Pacifico

Many of you have heard about our new pet betta fish, Pacifico.  I first showed him off here, Dave freaked out several people by posting on Facebook that we had decided to start a family (with a betta fish), some of you met him at Dave's birthday party, and others have heard about the trials and tribulations of getting the tank right (who knew getting a fish would prove so challenging?).

And don't worry, we know we're very silly people.  So many of our friends now have kids, houses with yards, and other big adventures to deal with.  For us, enjoying our first year of marriage, our p-patch garden, maintaining our condo, and finding me a job seem to take plenty of time!  But, especially with me home more for the last month (and some amount of time going forward, hopefully not too much longer), we thought it would be nice to add a low maintenance pet to our lives.

It wasn't spur of the moment, either.  We'd been talking about getting a/several fish for at least a couple of weeks, which for fish decision making seems like a reasonable amount of time.  One day we decided to stop at Petco and explore our options, and we even went home and talked before going back settled on a betta fish.  We thought we were being nice by getting a larger bowl than I had my first betta in years ago.  He seemed to enjoy his new home!

Then we started Google searching to learn more about bettas.  Apparently this was our key failure in initial planning - we thought we knew what we were doing!  Now we both recognized that the people who post on fish blogs are, well, obsessed with fish.  But we (okay, mainly me) felt guilty as we learned that while bettas can survive in small spaces, they do much, much better in larger tanks.  Over several days we decided we should get Pacifico a bigger tank.  There was a 10 gallon on sale at Petco with lots of components included, though we now had to learn about nitrogen cycling, pH, and other science-y things about our tank.

Without boring you any further, I'm happy to report that we now have a nicely set up tank that is easy to maintain.  And we have what we like to hope is a very happy betta fish!  Pacifico swims all over, comes to the glass to say hello whenever we walk up, and knows when we are going to feed him - coming up to the top and quickly pouncing on his blood worms (yum, yum).

 Look at that lovely ten gallon tank!  Lots of room for a fish to explore.

 Pacifico seems to enjoy his rock and plants - sometimes he even swims through the hole in the rock which is cool to watch!

Thanks for humoring me... :)