This is to continue the story of Rocky the goldfish. Two days after his arrival, my granddaughter decided that Rocky was hungry and she should help with that. The good news was that she found his goldfish flakes and didn’t decide to feed him something else. The bad news was that she fed him about half the container.
My daughter discovered the tank with the filter full of food, a pile of food on the bottom and Rocky furiously trying to consume it all (well at least all he could get at).
I received a call for advice. My daughter was concerned about how to change virtually all the water and be able to acclimate Rocky to the new water when she didn’t have another tank. I advised her not to worry too much about acclimation at that point and talked her through the process.
Rocky is now doing well in his clean aquarium, my granddaughter has had another lesson in aquarium care and the goldfish food has a new home well out of her reach.
Without a doubt, aquariums are great learning tools for children, but the lesson here is that children usually want to help and there needs to be some safeguards in place to keep them and the fish safe.
Besides keeping the food out of the reach of your children, there are a few other things to consider. The aquarium should be placed on a sturdy support so that there is no chance that the child can topple it in an effort to climb up and see the fish.
The tank should also be placed so that there is no chance that the child can fall into it (children have drowned by toppling into a bucket of water). The electrical connections should be made in such a way that the child can not tamper with them (water and electricity are needless to say, is a bad combination).
Some children are more inquisitive and active than others. The key is to take every precaution to be sure that the aquarium learning adventure does not turn into a tragedy.