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I wonder if our fish dream about a tropical vacation (sans salt water) as much as I do.

It’s spring break, which is synonymous with our annual trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa. In past years, our only pre-traveling concerns were stopping the mail and trying to tidy the house so as not to induce clutter shock on reentry.

This time, though, we had a more critical consideration: our fish. I did a partial water change prior to leaving, but didn’t manage to teach them to fend for themselves while we’re gone.

Still, our concessions were few compared to other friends who had to arrange lodging for their pets. One family hired their babysitter to walk and feed their dog (their dog never had it so good!), while the other left their dog with relatives.

While we very much enjoy tending to our fish, I don’t think they depend on us to do much more than feed them and ensure a healthy habitat. I also know that, while a daily meal may be optimal, our fish could survive with less—as a matter of fact, less food is better than too much.

My kids’ more conveniently-located grandparents, who were (hopefully!) adequately prepared, will pay daily visits to our home to feed the fish during the first half of our vacation, and a house sitting friend (and fish expert) will cover the second half.

So I know our fish are in good hands, which makes it easier to enjoy our vacation. I do still wonder what is on their little fishy brains, and if they comprehend changes in their regular schedule or lighting or the number of gigantic humans thundering by their tank. I can say that the fish are top of our son’s mind: at dinner, when asked if he’d like to color a picture of fish, he responded, “I LOVE fish!” Hopefully the hostess didn’t think he meant he loves fish for dinner.

We have more to do on our trip, and we’re not even close to being ready to return home. But when the time comes, reality may be a little easier to swallow since we’ll be coming back to our aquatic friends.

“The Last Kid on the Block” is a continuing series following the Knudsen family’s progress selecting and caring for their first pets. Andrea Knudsen lives in suburban Chicago with her husband and two children.

Possibly all five of our new fish: a marigold platy and four neon tetras.

When our family decided to take on the responsibility of a pet (or more accurately, multiple pets), we agreed we wouldn’t do it unless we could do it “right.”

Heh.

Turns out “right” is more elusive to the beginner than I thought. Although my son initially wanted a betta, we steered him in the direction of a tropical fish tank because a betta in a little bowl is a sad betta.

We thought we waited for our tank’s nitrogen cycle to complete, but we lost three of four fish. We thought we were feeding our fish appropriately, but we were feeding them too much. We wanted happy fish, but began with one male and one stressed-out female platy, and four neon tetras that needed more buddies to form a shoal. We were overwhelmed by advice online.

Believe it or not, I’m not here to focus on what we’ve gotten wrong. I’m actually celebrating what we’ve learned along the way. Because as I type, 11 fish swim placidly behind me: our two platys have a new female friend to divide the, um, affection of the male; and our four tetras are now eight.

We understand the nitrogen cycle, and have gotten pretty good at regular partial water changes. We are now feeding our fish much less than we had been—the substrate and water are cleaner for it, and our fish are healthier (yay!). We also hope we’ve achieved a happy environment for all of the inhabitants of our tank.

As a fabulous bonus, we’re happy, too. So happy, in fact, that while at the pet store purchasing our new fish, we priced out larger tanks! Our son would like one for his birthday—which gives us a few months to work on our skills, and consult sources we’re coming to trust—and we’ve picked out a spot for a 30-gallon tank.

Our fish are as perfect a fit for our family as we could have hoped. My son and I handle the maintenance, my husband is mastering feedings. The kids like to check in on their tropical friends, know each by name (as far as they can tell)—my daughter even tells her preschool friends about our platys and tetras. We must be doing something right.

“The Last Kid on the Block” is a continuing series following the Knudsen family’s progress selecting and caring for their first pets. Andrea Knudsen lives in suburban Chicago with her husband and two children.

The cloudiness of our fish tank, however slight, was a little alarming. We have every intention of providing our tropical fish a clean and comfortable habitat.

I must confess that I’ve been feeling like an expert pet owner: we’ve kept our fish alive for six weeks (apparently I’m easily impressed). I’m happy to report we still have two platys and four neon tetras, all of which seem active and, dare I say, happy.

The blessing and curse of pet fish is, they are low-maintenance. My son and I change 15-20% of the water in the tank every week, and we all take turns feeding the fish every evening. The status quo makes it easy to feel confident!

Until, that is, the water in our tank began looking cloudy two days ago, as if tiny particles were floating throughout the aquarium. Eh, nothing a water change can’t fix, I thought. But vacuuming/siphoning the gravel in the process of changing the water may have made matters worse.

I thought we’d mastered this pet thing! I panicked a little, expecting the worst. But according to the Internet, cloudy water is a common symptom, the causes of which range from continued nitrogen cycling to overfeeding.

In our case, overfeeding seems like the most likely cause: while we know one flake per fish is a good ratio, we were coming to the end of the introductory packet of fish food that came with our tank, and had been using piles of the tiny crumbs at the bottom of said packet. We were trying not to waste, you know? What I suspect, though, is that many of the tiny flakes intended as fish food landed among the substrate and became food for hungry-turned-happy bacteria. A case of our eyes being bigger than our fish’s stomachs.

The solution, I hope, is switching to a fresh container of whole fish food flakes, and monitoring that each fish is able to eat its fill without leaving leftovers at the bottom of the tank. General consensus among the fish-loving online community is that fish should eat what they need within two minutes. Unfortunately tonight I think we still overshot our goal, uneaten flakes littering the gravel once again. Hopefully we’ll do better tomorrow.

I am proud of my problem-solving skills… assuming I solve the problem. Time will tell. We had intended to add more fish to the tank, but now we’ll wait until the water returns to crystal clear before messing with the bio load. Our 10-gallon tank should support four additional fish (for a total of 10), and my son has his eye on two more neon tetras and two fancy guppies. Hopefully they’ll join our little community before long!

“The Last Kid on the Block” is a continuing series following the Knudsen family’s progress selecting and caring for their first pets. Andrea Knudsen lives in suburban Chicago with her husband and two children.