First Pet(s)!

So...about $85 later, we have our first pets!  Fish!  Originally a friend of Erik's had posted on Facebook that he was going to empty out his pond and wanted a place for some of the goldfish to go.  I thought it would be a great chance for us to have a few pets for Tryg!  Erik agreed.  So, I asked around to see if anyone had a tank we could have.  Facebook worked great (again) and we got a ten gallon tank from a family from our old church.  We filled it up and bought a couple fake plants, a filtration system and filters (the first expense).  

We were ready for fish!  We even had the water tested at the pet store and we were good to go.  So we went to Erik's friend's house.  We got to the backyard and quickly realized that the goldfish were MUCH larger than I expected.  James (Erik's friend) said they were 4 to 5 inches....but they were also about 3 inches tall!  I guess I thought they were going to be skinny little fish.  I just wasn't picturing that size and our 10 gallon tank was not going to cut it.  So....back to the pet shop!

We ended up getting 6 fish and a snail (and a free baby snail that is currently missing).  And those fish add up in cost.  Also, since we were no longer going to have goldfish (from a pond), we also needed to get a heater and different fish food (another expense).  

So, we were [I was] thinking we'd get our first pet(s) up and running for about $25 and it ended up being more than three times that.  Oh well.  I hope they work out!  They are fun to watch.  We'll see what happens.  The people at the pet store seem very opptimistic that we will have these fish for a long time. I was a bit confused because I'm pretty sure I have never really heard of a fish lasting more than maybe 2 years --at least in my childhood experience....but maybe they're right!

P.S. I can't really even tell you what kind of fish we bought.  Sorry.