I only realised last night when I was showing off the fish tank to some friends that there is basically no algae left in the tank – no bad, nasty, take-over-the-tank algae anyway, which is really all I was worried about. So this is highly exciting but makes me realise that I have been neglecting my fish a little. However, on my way home also yesterday, I went via Coburg. I bought some more of the feathery plant – Condamine or something? – because there was nothing of it left in our tank. I also bought a bristlenose catfish… and two little silver angels… It took J quite a long time to notice them in the qt, because they are the same colour as the mollies. They cost me $14 (all up); I could have got them for $3.95 each, but the tank that had that price on them only had fish that looked red around the gills and even some around the base of the fins, so I thought it best to go for the more expensive and more of a chance of surivival.

I have spent a large part of today watching Ajax (a large part of my fish-tank-watching time, anyway, which is not necessarily a large part of the actual day) …which reminds me, I noticed a stowaway on the new plants yesterday but by the time I got to pulling it out of the water, he had transferred himself to a different plant. So I was quite worried about a snail plague (which J thought might mean buying clown loaches). However, this morning when I was doing some planting and pruning, I found the stowaway snail! I have put him in the qt, in memory of the other, rather more bewildering pop-up snail who got washed out when we moved house. Anyway, Ajax: he has been remarkably active today and very fun to watch. Even J agreed.