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Jun. 10th, 2008
I invested in 20 fish this year, rather than the 50 of last year.
I did some better research on how to keep the little guys healthy and happy, and realized that I was a bad fish mommy. When the water gets too hot, it's hard on their little fish bodies... and hard to keep O2 in there, too. So last year we had a significant loss. (Probably 30 fish died, at least.) At the end of the day, after having given several to the booth workers, I took home about 15-20 fish... and had two survivors. They are now gigantic and have a big ol' aquarium to themselves.
So for this year's booth I put the potential prize goldfish in an old cooler. Bought a thermometer and figured that if the water temp rose too high I would put a bag of ice in there to bring it back down. With these adaptations, this year we had a loss of exactly 4. One barely made it home from the pet store (so he was probably on the way out anyway). No losses on Saturday. Sunday we lost two early in the day and had one get a gas problem and start laying on its side. Exactly one fish was won. However, if you do the math, that's still WAY too many fish to put in my tank. So one was given to a very special faerie, three were given to The Girl for doing such a great job on the booth, and six were released into the wild. (Shhh. If you see goldfish in a park's pond... you know their origin story...) This means that The Boys Who Lived get five roommates. I have no idea what to call the new additions. Last year, with only two survivors I figured that calling them Neville and Harry was obvious. This year... um... There's five of them. Go Voltron Force?
Anyway, I'm doing this as a separate post to offer goldfish to anyone out there who can arrange to meet me. Who wants a free pet? These are the fish that survived being transported to the pet store, sent home with me in a bag, living in a cooler at the park all weekend, and finally coming home and being placed in an aquarium with fish a year older than they are (and about 300 times bigger.) So, these are the survivors, and are likely to provide years worth of entertainment (not to mention Cat TV!)
There are two that still have their "old quarter" color, but they'll gold up in under a month. There are three that are gold already, and I'm keeping the littlest one. She's a spunky little thing, and I'm tempted to simply call all the new ones Weasleys, with her being Ginny.
(No. I cannot tell the gender of my goldfish. I'm assigning gender completely arbitrarily.)
Watching their dynamics is pretty entertaining. Initially, the littlest one was being chased around by one of the Boys. The other four? Were harrassing the other Boy. (So Neville was chasing a girl around, and Harry was getting swarmed?) Now they do seem to form two distinct groups: The four new goldfish as group one, and the little spunky one hanging out with the big guys.
Go figure.
I haven't seen 'Bel looking at them yet. I'm not sure she knows that there is a new show on Cat TV, but we'll see...
I did some better research on how to keep the little guys healthy and happy, and realized that I was a bad fish mommy. When the water gets too hot, it's hard on their little fish bodies... and hard to keep O2 in there, too. So last year we had a significant loss. (Probably 30 fish died, at least.) At the end of the day, after having given several to the booth workers, I took home about 15-20 fish... and had two survivors. They are now gigantic and have a big ol' aquarium to themselves.
So for this year's booth I put the potential prize goldfish in an old cooler. Bought a thermometer and figured that if the water temp rose too high I would put a bag of ice in there to bring it back down. With these adaptations, this year we had a loss of exactly 4. One barely made it home from the pet store (so he was probably on the way out anyway). No losses on Saturday. Sunday we lost two early in the day and had one get a gas problem and start laying on its side. Exactly one fish was won. However, if you do the math, that's still WAY too many fish to put in my tank. So one was given to a very special faerie, three were given to The Girl for doing such a great job on the booth, and six were released into the wild. (Shhh. If you see goldfish in a park's pond... you know their origin story...) This means that The Boys Who Lived get five roommates. I have no idea what to call the new additions. Last year, with only two survivors I figured that calling them Neville and Harry was obvious. This year... um... There's five of them. Go Voltron Force?
Anyway, I'm doing this as a separate post to offer goldfish to anyone out there who can arrange to meet me. Who wants a free pet? These are the fish that survived being transported to the pet store, sent home with me in a bag, living in a cooler at the park all weekend, and finally coming home and being placed in an aquarium with fish a year older than they are (and about 300 times bigger.) So, these are the survivors, and are likely to provide years worth of entertainment (not to mention Cat TV!)
There are two that still have their "old quarter" color, but they'll gold up in under a month. There are three that are gold already, and I'm keeping the littlest one. She's a spunky little thing, and I'm tempted to simply call all the new ones Weasleys, with her being Ginny.
(No. I cannot tell the gender of my goldfish. I'm assigning gender completely arbitrarily.)
Watching their dynamics is pretty entertaining. Initially, the littlest one was being chased around by one of the Boys. The other four? Were harrassing the other Boy. (So Neville was chasing a girl around, and Harry was getting swarmed?) Now they do seem to form two distinct groups: The four new goldfish as group one, and the little spunky one hanging out with the big guys.
Go figure.
I haven't seen 'Bel looking at them yet. I'm not sure she knows that there is a new show on Cat TV, but we'll see...
Random rantage: Topic? Feeder Fish.
Jun. 10th, 2008 05:19 pmJust as a random rant, let me tell you of the Fish Acquisition Saga:
Last year, I purchased the prize fishies from PetSmart on the Rock Rd. I explained what we were doing, asked for paperwork or maybe even a coupon that I could give away with the fish, just to make sure that the children (or adults) who won them would take good care of them. A coupon would get the winners into the store to buy supplies for their new pet, so it struck me as a great idea.
They weren't able to offer a coupon (they are corporate, after all) but they were enthusiastic about sending me with nice copies of the care and feeding sheets. They also gave me nice bags in which to place the fish when someone won them. (This turned out to be a godsend for the Living Tarot since I neglected to bring the paper bags. Go figure.)
This year, I stopped in at the PetCo around the corner from my house. I figured, "Hey, why not buy them in advance, get them settled into the cooler, and bring them to the park on Saturday?" So I stopped in to buy about 20 feeder goldfish.
Now, at PetCo, they're actually listed as Feeder Fish. (PetSmart has them listed as "comet goldfish".) I asked the (only) employee in the store if I could buy some fish.
Me: Hey, is anyone working in the fish department?
Her: Yeah, what do you need?
Me: I'd like to buy some goldfish, please.
Her: Feeder goldfish?
Me: Yeah, about 20 of them.
Her: (head shake) Sorry, I can't sell you any. The batch we just got in was in really bad shape and I have just treated them, because they were all sick. See the cloudy water? I just put that stuff in there. We can't sell them now. Maybe tomorrow, and we probably get a shipment in on Saturday. Me: O.o
Her: Those UPS trucks aren't climate controlled, so in the summertime we frequently get shipments of the feeder fish that are in poor health due to the heat. Happens with the cold in the winter sometimes, too.
Me: Oh. Well, Saturday I'm going to be already on site. See, we're doing this carnival game with a live fish as a prize...
Her: Oh... we can't sell them to you for that purpose.
Me: What?
Her: If you're using them for a carnival prize, we're not allowed to sell them to you. It's part of our agreement with PETA.
Me:...
Me:...
Me: Ok, bye...
For, you see, it is perfectly acceptable to, for example, buy these live fish and feed them to a snake or a turtle or a cat or a human... but I can't keep them in my climate controlled cooler and give them to children who want them for a pet?
And while we're on the subject, why aren't these fish being transported carefully? Is it to keep their cost down? I mean, yeah, the fish cost less than a quarter a piece, but do they have to send them on hot trucks in goodness knows what kind of packaging?
But wait, it gets more offensive:
I have a temptation to write to PETA, not because I want to buy fish as carnival prizes, but because they're still falling down on the job here.
Right next to the "Feeder Fish" they also have a lovely display of goldfish bowls.
Sound like a pretty display? Sound appropriate?
Here's the thing: Those classic goldfish bowls? Like the one in this very icon? Those are extremely unpleasant places for fish to live. It is too small by far (goldfish want about 10 gallons per fish, usually, but surface area is even more important) and they're more difficult to put a filter/bubbler in, so people frequently don't bother. So here you have a bowl that is globular (or some of them are a sideways cylinder) and holds what, 5 gallons at the most? More like a gallon or less for most of the bowls at the store. Without a filter, the fish is basically swimming in its own excrement and pee. Yeah. Not so much with the good.
Need more information? Try Wikipedia's entry.
At any rate, there are even countries which have banned the sale of goldfish bowls because they are cruel.
So which is crueler: Selling fish to people who intend for the fish to be well-cared for pets, or selling fish to be eaten by other creatures, and also selling homes that are not appropriate for the fish?
GAH.
Guess I won't be buying any Feeder Fish from PetCo.
Last year, I purchased the prize fishies from PetSmart on the Rock Rd. I explained what we were doing, asked for paperwork or maybe even a coupon that I could give away with the fish, just to make sure that the children (or adults) who won them would take good care of them. A coupon would get the winners into the store to buy supplies for their new pet, so it struck me as a great idea.
They weren't able to offer a coupon (they are corporate, after all) but they were enthusiastic about sending me with nice copies of the care and feeding sheets. They also gave me nice bags in which to place the fish when someone won them. (This turned out to be a godsend for the Living Tarot since I neglected to bring the paper bags. Go figure.)
This year, I stopped in at the PetCo around the corner from my house. I figured, "Hey, why not buy them in advance, get them settled into the cooler, and bring them to the park on Saturday?" So I stopped in to buy about 20 feeder goldfish.
Now, at PetCo, they're actually listed as Feeder Fish. (PetSmart has them listed as "comet goldfish".) I asked the (only) employee in the store if I could buy some fish.
Me: Hey, is anyone working in the fish department?
Her: Yeah, what do you need?
Me: I'd like to buy some goldfish, please.
Her: Feeder goldfish?
Me: Yeah, about 20 of them.
Her: (head shake) Sorry, I can't sell you any. The batch we just got in was in really bad shape and I have just treated them, because they were all sick. See the cloudy water? I just put that stuff in there. We can't sell them now. Maybe tomorrow, and we probably get a shipment in on Saturday. Me: O.o
Her: Those UPS trucks aren't climate controlled, so in the summertime we frequently get shipments of the feeder fish that are in poor health due to the heat. Happens with the cold in the winter sometimes, too.
Me: Oh. Well, Saturday I'm going to be already on site. See, we're doing this carnival game with a live fish as a prize...
Her: Oh... we can't sell them to you for that purpose.
Me: What?
Her: If you're using them for a carnival prize, we're not allowed to sell them to you. It's part of our agreement with PETA.
Me:...
Me:...
Me: Ok, bye...
For, you see, it is perfectly acceptable to, for example, buy these live fish and feed them to a snake or a turtle or a cat or a human... but I can't keep them in my climate controlled cooler and give them to children who want them for a pet?
And while we're on the subject, why aren't these fish being transported carefully? Is it to keep their cost down? I mean, yeah, the fish cost less than a quarter a piece, but do they have to send them on hot trucks in goodness knows what kind of packaging?
But wait, it gets more offensive:
I have a temptation to write to PETA, not because I want to buy fish as carnival prizes, but because they're still falling down on the job here.
Right next to the "Feeder Fish" they also have a lovely display of goldfish bowls.
Sound like a pretty display? Sound appropriate?
Here's the thing: Those classic goldfish bowls? Like the one in this very icon? Those are extremely unpleasant places for fish to live. It is too small by far (goldfish want about 10 gallons per fish, usually, but surface area is even more important) and they're more difficult to put a filter/bubbler in, so people frequently don't bother. So here you have a bowl that is globular (or some of them are a sideways cylinder) and holds what, 5 gallons at the most? More like a gallon or less for most of the bowls at the store. Without a filter, the fish is basically swimming in its own excrement and pee. Yeah. Not so much with the good.
Need more information? Try Wikipedia's entry.
At any rate, there are even countries which have banned the sale of goldfish bowls because they are cruel.
So which is crueler: Selling fish to people who intend for the fish to be well-cared for pets, or selling fish to be eaten by other creatures, and also selling homes that are not appropriate for the fish?
GAH.
Guess I won't be buying any Feeder Fish from PetCo.