Everything looked fine; a few plants had come adrift in the main tank, but that’s no drama. There were no dead babies, which I guess is a good thing; I’m still thinking about getting a betta.

After church, however, I noticed that one of our gourami was not looking good at all. He looked to be missing some scales on both sides, and have small reddish blotches. At least one eye looks redder than normal, too. It took quite a bit of effort, but eventually I netted the poor sod and put him in the isolation tank… I wonder if I should actually put him in the qt, since we’re not fussed about the babies… someone on TTT forum has suggested this could be flex, or aeromonas; I’m not sure. I’ve read a little and it sounds like it could be a bacterial infection, furunculosis (aeromonas salmonicida bacteria, apparently). Guess I should go and get some bacterial stuff.

Having issues testing the pH. The main tank seemed to have high pH – like around 7 – which I thought was odd so I checked the tap water, and it turned almost the same colour. This was worrying, and also odd because I would have expected more fish to be affected. So I checked the qt, and its pH seemed to be perfect. So I checked the tap water again – and it turned very blue, like 7.8. Very strange. I conclude I must have done something wrong, so I will check again soon, after rinsing the test tubes thoroughly.