More Algae...Ugh!

In the beginning of October we bought a small aquarium for the kids. This came after many complaints from the kids that we don't own any pets. Ben and I really aren't pet people. Neither one of us like dogs, Ben's allergic to cats, and we're both picky about the house. Not to mention, we're very busy people, gone from the house at least 8 hours each day. It wouldn't be fair to a dog or cat for us to have one, especially if our heart wasn't in it (and it really wouldn't be!).

But in the spring the kids started complaining again, and with the addition of a Jack's Aquarium in Marysville, we thought maybe the kids were old enough to handle an easy pet, like fish. So we decided to wait until fall when our schedules are more predictable, and bought a 14 gallon freshwater aquarium in early October.

And it has been anything but easy. I have many blog posts of the day to day hassles so I won't go through everything again. In summary, we have killed one snail and two guppies. We have had two bouts of brown algae, and when we thought we successfully got rid of that (with chemicals), the fish started dying off. Then we had a pH problem that we thought we sort of solved, and bought three new fish.

Now we have green algae. Everywhere. The tank looked beautiful and clear on Thanksgiving, but Sunday started to cloud up. By Tuesday green algae was everywhere. So we cleaned the entire thing again and started using the chemicals again. The fish are very active and happy when there is no algae, but become slow and lethargic with the algae there. And we don't know if it is the algae or chemicals that negatively affect the fish. But when we quit using the chemicals (to keep the fish happy), we get more algae, so we have to keep using them. And we've tried non-chemical ways to get rid of algae, but nothing seems to work.

And this whole fish thing is becoming much more of a hassle than we need. We tried to get a pet with the least amount of hassle and it has been a huge pain in only two months of having them. So we'll see if we can find some kind of balance between keeping live fish and no algae, but it is so depressing to get rid of one problem and have another crop up days later. And of course, although the fishes belong to the kids, we are the ones doing all the work. Some days they can't even be bothered to feed them!