Fish Adventure and Goodbye Poor Crystal the 1st

For Courtney's birthday she decided one of the things she really wanted was a fish. I think this desire came from dear sweet Emily (Court's babysitter) who recently got a fabulous fish tank filled with tropical fish. We decided to start small. Courtney chose out a lovely male Betta fish who she named Crystal. Crystal truly was a wonderful pet. However, the dear sweet less than educated Steven from Wal-Mart did not properly equip us with the essentials to keep Crystal alive. Like, for instance the right food. He handed me food (tropical fish food) and said with great conviction that this is the food he fed his Betta while only cleaning the tank every other week. I embraced Steven's enthusiasm and apparent knowledge and happily made my way home with Crystal and food and tank. Oh what fun Courtney and I had making a cozy little home for Crystal with plants, rocks, and fake sea anemone.

Short of calling Steven less than truthful - let's just say that he must have one strange Betta because come to find out......Betta's don't really like nor enjoy tropical fish food. This food makes their tanks nasty and truly not livable. We couldn't figure out what was wrong with poor Crystal as we were having to change his water daily because it was filmy and gross. Knowledge, however, came to late for poor Crystal as he didn't last a week and died. Oh the sadness and tears from Courtney (which went on for minutes) - however, we were able to quench these with a promise of a trip to PetsMart and the purchase of a new fish.

We fell in love with PetsMart and sweet Carrie who new exactly what we needed and guided us in the right direction. Courtney decided that two girl (although not as pretty as the males) Bettas where better than one boy Betta and so we now have Rosy and Crystal the 2nd.



So in short - farewell sweet Crystal the 1st. Thanks for the memories.