I have been very slack and not motivated lately. I write now to record a very sad happening, and because I figure I should get back to this. All of our gouramis died in December – two got sick, separately, then the last remaining one just died overnight, I think from grief. The platies are also dead; one jumped out (accident with the lid…) and the other just died.

In December, we went to Tasmania for ten days. On getting home, we discovered most of the plants eaten away – serves us right for not setting up the feeder, I guess – and one molly, the not-quite-alpha male, disappeared. Then, a week later, we went away for Christmas. We got home today. The light was off (the timer often gets stuck); the water was about 34C (the room gets hot, there were a lot of very hot days while we were away and no way to cool down), and the pump wasn’t working (no idea why; James put a lot of effort in and it is now working again). As a consequence, I have thee SAEs, three cloaches, two black widow tetras and four mollies left. I am very, very sad.

The qt is fine. The last batch of babies died over a month or so; there are five in there now. As well, there should be a snail. I have absolutely no idea how he got there; I just discovered him there after doing a water change one day! Very strange. At first I was very annoyed, because he was there without my permission, but now I think he’s fine. It still freaks me out about how he could have got there though.

This seems like not much of a story for four months, but it’s all I can think of.