Here Fishy Fishy

My better half has been after a fish tank for ages. Seeing as he doesn't ask for much and you don't have to follow them with a pooper-scooper I didn't think that was a bad idea. So last summer he picked up this dusty old thing from a market for a few pounds. It sat wrapped in a black bin liner in the downstairs loo waiting for someone to get round to getting some fish.

More recently though, a client he did a house move for gifted him this:

I passed the smaller tank to a colleague (the one who gave me beans and courgettes earlier in the year) and we went off to the fish specialist shop to furnish the TV cabinet (that's what my sister thought it was). Had a lovely Saturday morning with the kids watching the amazing fish, anemones, starfish, seahorses and sharks and came home with gravel and plastic plants to prepare the tank. I got a shock when I saw the prices of the tanks in the shops. £400 for ones the size of our TV cabinet and £40 upwards for the smaller one we gave away. Little Lady wnated the one that looked like Nemo, which were very beautiful but cost about £50 and the seahorses I was harkening after cost about £80-100.

We had to prepare the tank, leave some chemical in for 24 hours and go back to choose some tiddlers that could survive the fresh water. Little Lady has named the one on top with pink cheeks wendy and Little Man has named the white one Superfish. I will probably name the rest after the X-Men. We can go back after two weeks and have the water tested and pick some more or bigger ones and some real plants. You would think you would get bored staring at fish, but it's actually very soothing and pleasurable. If my mum-in-law comes to visit this summer it will also be very good as watching fish is supposed to be good for lowering high blood pressure.