Death and Cards

The cardinal school in the 29 seems very happy now. I admit I have not counted them to see if everybody lived through the transition. I do feel the tank needs a loach. I've contemplated bringing down the burmese loach, but then he'd lost half of his real estate and the lonely clown would be even lonelier. I don't know what to do upstairs.

In the 55, I found the last congo tetra dead. No tail fin. Obviously the dream team of Bart and Hitler took her out. Poor fish. I think only loaches will be speedy enough to escape, and if not, the loaches can go downstairs. It'll be tight, but they'll live. I do have an outbreak of snails in the 29 that needs work. 

Bart is holding his own against Hilter. Perhaps they remember each other. Perhaps one is male and one female. Perhaps they need a school of tiny dither fish. I don't know. I'm more worried about the yardwork at the moment.

RIP Small Angel

The new, tiny angel (Bart? Did we name him Bart?) didn't last very long. Yesterday I found him dead, tangled up in the rotala. He was missing the tips of a few fins, but I don't know if that happened before or after he died. He was so tiny that I'm not sure he was much threat to Hitler. $4, down the toilet.

The smaller angel, from downstairs (he needs a name; perhaps he shall be Bart, now) is doing fine. He's holding his own and staying out of the way. The tiny one stayed hidden; perhaps stress did him in.

I guess it'll be a 2-angel tank, for the time being. I wouldn't mind a school of dither fish. Rummy nose seem to be sensitive. I love cardinals, but I have them downstairs. I'll have to ponder. I like color.

RIP....Not.

Now that I'm actually looking at the fish in the 29 - for the first time in months - I see that big bitch Bruce the black skirt tetra is gone. Farewell, asshat. You were a real jerk.

The residents of the 29 now include: 4 black skirts, roughly 6 cardinals, the only surviving guppy, and the stunted marbled angel.

Time to beef it up. We need a cardinal school.

November Renovation Again

Since it's the end of November, perhaps it's time I get back into my favorite winter hobby. Because, what would Christmas be without reduced funds because I spent them all on rummy nose tetras?

I'm glad to be getting back into it, though I doubt I'll jump in with the gusto I did last year. (She says.) I'm a little frustrated with the 55, because all of the beautiful, tall plants were munched by the angelfish. Hilter is bad for aquascaping. I need to do a little research, or perhaps try some wisteria again or something. Anything. 

I did a medium prune. I decided it was time to take out that blasted riccia. Curse that stuff. It's messy and it clogged my siphon. I pulled out most of it. It was covering the tops of the lovely Ohio River driftwood I bought last year. The piece on the right is particularly lovely. So I pulled most of the riccia out, trimmed the crypts, and thinned out the scummy-looking anubias leaves. The tiger lotus had two pads removed too. There's also a melon sword (I think) that got a few snips. I left the scarfy-looking rotala, simply because the new angel, Bart, needs a place to hide from Hitler.

Along those lines, I've decided that, when Bart's quarantine is over, the marbled angel in the 29 will go into the 55. He's never grown, and I can find no explanation for why this may be. Except, possibly, that he's stunted. Yikes. So he can go in with the other 2. We'll see how it goes. That'll open up space for just a few more cardinals in the 29. I need more color.

I scraped algae, too, and scrubbed the heaters and cleaned the filter. Then I siphoned and vac'd. Damn riccia made it tough.

anubias, clean and tidy...ish

kempt crypt

tiger lotus haircut

Hitler, wary, with Bart in the background

All trimmed up.

The new betta has been named...wait for it....Nemo. Truly original. I personally like "Rusty", but Ben keeps asking for "Nemo". Sigh. 

Today I took out the riccia I'd transplanted from the 55. It's just asking for a mess. Instead I put in some java moss from the 29. I tested the water and got nothing. Good. And I put in a root tab amongst the dwarf hair grass. And a shot of Excel.

Then, since my hands were dried out and my fingertips pruny, I went down to the 29. It was a royal mess.

If anything, it's a delightful argument for the dirted tank/eco-complete. I haven't had CO2 or Excel in there for 6 months. Look at it. The crypt in the foreground is nuts, and the java ferns and java moss were so entangled that I had to go in with scissors and just start hacking.

hot mess

By the time I was done pruning both the 55 and the 29, I had an entire bucket of leaves. I always feel a little guilty throwing out perfectly good java moss, but what am I going to do with it? Seriously? If I start injecting CO2 again, which I intend to do, I'll have another green hairball on my hands in no time.

And here's how it ended up. I moved things around a bit, with the exception of the crypts, of course. Scraped more algae and did a siphon 'n vac. Didn't have the energy for a filter cleanup.

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A good day's work!

Redemption

After being directly responsible for the death of a poor little betta, and for the sadness on Andy's face, I braved the 24-degree temps to go to Petco. There were so many little bettas in the store, and I wanted to take them all home.

My favorite betta is the delta tail. Rhaegar was a delta tail. They had no delta tails, but they had a double delta tail. So I chose him. He's lovely. Red and purple and blue. 

Of course, whenever I see ghost shrimp, I have to get a few. Especially $0.49 ghost scrimp. I got three. Thus far, the betta has been curious and the scrimp have been mad. I put in a bit more riccia from the 55-gallon so that they have a place to hide. I've never kept scrimp alive for very long.

Speaking of no luck, I saw a prepackaged bag of dwarf hair grass for $3. I already know from research I could never keep it alive. I've wanted it for years. I'll have to start up the CO2 to keep it alive. What the heck. I bought a new crypt too. You can see it in the background, behind the dhg.

Dwarf hair grass

I also took a chance and got Hilter a partner. A little veiled angel. Black and white. I don't even know if he's the right species. Or how big he'll get. Hitler has eyeballed him with interest but so far, no aggression. So far. 

Back?

It's been over 9 months since I checked in. I suck. I did what I always do, and that's dive into a hobby and then dump it after 4 months. 

The tanks got messy, and I maintained, but didn't put that much effort into them.  All of my panda corydoras downstairs in the 29 died. One night in the 6.6 the filter went off and I didn't realize for quite a while. My mini cories died. Eventually, beautiful Rhaegar died. By this time I was utterly sick of having 4 tanks (what was I thinking?) and moved Jerkface to the 6.6. He was very happy there, and I was very happy to get that 5 gallon out of the window. Jerkface's tank, though, started growing hair algae, and most of the time was a jungly mess with miserable visibility.

The big tank, too, went downhill. The rams died. Of course they did. Rams are too tough. I quit them. I kept the silver angel in the big tank and put his counterpart downstairs. It ended up being a good idea because the silver guy grew huge and the black guy stayed small. Obviously the black one is a dwarf species. In the 55, the angel grew big and mean. I was distracted all summer by my new koi pond (entry to follow, maybe) and didn't notice as, one by one, the fish in the 55 began to disappear. The congo tetras were, I assume, tortured and possible killed. The male had bites on him and then he was gone one day. I had 4 and now have only one lonely female left. The guppies were demolished. My clown loaches, too, disappeared. I'm down to one clown. And the pakistani loach is still there. He seems fine. I don't know if the angel's wrath brought down the inhabitants of the tank, or if there was another problem I was too busy to notice while I played with my koi. Whatever happened, it's now a pretty sad sight.

The plants aren't quite thriving, but they're well established. Tiger lotus have grown well. The wisteria and the rotala were eaten by the angel (who we call Hitler for obvious reasons). He's left the smaller plants alone, thankfully. Things need pruned and divided, and the tank needs an overhaul, too. 

Also, I was pretty good about making monthly CO2 for a while, and then I slacked off. I had a CO2 fail with the final batch in the 29, and none of the tanks have had active CO2 in several months. Again, I suck.

And in the tradition of sucking extra hard, last night as I went to bed, I heard a grinding noise from Jerkface's 6.6. The filter had stopped working properly. Some water was getting through, but there was obviously something clogging the impeller. I tinkered with it and couldn't get it going. Finally I picked up the filter, drained it and held it to the light.

And there was poor little Jerkface, or rather, what remained of him. He'd been sucked into the impeller and chopped to bits. Alive. I think it's the second-worst thing I've ever done, next to putting that nasty botia in the freezer. Thing is, I'd taken off the filter guard because it kept sucking up the sand substrate. The last filter died when it was clogged and then all the mini cories died too. I didn't think this had enough suction to suck up a fish, nor did I think this was even a possibility. When I poked around, I saw that the sweet little guy had been building a bubble next by the outflow, working his little fishy heart out. And then wham. Sucked in and dismembered. Wretchedly.

This morning I woke up with the conviction to revive the tank. It had gone to hell. Algae was rampant. The walls were green and the hair algae was like medusa. I kept the filter material safe in tank water and gutted the rest. The white sand? Had to go. Horrible idea. It looked dirty and disgusting. I'll never choose white sand again. I have a bag of fluorite in the basement, which I rinsed and put in, after a good scrub down. (And let me add that the Petco 6.6's reputation for being easily scratched is true. It doesn't look great.) I filled it up and discarded the swords that were covered in hair algae. I tried doing a bleach dip on them, but was unsuccessful. The red sword could be salvaged. I pinched off all but the remaining 3 leaves. From the 55 I brought two java ferns, a handful of Christmas moss (I think...I've forgotten already what species it actually is; I'll have to read the blog) (pitiful), and a tiny tiger lotus. 

Today is obscenely cold, even for January. It's well below freezing. It's not the best day to go get a new fish, but this week promises to be hectic with Thanksgiving, and I don't want to take the kids. Actually, I tried to get Andy out of his pj's to come pick a new betta, but despite his mild sorrow, he can't be bothered to dress. I can't decide if I'm going to go up there or not. I'm thinking that when I do, I'll also get an angel buddy for Hitler. 

I've neglected the tanks, as I am prone to do. I dive in for 4 months over the winter and then move on to summer gardening and such. Reviving them is fun, but please, somebody, smack me if I ever try to create another tank. I almost didn't redo Jerkface's tank, but Shawn likes it so much and it's quite easy to maintain. I guess we'll see how it goes. I'll try to do an entry on the 29 downstairs, too. It, above all, seems to be thriving despite the neglect.

Edited to add: Ricci fluitans. It's riccia.

Disaster and Disarray

I haven't blogged in a long time. And things haven't been great, either. The main reason I haven't blogged is because everybody has been sick for ages. Today Andy is barfing.

I'm battling ich again. In the big tank. I turned the heat down after about 12 days because the cabomba was looking brown and awful. I know it can't take that kind of heat for too long. And then a few days - maybe a week - later, the spots returned on the loaches. So, oh well. Back up with the heat. It's frustrating.

Meanwhile, my second ram died. The very pretty, very spunky one who was my favorite. I can't remember if I blogged when the first of the three died. Stinks. So I'm left with one and I don't hold out much hope. That's the last time I ever flush $60 down the toilet (literally) again. I might try Bolivian Rams someday, but for now I'm going to stick with angelfish. I'll bring the marbled angel back upstairs as soon as the ich is gone. 

Meanwhile, in terms of plants...I took the sword out of the 29. It was enormous. As you can see in the photo above, I put it next to the smaller sword in the 55. I also took out the melon sword from the 55 and put it in the 6.6. The java moss in the 29 got pretty gross with algae, so I tossed it. And lastly, the tiger lotus bulbs I ordered produced pretty little red leaves. The two I ordered as seedlings didn't fare as well. The upstairs plant died and the downstairs plant looks green. 

In the 29 last month I lost one of my pandas. Damn! Everybody else in there seems healthy, though. The guppy has grown up to be a male. I'll take out one of the 55g guppies and bring him downstairs so I have two in each tank. That is, when the ich is gone.