Looking back over this diary, though, it seems like I should have six left. Either some have died and been eaten, and I haven’t noticed, or I simply have forgotten to write it in when I have noticed. I think/hope the latter is more likely.

Again, no obvious signs as to why, and I had looked them all over during the day (maybe not closely enough). I haven’t seen any white bits recently, but just now I notice that the two tetras in view may indeed have small white bits…

No visible reason as to why; maybe it was ammonia/nitrite spikes taking their belated toll.

Gourami still has a slightly constipated look, but other than that appears fine.

Ammonia hasn’t gone down, and no nitrites yet, in the qt.

I have no idea what that whole stunt was in aid of, though. Very odd; but I’m glad he’s getting better. The swelling around the anus has gone down, so maybe he was just constipated and now he’s better.

Did I mention that the female molly is pregnant again? Maybe we’ll keep mollies in the qt instead of tetras. Speaking of which – no nitrites yet.

The only reason she’s still here is because we couldn’t catch her. I don’t think KB wanted quite that many – it was about 15 – but I think she expects a few not to survive the transition. We didn’t look at the babes all that closely, but I expect most of them are female. If not, we said we’d take the males back. Our females looks like she’s knocked up again, so I’m not sure what to do about her. I guess we could have mollies keeping the qt going rather than tetras, or maybe we hurry up and buy more angels like we’re dreaming of.

I checked the nitrites in the qt, but no sign of them yet; keeping the ammonia around 6ppm. I checked the Kh and Gh: Kh is aorund 4, and Gh around 7, so my wonder if those two things were affecting the pH has been proved wrong. If we continue to have problems with pH, I guess we could look into getting a pH buffer thing; or maybe we should be a bit more deliberate with water changes and leave water out for 24 hours to de-ionise… but then I think you have to add in some salts that will have precipitated out, or whatever (too long since I did chemistry).

Later that same day

One of the gourami definitely has a problem. I think he’s the same one I’ve been watching for a while: he’s been lying on his side in the plants a fair bit, which looked a bit odd. This afternoon, he’s swimming – or just lying – on his side, at the top of the tank. He moves aorund a bit – particularly when I try to net him, to go into the isolation tank; he’s currently on his side under the heater. His anus is swollen, so I wonder if he’s constipated; I put in some peas, but he wasn’t interested (the SAEs were thought). He also has a protrusion on either side, behind his gills. Consequently, I’m a bit worried. Everyone else seems happy enough.

It was suggested that it was either constipation or worms; one remedy for the former was said to be green peas, shelled. When I looked again I couldn’t see the white stuff, so maaybe it was constipation; I tried giving them mushy peas anyway. Everyone seems to love them! So that’s a good addition to the diet, I think.

I finally found some ammonia yesterday, and added a little to the qt. Fishless cycle, here we come! I checked the pH in there again, though, and it had gone up again – don’t know how – so I added some more pH Down stuff. I hope it settles down soon. We didn’t end up putting the water from the tank into the qt – the hose wouldn’t reach – so it’s just tap water. As well, we decided to put new gravel in the filter.

The tetras – two, I think – definitely have something wrong: the white stuff is still there. I’m not sure whether it’s there all the time, but whenever I can see the tetras it seems to be there.

Later note: it is very exciting finally to be writing up what happened less than 12 months ago!

There is one dead – sucked onto the filter intake. I checked the tap water pH; it’s around 7! Stupid us… might have something to do with the drought, possibly. So, again we learn the hard way. Think I’ll go and buy some ammonia today and we’ll do a fishless cycle. We’ll also do a water change in the main tank, but put the water into the qt rather than down the sink.

The qt was at the right temperature and all, so we thought we’d transfer some babies across, largely to make it easier to catch them from KB when she wants them. We did it nicely – into the isolation tank to get used to the temperature (a degree or so different); a bit of water to mix after a while; repeat, and then in. We had one dead at about 4:30, and a couple looking ill. Tonight, at 10:30, I’ve interred about 20. I’ve transferred the more lively one back into the main tank, and left a few in the qt to see what happens. It smells, which may be indicative of a problem… there’s a lot of poo on the bottom, too. I’m so sad. Too eager – always too eager – I should have been more cautious and let the tank get settled more, there will have been some sort of cycling I’m sure even with the gravel to seed it…and there may not be enough gravel in there to do that properly… sigh. I’m feeling very sad, awful and hopeless. And I couldn’t catch Miss Molly; she’s terrified of the green net.

And I’m worried about a couple of the tetras – they seem to have white stuff coming out of their bottoms. It could have been poo, but it seemed to stay there and not go anywhere for quite a while. I’ll check again in the morning, when the light’s on.

Very late at night

I believe the cause of death may well have been the fact that the pH in the qt is around 7.6.

The feeder had run out of food, not sure when – can’t have been too long before we got home, because there was still a lot of algae around… they were pretty excited at being fed bloodworms, though. We ran out of tablets before we went away, and we went to a little fish shop in Ballarat to get more. They didn’t have the stuff we usually get, so I got some plant chips instead – and then realised that our normal tablets aren’t plant but pressed bloodworms and other nutritious, meaty things; the cloaches don’t seem very happy with us, as a result. We’ll have to get some more next time we’re near Coburg.

Happily, I don’t think there are any new babies, although I was worried at first – then I realised that some of the left-over babies were quite small when we left and they can’t be expected to get enormous in just ten days. The female is getting a bit harassed at the moment, but that’s no longer a problem, because… James bought me a qt! We’d been talking about getting one as an anniversary present to ourselves, and he went out today and just bought one. It’s about 50L, and has a little heater and an in-tank, platform filter, now seeded with some gravel from the main tank. We had to rearrange the kitchen bench to make room for it, and it’s just humming along to itself at the moment. Once the water is the right temperature, it will be tempting to put Miss Molly straight in there, maybe with some of the babies as companions. Apparently the bloke at the fish shop told James that by seeding it with old gravel, it won’t need to cycle. I’m not sure about that; have to keep an eye on it. I think we will keep cardinal tetras in there, because James likes them. And I think I will get a dinky ornament for it, too.