Goodbye Thomas

Owen got his very own fish aquarium and decorations for his birthday from his MeeMaw and PawPaw (Troy's parents).  He was so excited.  We had to open it and put it together right away!



O & T setting up the aquarium



So excited!

We set it up on Sunday afternoon/evening and promised O that we would take him to pick out his fish Monday night (on his actual birthday).  He was so excited and couldn't wait to go get his fish.  On Monday we took him to Toys R Us and then to Petsmart.  He decided on a beta fish and we thought it would be a good fit.  O named his blue/red beta fish Thomas the Train Owen Lacks Todd Lacks Owen Zoey...which was Thomas for short!  (Unfortunately I was unable to take pics at the fish store since my camera was dead and I couldn't find my phone).



Thomas



A few hours after we put Thomas in his new home, we realized that the water was getting very foggy.  We were stumped....we had washed the entire tank, all the rocks, and all the little decoration pieces 24 hours before purchasing Thomas.  We also put in the water treatment and the Beta treatment (we didn't realize we were getting a Beta at first).  We had a filter so there was no reason why his tank should be blurry.

Troy messed with the filter, and it got better...Thomas wasn't a big swimmer, but had started to swim a bit more while Troy was out of town the weekend after O's party.  I thought we were in the clear...but Monday evening, I noticed that Thomas wasn't very active.

By Tuesday, he was barely moving, but was still moving.  So we waited.  Wednesday morning, he was 100% still.  So we had to send him to fishy heaven.



I'm still not sure what happened with Thomas, but it just didn't work.  I never did see him eat anything, so maybe he just wasn't happy in a nice big tank with a soccer ball.  We had to explain to Owen (which sucked by the way) and at first he took it great, he wanted to flush Thomas and we thought all was well.

Then as we were getting ready to head downstairs to leave for the day, we realized that O was still in his bathroom looking at his toilet.  I'm pretty sure he was waiting for Thomas to swim back up and say "Gotcha, I was joking".  He just looked so heart broken and lost.  It totally sucked. O was such a great care giver to Thomas, he made sure to feed him, and was very careful not to give him too much or too little.

We promised Owen an new fish once we got his tank straight and made sure there was no problem with the filter.  Thomas the Train Owen Lacks Todd Lacks Owen Zoey, we are sorry that you were only with us for 1 week and 1 day, but we enjoyed every minute of it.

Today, a few days later Owen seems to have overcome his grief and has moved on.  We think his tank is good (still not sure what made it so cloudy) and hope to have a new fish soon.  I'm pretty sure our new fish, may share a great name with our old fish, only time will tell!