I have been at J for a number of weeks to do water changes in both the tanks. I really wanted to do it two weekends ago; I really, really wanted to do it last weekend. I didn’t push enough. A couple of days ago the water in the qt started looking a bit cloudy, and J agreed we would do one this weekend. I looked in on them when I came home and gave them some food. Two hours later, I looked in the qt again and two of the half-grown fry are dead – just lying on their sides in the tank. I have done tests; ammonia is up, and the pH test reads about 6 or so but I don’t trust it, and I can’t find the tube for the other test we have.

So I should have pushed harder and done water changes when they were needed. We are way too slack about doing it, particularly in the qt; the main tank gets away with it because it has two filters and lots of plants. The qt does not have this luxury.