guppies as center arangements(long)

[valerie]

ok first off i want you to know that i don't agree with this idea but thought that if atleast i helped poor fishies wouldn't die.

my mom's friend is getting married in august and wants to have fish as the center piece for her tables. She has little vases that holds about 1 liter of water and wants to have 1 fish in each with some marbles.

When I heard that she had wanted to do this i quickly told her that it isn't a good idea. I told her that the fish could die and how that its jsut plain wrong to use fish as objects. Well she didn't care and said that if i didn't want to take them she would jsut flush them after the wedding.She was going to do this, and didnt' care about the fish.

I told her that if she used guppies i would probably be able to take them after(instead of feeder goldfish like she first wanted too). She said yes guppies would be ok. I also told her that i would take care of the fish since she didn't want to handle them or basically have anythign to do with them except to have them look nice(she even said she would grab them with tweezers to put them into the vase since she didn't want to touch them,this is when i said i would take care of it)

Now i'm not too sure how i'm supposed to make sure they don't die in the vases. I know how to keep fish in tanks but not little containers. I have to get them ready and put them in their vases the night before. Will guppies be alright in their for jsut one day? Can i add ammo lock(or some ammonia reducing thing) in hopes that the ammonia doesn't get too high.

can you please help me out, as i don't want to hurt these fish. I don't know why she wants to do this but since she is i'm glad i atleast get to do it to make sure it is done as right as possible.

[firetank]

hey valerie,

im not so sure about keeping em,

why not try a bit pf psychology and suggest a betta for every vase??? may end up cost prohibitive...........;)

hopefully someone else ll come along.....i do lknow they need as large a surface area as possible for better oxygen-co2 exchange (???)

[valerie]

bettas are diffinitly not going to happen,way too expensive. I have tried suggesting other things but she said that she will only spend up to 20$(canadian) on all the fish. She wants 20 fish,so that doesn't give me much money. Male guppies are the only thing around here that are that cheap(i can get them for 1.25$ thats the cheapest around here),besides feeder goldfish and guppies.

There is no going back,the guppies are final. How can i make sure that they stay alive?

[Faramir]

Well she didn't care and said that if i didn't want to take them she would jsut flush them after the wedding.

What is it with some people? They'd go potty if someone took that attitude to a fluffy ikle kitten, wouldn't they?



You could try using some established aquarium gravel at the bottom of each bowl.

[Wulfy]

I pity the dude that is going to marry the heartless *****.

I would never marry a woman who would show
such a callous contempt towards life.

[TKOS]

You might wish to put some sort of clear mesh on the top of the bowls. Clear so it wouldn't interfear with the look and mesh so that people don't feel the need to "feed" the fish with pieces of their dinner. Nothing worse than a piece of chicken floating in your home.

[val]

You should be able to keep these fish alive. Although there is a part of me that would like to see Bridezilla try to catch 20 guppies with tweezers in a bag of water the night before her "special day". What a *****....

OK, here is what you do, since you are willing to make the sacrfice she is not. Get the fish a couple of weeks before the wedding. You can have the tank set up well before hand, cycled, etc. Keep the temperature relatively low, say 70 degrees. Don't feed them a lot for the time you have them, maybe just once a day. Figuring that you'll have a 10 or 20 gallon tank, plan on water changes every couple of days.

Then the night of the wedding, use the water from your tank to put into the vases. Do not feed them the day before, or the day of the wedding. I don't think you'd have to worry too much about the ammonia that a fish is going to excrete for a 24 hours. I also wouldn't worry too much about people feeding the fish during the reception, most won't even notice the fish. If you see a table full of kids, say in the 6 - 10 year old range, remove the fish from the table altogether. Bridezilla won't notice.

Your bigger issue, actually, will be deciding what to do with 20 male guppies.

Best of luck...

Val

[tyler]

try bringing the guppies back where you get them from after you're done with them. better than flushin the poor buggers.

[FishmasteR2002]

Send them to me I'll take the guppies. Also is this bride drop dead gorgeous or something because the way you are decribing her is that she cold and heartless and needs to understand that fish are breathing living animals as well and are not their objects to showcase and throw away when they are no longer needed. Even if they are $1.25 gupppies. How much would shipping be on those from Canada to Virginia??? Good Luck and let us know if it was a good idea(I might do this if I take the plunge but not with guppies, bettas are prettier and used to confined spaces).

[wetmanNY]

If she feels like that about fish, why does she want them on her table?

I would have told her that they carry salmonella, like turtles, and that they tend to jump out of the vase and flip all over the table.

Tell her that a wedding guest at a recent wedding thought that it was ared icing rose in her slice of cake, but it moved and it was a Siamese Fighting Fish that had jumped out of the vase...

and it bit the fork...

and the mother-of-the-bride passed out cold and dislocated her collarbone when she fell on the floor...

tell her anything.

[valerie]

well thanks val, I will be gettign the guppies a few weeks in advace and keeping them in my 10gal hospital tank. I will gradually reduce the emp untill the are used to about room temp. I like the not feeding to close to the day, since that will really help with ammonia.

I will be keeping them afterwards in my 10gal. I will most likely give most away to people in my aquarium club(if they want them) or sell them back to a store for credit.

[superstein61]

You could always get a special fish for this lovely brides's table. Just stop by your LFS the day before the wedding and ask them to scoop out ofr you a couple of fish that ahhhh, unfortunately didn't make it that day. Then gently place those dead fish in a nice bowl/vase for the Bridal centerpiece. When she asks / freaks out why they are not moving, nicely explain to her that you warned her this was not a good idea and the fish could die ;) I am sure she will get the message that in the future, using living things in this manner isn't a real good idea ;) ;)

[amy]

Do the mesh top thing. I've seen plenty of adults who get bored at these events and start acting like 10 year olds, especially if there is any alcohol involved. I've got this vision of a frat boy, his buddies, and his fingers dangling a guppy over his open mouth....

Even though you don't plan of feeding them the day before, give every bowl a squirt of Amquel just in case.

Depending on wedding traditions in your part of N. America, be aware that some guests may decide to take a centerpiece home with them - especially when it gets out that the bride made a "special effort" to purchase them herself and they're not going back to some rental company, etc. You may want to tape some kind of short info card to the bottom of the bowls in case someone thinks it would be cool to help themselves to a free fish.

[Doublette90]

I feel for you Valerie...my brother in law and his wife put bettas in these special keepsake glasses and used them as table decorations at their wedding last year. They encouraged people to take them home after the reception as a thank you gift, which my two girls talked us into two of. (This is actually how we got into fishkeeping. ) Once I did some research on them I promptly took them out of their glasses and moved them to 2 gallon tanks. And you know how it is one tank leads to another to another ....:D

I hope things work out okay for you.

[valerie]

well i emailed her yesterdayand said tha ti wouldn't do it since i don't think its right to subject fish to conditions that aren't suited for them. I also told her that i had asked people(here and my fish club) and they all thought it wasn't a good idea.

She wrote back and said that she won't do it. She wen tout today and bought these little fish charms to float in the vases instead.Thank god she realized it was a dumb idea

[val]

Great!!

Good job on persisting with her. That must have been a little awkward.

Val

[ChilDawg]

Hmm...that's the first good use I've seen for fake fish! :) Seriously, thank you for doing all of that to keep the real fish off the tables! Now, if we could only show this thread to Modern Bride or one of those mags...

[valerie]

yeah im' glad she changed her mind too. Thanks for all the help