A fish was swimming around the top of the tank – actually, it was just floating there mostly. It was a bit worrying. It did that for a while, then it moved down to the rock and sat in a convenient groove for ages. Eventually, after much agonising, we netted it out and put it in a bucket with some water we siphoned out. Its eyes were popping out a bit, and after it died we noticed the scales were sticking out a bit. It died about 30 min after we put it in the bucket. I guess the stress of transportation didn’t help too much. The other platies appear ok, but now we have to figure out whether to dose up the tank just to be on the safe side. So – seven platies. I feel like a fish failure already, after only a fortnight.

The SAE are schooling much more now that there are more fish in there. The angels zoom to the top whenever the lid is removed – they’re always (acting) hungry. The gourami are ultra flexible: they could nose their tails if they wanted to.

Our ammonia has increased slightly, and nitrite has increased a bit. We also seem to have had a bacteria explosion – the water is very cloudy. The solution to the ammonia/nitrite + bacteria is, apparently, just keep on with the water changes.