We decided that for the sakeof our plants we should get at least one SAE to eat some algae. Most of the plants have algae on them now, such that leaves are dying. We’ve also cut the light-on time to about 10 hours, thanks to a recommendation on TTT that since the tank also gets sunlight it doesn’t need as much artificial light. Anyway, Coburg had no SAEs – they had Flying Foxes, with the stripe through the tail that I thought was the way of telling the two species apart and meant that they were SAE, not FF, but we decided not to risk it (since have heard that FF don’t eat much algae and can be a bit annoying to others). Asking one of the sales people, he said bristlenose catfish were the best fish for algae – agreeing with someone else at TTT suggested. So, because they are quite smalle at this stage, we bought two. They should grow to maybe 5 inches, which is something to keep in mind when we finally re-stock the tank. And to keep James happy, I agreed to let him him buy one gold angel (which is actually mostly silver, of course). So now the tank is slightly more interesting – I must admit it is wonderful to have an angel again. Impressively, the sales person actually checked whether we had any small fish like neons when we asked for the angel. He also said the cats would clean up the algae in two days: this I do not believe. Currently they hang around the heater or on the main rock; there is quite an obvious clean patch on the rock.

James is starting to push for a discus tank when we move – make the qt a molly tank or something… or simply buy a new, bigger tank: he saw a 4x2x2 foot tank at Coburg for $300.