From a 5 to a 10 & Now a 20 gallon tank...

5 gallon
10 gallon
20 gallon
I am definitely stopping at 20 gallons!

After Christmas I got a sick betta fish and some white cloud minnows to keep him moving around. He died, so I went and got another sick betta because I for some reason can't just go and buy an animal. It's not in my constitution - I also got his tankmate - a little baby platy. Unfortunately a few weeks later he also died, which was a real heartbreak for me because he had seemed to be doing really well and he was very pretty. But I now had 6 very healthy white cloud minnows and 1 platy in a 5 gallon tank.

The platy was growing very quickly and I thought he/she must be getting lonely all by him/herself so I went to my co-workers store that he opens on the weekend - "Tom's Tropicals" over in Dartmouth - it seems like everyone who is into fish locally knows Tom, which is really neat. So I got 4 more platys for $10.00 - and 2 little guppy's somehow also made it into the bag.

Coming from a goldfish background where you need at least 15 gallons for one fish, that seemed to be too many fish for a 5 gallon tank - so in came the 10 gallon tank.

Meanwhile another co-worker - it seems like quite a few of my co-workers have mysteriously picked up the fish husbandry hobby! - has had guppy babies, and she said when they were big enough she'd give me a couple - so I was looking forward to another couple new family members - and then hallelujah - my platys had babies!

So long story short - I've traded my 10 gallon tank for a 20 gallon this weekend and I've now got 6 white cloud minnows, 5 platys, 7 guppies, and at least 4 platy babies - and it took me most of Friday night to catch those platy babies and move them to the new tank. Try catching little living creatures who are the size of a piece of rice in a net that's probably big enough to catch Teddy. It took awhile to catch 4 of those little pieces of orange rice.

A note: I got the tank through the message board at the East Coast Aquarium Society, and I met a couple of really neat people - who I had seen one time when I was at Tom's store over in Dartmouth. It really is a small world. While I was at their house they showed me all their tanks and I learned a ton of stuff about fish and stuff and then went for a great walk with the dogs afterward because they live right next to a hiking trail next to the Waverley Road. It was a great evening all the way around!