Wishing for Fishing

Fishing for compliments on this new fantastic aquarium, that is! Garrett has been not-so-subtly hinting that he would like to have an aquarium at our house. He had one at his dad's house, but all the fish died in a matter of weeks and his dad replaced it with....a crayfish. What every boy wants...one stinking arthropod sitting in the corner of a tank. And I've always liked fish tanks (well, decorating them, any way) but didn't want the mess and bother of a big one. So Timmy and I (ahhhemmm, "Santa") picked up a 29-gallon set up before the holidays, and Timmy helped out Santa by building an awesome stand for it. Garrett was over the moon when he saw it! I had picked out the gravel, plants, some decorations, and the background at the store, based on what Garrett had said he liked on the fish websites we looked at. I stuck to the realistic, tropical green and red plants, brown gravel, and realistic rock formations (Garrett is practically allergic to the fake neon "coral" and decorations they make these days. And a ceramic little octopus for the bottom of the tank with a jaunty "No fishing!" sign---puuuuuullease! Garrett would sooner get a tank of sea monkeys!).
Our two trips to Pet Smart for fish were night and day. During the first trip we were accosted by a "fish expert" teenager who seemed to think that her three day training course at Pet Smart Academy made her the "go to" for all things fishy. We were instructed to not buy more than 5 fish that day because, in her words, it would "overwhelm the tank and the fish would suffer". Hmmmmm.... seriously??? The neon tetra that we were buying were the size of lima beans and we were buying....five of them. A whole FIVE! For 29 gallons! Believe me, no "overwhelming" occurred in the tank when we dropped in the five teeny tiny fish and they took off for the cave and plants.
Our second trip, we had to track down a lady from the "small mammals" section, who looked like she would rather be cleaning out the hamster cages than digging for fish with a tiny net. We could have bought 382 fish, she wouldn't have cared. Garrett was a little fixated on trying to buy "aggressive" fish, which we pointed out would eat everything he already had living in his tank. So he agreed to buy "tropical community" fish (things that like to live "in harmony") and we got three other types and a mystery blue snail that Garrett named Gary (from Spongebob).

A "tween" boy's dream: fish tank on top, lots of display for LEGO castles below.

The volcano bubbler is so cool! It's very realistic and fun!

The neon tetra seem oblivious to the fact that they could be using the ancient bridge to travel!

The rock cave--a favorite for Gary the Snail. Somehow I also got all five tetra to swim in formation in this shot--totally on accident!