Fish Questions

It's always fun to try and answer customer's questions...especially when you know that if they had thought about the question they were going to ask for a few seconds longer before speaking it out loud...they would have figured out the answer themselves.

Today I had a couple of boys come into my store. They were probably in their late teens or early twenties.
And like all new college students looking for something random to do.
They'd come into the store to buy a fish for a bowl.
(Because that's the 'in' thing to do in College Town.)

It was the typical conversation really.
Which involved me crushing the guy's dreams of buying 'fancy' fish for their bowl, and religating them back to Bettas and, if they were willing to make more work for themselves, goldfish instead since all the other fish need a filter and a heater to do well.

One guy decided to grab a betta.
The other a goldfish.
(both being put in separate bowls)
And so while I was catching the goldfish...

One of the guys asked me:
"Do fish drink the same water that they live in?"

O_o
Ummmm....
You know if you thought about that for two seconds longer....you would have know the answer to that.
Yes. Yes they do.
Where else would they get their water from? *shakes head*
Though I was thinking "Technically they drink air if they go to the surface" but fish constantly have water flowing through their gills to keep them alive. So basically their drinking water too.

But for whatever reason...this seemed to flabbergast the guy.
"You mean....they drink the same water that they pee in?! They're basically drinking their own pee?"
Again. O_o
I mean....it's one of those things that you subconsciously know, but don't consciously think about until it's brought up. But....yah.... hence why you do water changes or have a filter in your tank. To help keep the water clean.

*shakes head*
lol. I later brought up that question to my coworkers and friends.
And their responses were:

 "Oh, we have a separate system set up that drips water into the tank and the fish go over to it to drink from it."

"Nah, you need to place a bowl of water in their tank for them to drink from." "But only every few days, they don't need to drink from it everyday."

"No, they just pee in a corner and somehow it doesn't disperse to the rest of the tank."

haha.

I love the crazy responses my friends/coworkers come up with. ^^

In any case.

It didn't stop there with that question.

No a minute or so later, as that same customer was staring at all our Goldfish in our tanks. He said "I really want to just buy all of these fish and release them into the ocean, just to see what will happen."

To which I quickly responded. "They would die."

He seemed shocked by that. So I clarified.

"These fish are fresh water fish, the ocean is salt water, so they wouldn't live long."

His friend found it rather amusing that I corrected the guy more than once today.  "Well, she's just correcting you left and right today isn't she?" he said.

Yes. Yes I am.

lol.

*shakes head*

Honestly, he could have saved himself the trouble if he actually thought about his statements/questions before speaking them out loud.

Ah well.

It was a great source of amusement for me today. :)

-Sarnic Dirchi