We got back after lights-out last night, so we turned the light on briefly, and most of the babies seemed to be still there! We gave them a little food and turned the light off, as they all looked a little sleepy.

This morning, when I looked at the tank properly, I saw that there were zillions of babies! Well, maybe about 30 – they are hard to count, being so small and because the plants have grown into a veritable forest. The lily pads cover amonst the entire surface of the tank, which is possibly a significant factor in why the babies have survived – it’s almost like they havbe a hatchery up there, No Adults Allowed because it’s too hard to get to. I’ve actually cut a bit of the lily pad because it was restricting the surface and swimming area a fair bit.

However, it’s not all happiness. One of the cloaches looked to be stuck between the filter intake and the glass, but when we moved the intake and the glass, but when we moved the intake he swam away, rather affronted that we had disturbed his sleep. So that wasn’t sad, but there is a gourami who looks like a balloon (and consequently looks white, because his scales are sticking out), and another who looks like may have ahd a nick taken from above one eye (at least, I hope that’s what the white spot is – I’ll be very distressed if it is ich, as will all the fish). I think the gourami have been getting into fisticuffs while we were away – I wonder if that could be because they didn’t get as much food as normal? Really not sure what to do with Dropsy Gourami. No sign of any bubble nest, either.

This morning we also had a heavy-brathing, upside-down tetra. I actually can’t see him at the moment, though, so that’s odd. He didn’t look like he was going to survive, but maybe it was just a phase…

The fliter intake is incredibly clogged, mostly with hornwort. Much as I love it, to fish do too, which means that there are always free-floating bits to get sucked up by the filter. The fish have turned their hunger pangs on the plants; there are a couple that look distinctly worse for wear.

Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrates somewhere between 10 and 20, pH maybe 6.8 (I think).

When we were in Adelaide, we rescued my sister’s goldfish. The water was incredibly cloudy, even after a water change; it stank dreadfully; and Cleo and Marcus were spending most of their time gasping for air. Upon inquiry, we discovered that they hadn’t rinsed the gravel before putting it in, so we figured that was the main problem. I wonder now whether the smell was mostly rotting food because the fish were too distressed to eat. Anyway, we put the fish in a bucket, with the snails and some water, and then rinsed the tank and gravel as thoroughly as possible, with salt in the tank and very hot water. That stopped it smelling, and when we put water in it was crystal clear straight off, so that was great. The fish seemed appreciative. The snails half-tempted me to get one or two for my tank – they would do wonders for the algae on the glass, I think, and they are rather fun to watch, with their horns and occasional free-swimming efforts. This is a change from before, but I think there is a difference between expected and unexpected snails! They would have to be fairly big from the start, though, for the cloaches not to eat them. Another thing is that I looked at the goldfish food, and the instructions say feed several times a day, for how much they can eat in several minutes! Talk about ridiculous – those fish would definitely be fine on one feed a day. So I recommended to Mum that she feed small amounts – they certainly hadn’t been following the instructions, but may still have been overfeeding a little.

A little bit later…

Found the sick tetra – it had morphed into a dead tetra, at the top of the tank, among the plants. We’re going away again until Wednesday, but I’m a lot happier about the survival of the fry this time. They got into the frozen brine shrimp as much as possible with the hungry adults around, and I’ve placed a freeze-dried tablet on a lily-pad, just in the water, so that hopefully only they can reach it. Upon looking now, though it has fallen off into the cloach cave, but I know some of them had a go at it before it fell. I’ve also seen them nibble at a leaf and at algae. Such fun.

I fed the fish brine shrimp this morning, and as I watched I thought I saw a particularly large shrimp moving as frozen thing ought not to. And then I realised that one of the males had obviously got lucky, because it was a baby molly! And there were more of them! I’m not entirely sure, because they move a lot and hide in the plants (I am very glad I haven’t cut the plants recently – I was going to do it today!), but I think there are nine. I’m not sure whether they were born during the night and a few have been eaten, but they currently don’t seem to be getting eaten – which, given the fish were few about two hours later than normal today, is interesting, especially given everyone seems to say that you should put a pregnant fish in a separate tank with all sorts of stuff to stop her from eating them. Of course, I didn’t know we had a pregnant fish.

They are so cute! And I guess the death of the angels isn’t all bad, in an odd way, because I am sure they would have et the lot. Of course, I do miss my angels.

We’re going away today, to Ballarat and then Adelaide, and won’t be back until 28 Dec. I’m realistic enough to know that the babies might not actually last until then. I’m not sure whether they will get eaten, and I’m not sure whether they wil starve – they did eat some flake this morning, crushed up small, and there aren’t any greedy angels to eat all the food now, so maybe they will be OK. I have set up an auto feeder, to keep them all happy. Even if the babies don’t last, at least we know it can indeed happen, and maybe next time it will happen when we’re staying around! They really are cute.

One of the gouramis seems to have decided it’s time to build a bubble nest, even thought there are no ladies around to take advantage of it. He’s taking advantage of the free-floating roots hanging off the lily-pad-like plant (which is now almost as long across the surface of the water as it is from the gravel up, providing lots of hidey holes for babies), moving them around and blowing bubbles around them. Poor guy – all that work for nothing!

The babies are adorable, and so small!

She did have Cleopatra and Caesar, but Caesar died yesterday. They went and bought Marcus to replace him, and also bought two snails – Celine and Helios (Cleo and Mark’s children). I’m not too sure how well the snails will go in a cold-water tank. When I was over there in August U showed her how to vacuum the gravel; it had been getting pretty gross. The water had been like fish soup.

Unfortunately, one of the platies was dead when I came home today. There had been no indications, and there were no obvious reasons. We’re pretty sure it was delayed ammonia/nitrite poisoning. So, two platies left.

While I’m over my bout of fish-depression, where I was deciding not to replace the fish when they all died (as I was convinced they were about to) and only have plants in the tank, I am glad we went for live plants. In fact, I can’t imagine why anyone with a tank our size would ever have fake plants; with a really small tank I guess I can understand it.

Baby cloach is no longer a baby, and hasn’t been for a while. The only way that I can tell it’s him (her?) is by the black stripe going all the way under his belly.

I think changing the pH has had a very interesting consequence – all the male mollies have become very randy! They spend a alrge amount of their time posturing and chasing after the women with their gonopodia stuck out sideways. It can be very amusing to watch, especially when most of the women don’t seem interested.

One of the bits of wood we have in the tank looks like it is growing. It’s directly under the light, and has a mass of algae growing off it – long trailing bits. Pretty cool.

the last two angels were belly-up, literally, which was very sad. Mr Flex, however, appears to be fine: the rest of the flex, or whatever it was, has fallen off, along with most of the fin. We decided to put him back in the main tank, to see what happened – and he seems fine. Even without his fin, he seems to be swimming fine,

A few hours later

Well, Flex seems to be doing well. in fact, very well – he seems very happy to see the lady-mollies.

Thursday morning I was greeted with the sight of James netting a molly who looked like he had a gill-fin which had turned into a pin-cushion – it was just awful. We figured it was some sort of fungus. We put him in the isolation tank. Looking carefully, we couldn’t see a probelm with any of the others, but the angels didn’t look very happy at all. Instead of jumping out of the water to attract attention and thereby food, they were skulking in the mid/low regions, mostly in the plants. We fed them some flake, but the angels weren’t at all interested, showing that they must have been very unhappy. James suggested blood worms, to tempt them, and so put in two blocks (I had thought he was only giving them one). They didn’t eat those, either, but the mollies did.

When we got home, things weren’t too good. During the day I posted on the forum online and someone suggested the molly had flex, not fungus. I looked around on the web and decided they were probably right. Mr Flex was still alive, which was amazing, when we got home (as an aside, his isolation tank was already very cloudy, from his poo and the small amount of flake we tried to give him. Amazing how quickly ammonia etc must build up). The angels were still looking particularly unhappy, two especially – both of them had red spots/marks around thie mouths, along their spines and at the base of their fins. The other two didn’t have these, or not as noticeably if they did. An hour or so after we got home, one of the angels died. Another one died about three hours later, after spending his time floating around aimlessly, sometimes up the top looking for air. We were very sad.

Between the angels’ deaths, we noticed about five of the previously rudely healthy mollies looked bloated. We realised they probably had dropsy, which depressed us even further.

We ran the full gamut of tests, and discovered that our pH had plummeted to about 6. This was clearly a problem; even if it hadn’t actually caused the problem, it would be stressing the fish and making them susceptible. We immediately added ‘pH up’, and brought it back to 6.6. It was interesting to notice a bit of a change in the angels’ behaviour after this – they got a bit more active.

We half-dreaded getting up this morning and looking in the tank. Mr Flex, however, was still alive, and so were the angels, although they were showing some of those red marks (not as bad as the other two, though). And – the mollies were back to being a little portly, rather than looking bloated. We realised their scales hadn’t been sticking out, as they would with dropsy, and James ‘fessed up to having given them two blocks of bloodworms. We figured they must have eaten almost the lot and just been bloated by food, not sickness. We really do have to be stricter about feeding them (or not, as the case may be).

We decided to try out the Northcote Aquarium, just for something different: it’s a bit closer to home, and we hoped they would be a bit better with fish advice than Coburg sometimes have been. NA is a very different set-up from Coburg, certainly. The man there was very willing to talk to us. He asked about the pH and the hardness, and said the low pH was the problem because mollies prefer brackish and slightly alkaline, and angels prefer water around 6.8-7.0 too. He recommended we out the pH up and make sure it always stay there. It was really great for him to be so frank and not try to sell us medicine; I’d asked about it, but he didn’t think we needed it. He also said the red marks were probably from the acidic water.

As a consequence, we came home and put the pH up – it’s around 7 now, we think. We also put Mr Flex into the bucket (so that he’s got more room) with water from the tank (we were doing a water change anyway) plus some salt, and put his pH up too. A few hours on, I can report that he seems to be doing significantly better: the flex appears to have fallen up. I think there’s still a bit on him, and his fin looks pretty red, but I’m more confident about him than I was. The bucket isn’t ideal for a prolonged stay – it’s meant to be cool this weekend, and we’re off to Ballarat. Maybe we’ll put him in the isolation tank, in the actual wank, just for the sake of the temperature. As well, I’m not actually sure that it was flex, as apparently that usually happens around the mouth.

The angels are looking a bit better, but they’re still not acting 100%. Very strange – looking on the web to find out what pH ranges our fish prefer (which we obviously should have done before…), we found a site saying angels actually prefer slightly acidic water when they come from the wild – which I’m sure these didn’t, but still surely they can’t have changed so much in captivity to prefer alkaline? Perhaps it was just a matter of having the pH drop so much in so little time. We’ll have to watch it carefully. We changed the carbon in the filter, too, since it’s been in there a while – it might have been exhausted and leeching bad things into the water.

So after all that, we have two angels which still aren’t out of the woods, and a molly who might yet die. We’ve decided that, having been rash in the two previous months we will err on the extremely conservative for the next while. This means frugal feeding and no more fishy buying for a while – probably until Feb, when we’re back from Tas. We’ll also bring back James’ old little tank from Ballarat: we will finally set up a quarantine tank. I think we should build up our platies – the three left are looking lonely, and aren’t schooling together – and I think we’ll also get a few more angels. I’m so glad that we won’t have to start over; James was getting very dramatic last night and talking about what we’d do to start again, after all our current fish died, as they were obviously about to.

I did a bit more pruning of the plants – aquascaping – during today’s water change; it’s looking a lot better and less bare than after the last, partly because I moved some taller plants to the middle and partly because the other plants have recovered fromk their last pruning.

I cut back quite a few of the plants when we did a water change on Saturday. I was a bit heavy-handed, I think, so it looks a bit bare in the upper third – which is certainly different from before. The fish were quite shocked,I think, to find themselves a bit exposed. Oops. It’s a bit better looking today,as a couple of plants have come loose, and are floating at the top of the tank.

I wonder whether we are overfeeding? Some of the mollies are looking a little portly. I will definitely be bringing back “bloodworm and brine shrimp as treat”, rather than everyday food – which we’ve done a bit lately, simply because they seem to enjoy it so much – and also have a day without food. One problem is that James simply cannot bear for the fish to go without food; he imputes his own hunger on to them, I think, and sometimes feeds them just to watch them. No harm is meant, obviously,and he doesn’t do it too much, but…

I am very glad we made a cave with two rocks, as the cloaches are spending a large amount of time in there – at the moment, all three are crowded in there. This may get to a problem when they grow more – a few more fishy inches and they won’t fit three, or even two, in there. We may have to consider more caves.

It will be nice to have the fish next year, to look at during study breaks. I don’t think they’ll be quite interesting enough to take up hours of time, but interesting enough.