Thursday, July 23, 2009

Thursday Field trip: fish store

This is the new fish without a name:  see story below.

Some of you know that I used to keep fish years ago. I enjoyed the 
hobby very much. Recently, I was given a fish tank as a thank you 
gift for some volunteer work. I wasn't sure where to put it, so for 
now it's been sitting on a small stand in my room, in plain view from 
the hallway. When I was at the fish store last week doing some water 
testing, I bumped into someone who was wanting to find a new home for 
their 30 gallon tank - I wasn't going to pass that up! So now we 
have 2 tanks running, with completely different themes. One is a fun 
little tank with vibrant colours and cute hiding places, the other is 
a pirate theme tank with natural Flourite gravel and real live plants 
(this one we'll be using to teach chemistry and biology this year for 
our home school studies). We call it the Pirates of Peach Blossom. 
When going upstairs for nap time, one of the children noticed the 
bright display and became quite excited.

I thought it might make for a good field trip if we went to the local 
pet store to see some of their giant kio fish, and the variety of 
other species they have. Especially since it was due to rain today.
When watching the fish there, it becomes apparent after observing for 
a little while that each type of fish have their own unique 
characteristics and personalities. Some of them like to zip across 
the water side to side, others will follow your finger in hopes of 
being fed. 

The staff at the store were very kind; they took the 
time to answer our questions, give us a little tour, and they even 
let the children have a handful of koi pellets to feed the kio pond 
fish! It was so funny to watch all these giant goldfish open their 
mouths and splash around for their food. We got a few drops of water 
on us, and the children giggled and jumped with that. Then we said 
thank you to the nice man who had made our field trip so much fun.

We gave them our water sample to test, and after the results came
back ok the children were allowed to vote on what new fish friend we
should take home to go in Jennie's new tank. They all decided on an
orange and black male guppy. I've never had guppies before, but they
sure did choose a nice one! I'll have to do some reading up on them
to make sure we choose nice tank mates for it.

By the way, we haven't decided on a name for him yet, so maybe a name
contest is in order? Check out his photo with your kids and ask them what his name should be.
Just enter your ideas in the comments section, and I can put up a poll for voting if there is enough responses.  Grandparents and friends can vote, too.  You may submit multiple name ideas, guests ideas are also welcome!

So far the other tank mates names are: Rainbow and Cutie (the neon
tetras) and Tirdy the Turtle (fake turtle). In all fairness, 'Tirdy'
may sound like a suspicious name, but the idea came from a child who
said that Tirdy was short for Tirdle (how he says turtle), so I
accepted it. My long term goal for the larger fish tank is to move
it to a more open room when we finally have the basement finished,
then everyone can enjoy it.