About 4 months ago Mike and Shaina became the proud adoptive parents of a fish. It is a pretty betta with beautiful pink and peach flowing fins. But it's a boy. So they named it Dagger.
It seems to have a normal and happy life in its fish bowl for one, furnished with plastic flowers. Mike and Shaina could have been nominated for the Fish Parents of the Year award if it wasn't for this past month.
The temperature in the Draper area has been particularly cold the last few weeks, and in order to conserve energy and cash, the Burgoyne's have been turning the heat down in their home during the day while they are both at work and at night while they are sleeping.
One morning Mamma Shaina was giving little Dag his breakfast, thinking about how cold she was and she wondered if a fish could feel cold. She tested his water, it was pretty chilly. A good google search later that day informed her that Betta fish are native to Indonesia, go figure. And the water there averages about 75-80 degrees all year long.
Now the Burgoyne's are stuck with a parenting dilemma. How can they keep their Dagger cozy and warm like he should be during the bitter winter?
Mamma Shaina has tried a few things, but isn't confident they are the right solutions:
They did buy a space heater, it even has an automatic turn off so it wouldn't burn the house down. But what if they turn that on during the day and it becomes too warm for Dagger?
Unless they find a solution soon, poor Dag will either freeze or boil and go to the big fish bowl in the sky before it's his time.
3 days ago
6 comments:
I feel for you, every year since we've been married we have bought a goldfish for Persian New Years. The first five years didn't go so well, the longest that we managed to keep one alive was a week (the shortest was about 10 hours, Will "cooked" it when he refilled the water). Our luck changed in 2006, our 2006 New Years fish lived for over a year and a half. He died while being babysat I (I think while we attended your wedding). I was devastated and I think Will was relieved (now he didn't have to worry about transporting a gold fish to Denver). As for Dagger unless you’re willing to invest in a fish tank with a heater I'm not sure what you can do. There’s nothing wrong with praying for your little friend (the girls did every night). Don't worry, we learned from personal experience that just because your pet fish dies it doesn't mean you can't keep your children alive, we're proof of that. I’ll have the girls pray for Dagger :)
Uh oh... I'm totally one of those fish babysitting killers. I killed my friends beta fish while I was tending it. I didn't want to clean the bowl. I do clean Kaylee when she's dirty though :).
It's all good. Fishsticks taste better when they're frozen, anyway.
OK, quite humorous posts and very funny comments.
As for fish - I have found them to be quite resilient (we are also a fish family). All our fish have lived for atleast 1.5 years. I got a fish for McKenna when she was little thinking "good pet, easy to feed, swims around, dies quickly." (sad logic, I know, but I'm not really a pet person). Well, our fish seem to be eternal. We even had a fish who used to jump out of his bowl and we would constantly find him on the floor or in the kitchen sink. We had him for almost 2 years. (he also tried to bite people - good parlor trick).
We had beta fish at one point. They both died of this weird puffy disease. So you never know, it might just solve the problem for you and then you don't have to worry about it. But we don't want Mama's heart to break. :)
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