Smells Fishy

Carrie made a deal with Shane: "If your fish survive a year I'll upgrade your aquarium."

To my astonishment, it's been a year and Shane's two bettas are still alive! Either Shane picked out two mutant bettas, or the fish successfully channeled their namesakes, Jesse and James from Team Rocket (For the non-Pokemon fans, those two characters seem to get blown up or electrocuted every episode every year for the past 30 seasons and keep coming back for more!).

Carrie bought a 20 gallon tank from Loki's groomer the weekend before Christmas. It acts like a giant night light that's always on.

She and Shane picked up all the other required accoutrements at Wal-Mart when he was getting his 2nd COVID vaccine shot.

"How'd they fill up the tank?" you ask?  Carrie ran a hose through the window (See how she models the technique so beautifully?)

I know (and care) very little about fish tanks, so this was a full Carrie and Shane project. They were both marveling at their work when I woke up the next morning.

After church, Carrie asked me to take Shane to PetSmart to grab a few more fish.

The mission I accepted was to pick up a couple of filter feeders to help keep the tank clean (and I guess swim at a different level?).

Shane was very excited.

He called home to tell Carrie we found the fish and somehow convinced her to allow three danios, too!

Then we had to figure out the food situation. 

Fish are delicious and occasionally fun to look at, but unless I'm about to eat one I don't want to spend money on them.

Shane's fascinated, though. He held up his end of the deal and got exactly what he wanted for Christmas!

And Shane's joy is contagious.

Carrie helped acclimate the fish to the tank's temperature before adding them. 

Everyone was swimming around, but I tried to take a picture or two.

The two fish-tronauts marveled at the new additions to the family long after I got bored and left the room!

The tank, equipment, fish, and all the setup was the majority of Shane's Christmas this year. He asked about getting an even bigger tank next year, but we said, "No deals!" If he wants to clean out the old (really dirty) 5 gallon tank it could act as a quarantine tank or possibly host some small additions, but 20 gallons is as big a tank as we need for a while!