Turns out Zach's a girl

For Christmas, we bought the boys a small fish tank and two fish, Zach (a sunset wag platy) and Cody (a black molly). Within 24 hours, Cody was dead and I was off to Petsmart for a replacement. I must admit, I was feeling pretty smug, having convinced Jake to select an all-black (read: easy to match) fish. That Cody lasted about a week, at which point I realized that the tank was just way too small, and I set up a larger tank. This, no doubt, is how they suck you in.

After moving the fish, I started to take apart the small tank, but ended up leaving about an inch of water and the gravel in the smaller tank, to be tossed out when I could sift the rocks out. Yes, that was a week ago. It takes a while to get to things.

Zach, stressed from the move to the big tank, settled in to one corner of the tank the other day and stopped swimming. Yes, we did lie to Ryan and tell him that Zach was just very tired (until I could get to Petsmart). No lessons in life and death just yet.

Much to our surprise, tonight we discovered two barely visible teeny tiny baby fish... in the old tank. The old, unfiltered, no food, no heater, one inch of stagnant water tank. Not the clean, perfectly titrated new tank. Where, apparently, fish go to die.

So, now I have to keep FOUR fish alive. Wish me luck, those baby fish are hard to swap out.