The Fish Tank

Where do I begin with this post? I guess right from the very start.

The beginning. Three years ago Todd decided he wanted to get a salt water fish tank. I wasn't very happy about it but finally consented to let him spend his own money on a used 90 gallon tank. It cost him $500. The night he drove up to Sandy to pick it up ended up being the worst storm of the year and it took him over 2 hours to just get to the guys house. Then they had to pick it up and bring it home and set it up. It was quite a project. Speaking of projects - once he had it set up there were numerous trips to the fish store and to home depot to get everything set up and working. We started with a clown fish, yellow tang and cleaner shrimp. We had our very own "Finding Nemo" tank going on. Bubbles (the yellow tang) was the craziest fish - it would speed around the tank and sometimes run into things. The kids loved that we had Nemo fish.

The fish. There have been lots and lots of fish come and go from the tank over the years. We've never been able to keep a blue fish (of any kind) alive more than a few weeks. So it became a running joke. Todd bought an eel online (the shipping was 3 times the price of the fish) and it committed suicide by jumping out of the tank. We found it dried up behind the tank. Then he bought another snowflake eel and it grew and grew and grew. It got so big and we saw it eat one of the fish so we had to catch it and take it back to the fish store. It was tough to catch and even after we got it into the plastic bag it jumped out and was squirming around on the carpet. Yes I screamed when it jumped out. Bubbles, this crazy starfish and one of our clown fish were our longest lasting fish in the tank. In the early days of the tank Todd bought these crazy shrimp that would eat starfish. I hated them. Thank goodness that phase only lasted a few months. There were times when we had lots of fish and times when they would keep dying and we only had 2 - 3 fish. Todd bought some new fancy lights for the tank and then started adding coral which were cool. I liked the movement of the anemone and other coral. The anemone was cool because the clown fish loved to go in it.

The upgrade. The tank is big in my opinion 90 gallons is a huge home tank. I always joked about how only doctors offices and Chinese restaurants had tanks that big. Todd was always trying to talk me into getting a 150 gallon tank and reinforcing the floors and drilling this and that and knocking out walls and all sorts of other crazy talk. And this from the guy who doesn't like to hang up too many pictures and paint walls in case we ever want to sell our house. Anyway, I always said no and there were even a few arguments over it so it never happened. Then he started traveling so that was out of the question. Timmy and I would take care of the fish during the week (I always tried to be sneaky when I was feeding the fish because Sophie loved to do it and then it was a lot more work because I would have to lift up the top, pull back the glass and pick her up just to throw in 2 cubes of food). And on the weekends Todd would do water changes and cleaning and stuff. But the thought of doing major work when he is gone so much was just out of the question.

The end. So we decided to replace all of our carpet with wood floors this year and Todd kept trying to figure out what to do with the fish tank. You can't just move it and even if we empty it the fish will only last so long outside of the tank. So he decided to put up for sale online in preparation for the new floors and had a buyer within a few hours. The guy sent a text at 4:00 am! He came and looked at the tank the next day and the next week he and several of his buddies were at our house to pick it up. I will admit I was a bit upset that Todd put it up for sale without asking me. I've become a bit attached to it recently and I actually miss it. I'm sure that was his ploy to get a bigger one in a few years! The front room seems empty and quiet without it. I'm sure I'll get used to it being gone. But I honestly do miss how peaceful it was to just sit and watch the fish swim around.