They were breathing very quickly and barely moving; one was next to the fliter intake, the other was at the front of the tank. They certainly hadn’t been like that the night before. When I got home from watching the tennis, James had removed the one next to the filter; it was dead. This morning, another was dead. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with that one; the one James fished out apparently had a red face, and not-smooth-looking skin. Actually, now I think about it. the one I got out also had a sort of velvety-llok; whether that was a disease, or if it was a post mortem thing, I don’t know. Tonight, one of the of the black widows tetras looks very unhappy; he almost looks bent, isn’t swimming well, and has tattered fins – I haven’t noticed that before. Baby cloach is the one that’s left, so it could be that the other two were old + bad summer experience + bad time when we first got them (way too early, we found out way too late…), and it all finally got too much. Poor things.

Many of the plants are currently growing very well – new shoots on bare stalks.