The feeder had run out of food, not sure when – can’t have been too long before we got home, because there was still a lot of algae around… they were pretty excited at being fed bloodworms, though. We ran out of tablets before we went away, and we went to a little fish shop in Ballarat to get more. They didn’t have the stuff we usually get, so I got some plant chips instead – and then realised that our normal tablets aren’t plant but pressed bloodworms and other nutritious, meaty things; the cloaches don’t seem very happy with us, as a result. We’ll have to get some more next time we’re near Coburg.

Happily, I don’t think there are any new babies, although I was worried at first – then I realised that some of the left-over babies were quite small when we left and they can’t be expected to get enormous in just ten days. The female is getting a bit harassed at the moment, but that’s no longer a problem, because… James bought me a qt! We’d been talking about getting one as an anniversary present to ourselves, and he went out today and just bought one. It’s about 50L, and has a little heater and an in-tank, platform filter, now seeded with some gravel from the main tank. We had to rearrange the kitchen bench to make room for it, and it’s just humming along to itself at the moment. Once the water is the right temperature, it will be tempting to put Miss Molly straight in there, maybe with some of the babies as companions. Apparently the bloke at the fish shop told James that by seeding it with old gravel, it won’t need to cycle. I’m not sure about that; have to keep an eye on it. I think we will keep cardinal tetras in there, because James likes them. And I think I will get a dinky ornament for it, too.

I guess we can deal with it. It’s interesting: the males don’t seem interested in the female at the moment – they’re barely paying her any attention, which is good.

Kelly and Anton sent us some photos of the mollies in their new – 6 foot! – home; that was pretty cool.

We had better do a water change today, before we go away.

They took four of the mature female mollies, and almost all of the fry: hooray!! The remaining female got terrified and hid too effectively to be caught… hopefully Dave’s friend will want her, because I don’t really want to keep her with three males harassing her. She is still looking a bit stressed… sorry dear. There are also maybe 20 fry left; we’ll give lots of them to KB, I hope, and some to Dave’s friend. I think they’re mostly female, so we’ll tell them that if any turn out to be male, we’ll just take them back.

Now it really is time to start thinking about new fish… but I think we will do it properly and get a quarantine tank (aka ‘qt’).

While I was on the phone James took Dropsy Gourami and put him out of his misery. I think it was for the best – he was so very bloated, and had a significant number of scales missing on the left side, and no hope of recovery.

There are some people coming over tomorrow who will take at least the females, and hopefully a significant number of fry, thanks to the bulletin board. KB is keen on a few fry, as is another friend of a friend apparently, so hopefully we will pass on most of them.

We’ve been talking about what we’ll get as replacements – I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of a betta; the chances of a bad personality are too high to risk I think. James is very keen on angels again, and I think I agree. I’d also like a Bumblebee Goby, just because they’re so cute. We should probably get a qt before we add any more fish, but there’s a question of cost and where exactly to put the thing.

I think it was probably from the stress of the bad water those weeks ago. Apparently Marcus is enjoying being alone, but Kat is considering another playmate for him, even thought she’s having a pretty bad time with fish. This time she thinks she’ll go with the name Dionysus, because – apparently – Marcus claimed him in his ancestry. As you do.

I think I will euthanase Dropsy Gourami tonight. He’s lost some scales, and just isn’t going to get better.

I’ve named two of the cloaches – at least, there are two names that apply to whichever cloaches happen to be staring out from under the rock at any one time: Stadtler and Waldorf. Those were the names of the two Muppets who would sit in a box a the theatre and make rude comments about how bad everything was on the show, and that’s exactly what it looks like the cloaches are doing, when they stick their noses out and watch the rest of the tank. I wonder if it is always the same two, while the other lies snug on his ledge in the cave. No way of knowing.

Not quite as severely as last time, since it wasn’t during a water change (which means I could judge where the top of the water was accurately), but still a bit ruthlessly. I pulled up some of the old plants – ones that had tatty or no leaves for a large part of the stalk – they had quite incredible roots, some of them. The right-hand side is still a jungle because I replanted it heavily. I can now see lots of babies… and there are lots of them. I think all the females have now had a set of fry, and at least one female looks pregnant again. This is getting beyond a joke; fun as they are, we just can’t deal with it. I’ve called a number of shops, but nowhere is interested in getting them, even free. I’ve advertised them, but only had one interested person for the females, and they’re in Boronia so it’s too far for them to come and get them. I have just now gone and changed the post to say that they are free, so maybe that will get some interest. I really hope so; James is preparing himself to do away with at least the mature females, but I hope it doesn’t come to that. If we can’t give them away, that might be our only choice, though.

Did some water tests: all fine, nitrates at about 8, I think.

I will get rid of the female adult mollies and fry, keeping one or two male adult mollies and fry. I’ve posted on a bulletin board that they’re available, so I hope someone will be interested. I might call some fish shops, too, just in case. One thing this has taught me – no livebearers; at least, no co-ed schools of them. That probably means no more platies, which is sad. I think that, once we get a quarantine tank (qt), we will get some more angels, and maybe something else that is hard to breed. Maybe some cories… or I’d love a bumblebee goby… maybe a betta! It’s been fun, but I fear oodles of fish babies just isn’t my thing.

There are millions of fry – maybe forty; I think there was another lot while we were away. Ms Dalmation Molly looks like she is very pregnant too. I really am going to have to call Coburg, and maybe Northcote, to see if they will take some off my hands. I have no idea how long it will take them to grow up – a good few months, I expect, so we’ve got that time.

The only problem in the tank is Dropsy Gourami. He certainly isn’t getting better; there is a patch on one side where he’s lost some scales, too. I haven’t seen him eat much and he’s just staying in one spot, mostly. I wonder whether we should put him out of his misery, since we have no quarantine tank.

We got back after lights-out last night, so we turned the light on briefly, and most of the babies seemed to be still there! We gave them a little food and turned the light off, as they all looked a little sleepy.

This morning, when I looked at the tank properly, I saw that there were zillions of babies! Well, maybe about 30 – they are hard to count, being so small and because the plants have grown into a veritable forest. The lily pads cover amonst the entire surface of the tank, which is possibly a significant factor in why the babies have survived – it’s almost like they havbe a hatchery up there, No Adults Allowed because it’s too hard to get to. I’ve actually cut a bit of the lily pad because it was restricting the surface and swimming area a fair bit.

However, it’s not all happiness. One of the cloaches looked to be stuck between the filter intake and the glass, but when we moved the intake and the glass, but when we moved the intake he swam away, rather affronted that we had disturbed his sleep. So that wasn’t sad, but there is a gourami who looks like a balloon (and consequently looks white, because his scales are sticking out), and another who looks like may have ahd a nick taken from above one eye (at least, I hope that’s what the white spot is – I’ll be very distressed if it is ich, as will all the fish). I think the gourami have been getting into fisticuffs while we were away – I wonder if that could be because they didn’t get as much food as normal? Really not sure what to do with Dropsy Gourami. No sign of any bubble nest, either.

This morning we also had a heavy-brathing, upside-down tetra. I actually can’t see him at the moment, though, so that’s odd. He didn’t look like he was going to survive, but maybe it was just a phase…

The fliter intake is incredibly clogged, mostly with hornwort. Much as I love it, to fish do too, which means that there are always free-floating bits to get sucked up by the filter. The fish have turned their hunger pangs on the plants; there are a couple that look distinctly worse for wear.

Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrates somewhere between 10 and 20, pH maybe 6.8 (I think).

When we were in Adelaide, we rescued my sister’s goldfish. The water was incredibly cloudy, even after a water change; it stank dreadfully; and Cleo and Marcus were spending most of their time gasping for air. Upon inquiry, we discovered that they hadn’t rinsed the gravel before putting it in, so we figured that was the main problem. I wonder now whether the smell was mostly rotting food because the fish were too distressed to eat. Anyway, we put the fish in a bucket, with the snails and some water, and then rinsed the tank and gravel as thoroughly as possible, with salt in the tank and very hot water. That stopped it smelling, and when we put water in it was crystal clear straight off, so that was great. The fish seemed appreciative. The snails half-tempted me to get one or two for my tank – they would do wonders for the algae on the glass, I think, and they are rather fun to watch, with their horns and occasional free-swimming efforts. This is a change from before, but I think there is a difference between expected and unexpected snails! They would have to be fairly big from the start, though, for the cloaches not to eat them. Another thing is that I looked at the goldfish food, and the instructions say feed several times a day, for how much they can eat in several minutes! Talk about ridiculous – those fish would definitely be fine on one feed a day. So I recommended to Mum that she feed small amounts – they certainly hadn’t been following the instructions, but may still have been overfeeding a little.

A little bit later…

Found the sick tetra – it had morphed into a dead tetra, at the top of the tank, among the plants. We’re going away again until Wednesday, but I’m a lot happier about the survival of the fry this time. They got into the frozen brine shrimp as much as possible with the hungry adults around, and I’ve placed a freeze-dried tablet on a lily-pad, just in the water, so that hopefully only they can reach it. Upon looking now, though it has fallen off into the cloach cave, but I know some of them had a go at it before it fell. I’ve also seen them nibble at a leaf and at algae. Such fun.

I fed the fish brine shrimp this morning, and as I watched I thought I saw a particularly large shrimp moving as frozen thing ought not to. And then I realised that one of the males had obviously got lucky, because it was a baby molly! And there were more of them! I’m not entirely sure, because they move a lot and hide in the plants (I am very glad I haven’t cut the plants recently – I was going to do it today!), but I think there are nine. I’m not sure whether they were born during the night and a few have been eaten, but they currently don’t seem to be getting eaten – which, given the fish were few about two hours later than normal today, is interesting, especially given everyone seems to say that you should put a pregnant fish in a separate tank with all sorts of stuff to stop her from eating them. Of course, I didn’t know we had a pregnant fish.

They are so cute! And I guess the death of the angels isn’t all bad, in an odd way, because I am sure they would have et the lot. Of course, I do miss my angels.

We’re going away today, to Ballarat and then Adelaide, and won’t be back until 28 Dec. I’m realistic enough to know that the babies might not actually last until then. I’m not sure whether they will get eaten, and I’m not sure whether they wil starve – they did eat some flake this morning, crushed up small, and there aren’t any greedy angels to eat all the food now, so maybe they will be OK. I have set up an auto feeder, to keep them all happy. Even if the babies don’t last, at least we know it can indeed happen, and maybe next time it will happen when we’re staying around! They really are cute.

One of the gouramis seems to have decided it’s time to build a bubble nest, even thought there are no ladies around to take advantage of it. He’s taking advantage of the free-floating roots hanging off the lily-pad-like plant (which is now almost as long across the surface of the water as it is from the gravel up, providing lots of hidey holes for babies), moving them around and blowing bubbles around them. Poor guy – all that work for nothing!

The babies are adorable, and so small!