Fishy Thoughts (Work in Progress)

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April 18, 2005

Babies (take 2)...

So what started off as 7 or 8 new babies in this tank had culminated to about 30 by the evening. No idea where they hell they all came from. Anyway, not entirely sure what the final count is cause there's too many too account. Plus the snails in the tank seems to have reproduced as well cause I came home last night to a bunch of small specks on the glass and plants. Those I'll probably need to get rid of eventually.

On a side note, I think the 2 male guppies I moved to the 12 gal has disappeared over the weekend. Will need to take a closer look later.

Posted by ronin at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

Replacements...

Late last week I started losing flamingo gouramis. They would just start losing their equilibrium or just look really tired (lying on the ground on their sides) and then die within a day. 3 of the 4 flamingos I had lost to this. So on Friday I went to AF for replacements. Mentioned the peculiar deaths to Tom and since he still remembered me getting them about a week ago, he was nice enough to provide me with new replacements. So far they seem to be doing fine.

Also picked up 4 bee shrimp. Never seen these types before in the area and they were relatively cheap. Has nice thick black and thin white banding. Was interesting to watch the sparkling gouramis examine them to see if they were food or not. I watched the biggest one chase one of the smaller shrimp for a short distance before I intervened by tapping the glass near him. Later on I watched him swim up really close to one and just stare at it for quite a while before turning away. As far as I know all 4 bee shrimp are still accounted for.

Lost a pygmy habrosus though. Not sure why, just found it upside down Saturday morning.

Gotta clean up this tank sometime though. Stringy algae has a firm grip on the plants in there so I'm either going to have to replace them all or find a way to clean them up. Pain in the butt. =(

Posted by ronin at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)

Damn diseases (take 2)...

So somehow the 3 black guppy females had survived a week in the goldfish bowl where I was dropping a fragment of anti-fungal tablet once every 2 days and a dose of Melafix daily. They didn't seem too happy about it but survive they did. And they were joined halfway by one of the orange guppy females who I had recently moved from the small 3 gal tank to the 12 gal and came down with similar symptoms.

So Friday I moved them back to the 12 gal tank. Apparently still not a good idea cause the symptoms started reappearing. So this time I'm treating the whole damn 12 gal tank cause whatever it is that's causing it is obviously in the big tank and hopefully this final treatment will take care of it for good. Fingers crossed.

The original koi swordtail male seems to be just about ready to give up the ghost now too. Acting like the last koi male did just before it passed. He's been getting really thin and looking kinda old lately with the back half of his body sorta sagging a little. Ah well, when he passes I'll be left with just one trio of koi's left. Unfortunately the 2 females don't seem to have any interest in breeding. Probably leery of the giant gold barbs.

Posted by ronin at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

April 8, 2005

Damn diseases...

Something's been infecting the 3 female guppies that we have in the 12 gal tank. Not sure what the heck it is but been fighting it on and off for over 2 weeks with all sorts of medication. Anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, whatever. Lost the one snakeskin male guppy during the process and one of the females is missing half her tail while another seems to be losing chunks from hers. Not sure what's going on. Have the 3 separated out into the goldfish bowl and dosing with anti-fungal tablets for now cause I think that's what the problem is. The entire bowl is blue because of the tablets. Will see how this treatment progresses.

The odd thing is this seems to affect only the guppies. The rest of the fish in the 12 gal didn't seem to be affected at all. I think it first started out as an ich outbreak which got passed on to some of the swordtails but that was cleared up a week or so ago. Strange.

Posted by ronin at 1:06 PM | Comments (0)

Babies...

Woke up to a bunch of new baby guppies in our 3 gal tank (7 or 8 that I could see before I rushed off to work). Their mother has a warped spine so it'll be interesting to see if that trait gets passed on genetically. If so I may have to cull unfortunately. Moved the 2 males that were originally in this tank to the big 12 gal tank so there'd be less fish in the 3 gal that would view the new arrivals as food. Promptly scared witless by the gold barbs. Hopefully they'll show themselves this evening.

Posted by ronin at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

April 4, 2005

New tankmates

Brought in 7 guppies to AF yesterday and got 3 flamingo gouramis in return. That'd make an even 4 in this tank. I bought 2 earlier but 1 seemed to have disappeared which is pretty amazing considering the size of the tank but ah well. Still gotta find some time over a weekend to completely redecorate this tank.

Posted by ronin at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

April 1, 2005

Gosh darn it...

My previous alpha male kohaku swordtail passed away last night. Not sure exactly why but probably either old age, injury or shame. I noticed he and the third male going at it 2 days ago so not sure if there were any injuries due to that or if he just wound up on the losing side and couldn't bear to live with the shame of defeat. =p Anyway, I'll miss him.

Oddly enough, this guy below seems to have become the alpha male now. Not exactly sure what happened to the original alpha but he seems to be a lot weaker now as well.

Posted by ronin at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)