carefully wheeling a half-full tank of fish to my van and driving it home the day before school got out this spring.
Well, we had 3 fish and a boat-load of snails. One fish immediately kicked the bucket so I assumed the others would too. But they didn't. And the snails were multiplying at something more than a snail's pace. We had to learn about snail reproduction to answer the question of why more snails kept appearing.
Suddenly, a few weeks ago, the other two fish disappeared. We kept looking for their bodies at the top of the tank. Then I started moving the castle around to see if their bodies were trapped in there. Once in a while they would dart out and swim like crazed, caged beasts before retreating back into the castle. I thought maybe the snails were threatening to beat them up or something as the snails far out-numbered the two small fish.
D was totally distraught that his fish were going to die. It was bizarre that they suddenly wanted to be inside that small red castle night and day.
And then.... one morning I turned on the tank light to look again for the fish and I saw tiny movement in the rocks at the bottom of the tank. Upon further inspection, I saw that it was tiny little fish. Suddenly, I started seeing movement everywhere. And then I understood! The fish were on their Honeymoon in the big red castle. How romantic.... Now, D is the proud new grandpa of about 2 dozen little fishies. He couldn't be happier.
We always have "THE TALK" with our kids when they turn 8 and the fish family gave us another opportunity to talk about that again. I'm not sure HOW the baby fishies happened (especially since these were two different types of fish) , but we had to explain a LITTLE bit about it. Of course it started out with "a girl fish and a boy fish fell in love and got married..."
We assume one of the snails officiated...
Well, we had 3 fish and a boat-load of snails. One fish immediately kicked the bucket so I assumed the others would too. But they didn't. And the snails were multiplying at something more than a snail's pace. We had to learn about snail reproduction to answer the question of why more snails kept appearing.
Suddenly, a few weeks ago, the other two fish disappeared. We kept looking for their bodies at the top of the tank. Then I started moving the castle around to see if their bodies were trapped in there. Once in a while they would dart out and swim like crazed, caged beasts before retreating back into the castle. I thought maybe the snails were threatening to beat them up or something as the snails far out-numbered the two small fish.
D was totally distraught that his fish were going to die. It was bizarre that they suddenly wanted to be inside that small red castle night and day.
And then.... one morning I turned on the tank light to look again for the fish and I saw tiny movement in the rocks at the bottom of the tank. Upon further inspection, I saw that it was tiny little fish. Suddenly, I started seeing movement everywhere. And then I understood! The fish were on their Honeymoon in the big red castle. How romantic.... Now, D is the proud new grandpa of about 2 dozen little fishies. He couldn't be happier.
We always have "THE TALK" with our kids when they turn 8 and the fish family gave us another opportunity to talk about that again. I'm not sure HOW the baby fishies happened (especially since these were two different types of fish) , but we had to explain a LITTLE bit about it. Of course it started out with "a girl fish and a boy fish fell in love and got married..."
We assume one of the snails officiated...
Posts
2 comments:
were they guppies? or goldfish?
One was a guppy - the other was something else guppy-like but not a guppy.
I would expect guppies to reproduce, but these are two different fish so I didn't expect that.
Post a Comment