Where's Nemo? At the Fish Store (and He's Staying There).

Years ago I purchased a itty-bitty aquarium for my desk at work. When remodeling started and I began having to switch offices every ten minutes, I brought the thing home and stuck it in storage. Since Alexis loves watching fish, we had the brilliant idea to bring it out of storage and set it up in her room.

Never the kind of people to do things the easy way, we geniuses decided to make it a saltwater aquarium. So we did a little research and found that step one was to put in some sand and saltwater. We spent a few bucks on the sand and a crazy amount on premixed saltwater. We let it sit, as instructed, for a while, then looked for the next step. That was to add live rock. Live rock, it turns out, is absolutely required. It's rock that comes from the ocean, has lots of little good stuff living in it, and costs about $7-$9 per pound. Oh, and you need one or two pounds per gallon of water. So we bought $60 freakin' dollars worth of rocks. And a $40 protein skimmer. Then there was the $45 worth of coral. So now we're up to $200 bucks on this whim of an aquarium and there still aren't any fish in the thing. And there won't be anytime soon because we're broke from buying rocks that you can grab out of the ocean for free.

Oh, and have you ever wondered how much a Nemo fishy costs? $25. As in a months' supply of diapers. Or a weeks' supply of Starbucks Iced Caramel Macciatos. Or a days' supply of chew toys for Meg. (BTW, yes, I know it's not called a Nemo fishy but that's so much more fun to type than Percula, so I'm calling it that anyway.) You just know that we're going to drop all this cash on the itty-bitty aquarium, get it all happy and running, and then Alexis is going to come along and decide to use it as a combination piggy bank/doll bath tub.