She did have Cleopatra and Caesar, but Caesar died yesterday. They went and bought Marcus to replace him, and also bought two snails – Celine and Helios (Cleo and Mark’s children). I’m not too sure how well the snails will go in a cold-water tank. When I was over there in August U showed her how to vacuum the gravel; it had been getting pretty gross. The water had been like fish soup.

Unfortunately, one of the platies was dead when I came home today. There had been no indications, and there were no obvious reasons. We’re pretty sure it was delayed ammonia/nitrite poisoning. So, two platies left.

While I’m over my bout of fish-depression, where I was deciding not to replace the fish when they all died (as I was convinced they were about to) and only have plants in the tank, I am glad we went for live plants. In fact, I can’t imagine why anyone with a tank our size would ever have fake plants; with a really small tank I guess I can understand it.

Baby cloach is no longer a baby, and hasn’t been for a while. The only way that I can tell it’s him (her?) is by the black stripe going all the way under his belly.

I think changing the pH has had a very interesting consequence – all the male mollies have become very randy! They spend a alrge amount of their time posturing and chasing after the women with their gonopodia stuck out sideways. It can be very amusing to watch, especially when most of the women don’t seem interested.

One of the bits of wood we have in the tank looks like it is growing. It’s directly under the light, and has a mass of algae growing off it – long trailing bits. Pretty cool.

the last two angels were belly-up, literally, which was very sad. Mr Flex, however, appears to be fine: the rest of the flex, or whatever it was, has fallen off, along with most of the fin. We decided to put him back in the main tank, to see what happened – and he seems fine. Even without his fin, he seems to be swimming fine,

A few hours later

Well, Flex seems to be doing well. in fact, very well – he seems very happy to see the lady-mollies.

Thursday morning I was greeted with the sight of James netting a molly who looked like he had a gill-fin which had turned into a pin-cushion – it was just awful. We figured it was some sort of fungus. We put him in the isolation tank. Looking carefully, we couldn’t see a probelm with any of the others, but the angels didn’t look very happy at all. Instead of jumping out of the water to attract attention and thereby food, they were skulking in the mid/low regions, mostly in the plants. We fed them some flake, but the angels weren’t at all interested, showing that they must have been very unhappy. James suggested blood worms, to tempt them, and so put in two blocks (I had thought he was only giving them one). They didn’t eat those, either, but the mollies did.

When we got home, things weren’t too good. During the day I posted on the forum online and someone suggested the molly had flex, not fungus. I looked around on the web and decided they were probably right. Mr Flex was still alive, which was amazing, when we got home (as an aside, his isolation tank was already very cloudy, from his poo and the small amount of flake we tried to give him. Amazing how quickly ammonia etc must build up). The angels were still looking particularly unhappy, two especially – both of them had red spots/marks around thie mouths, along their spines and at the base of their fins. The other two didn’t have these, or not as noticeably if they did. An hour or so after we got home, one of the angels died. Another one died about three hours later, after spending his time floating around aimlessly, sometimes up the top looking for air. We were very sad.

Between the angels’ deaths, we noticed about five of the previously rudely healthy mollies looked bloated. We realised they probably had dropsy, which depressed us even further.

We ran the full gamut of tests, and discovered that our pH had plummeted to about 6. This was clearly a problem; even if it hadn’t actually caused the problem, it would be stressing the fish and making them susceptible. We immediately added ‘pH up’, and brought it back to 6.6. It was interesting to notice a bit of a change in the angels’ behaviour after this – they got a bit more active.

We half-dreaded getting up this morning and looking in the tank. Mr Flex, however, was still alive, and so were the angels, although they were showing some of those red marks (not as bad as the other two, though). And – the mollies were back to being a little portly, rather than looking bloated. We realised their scales hadn’t been sticking out, as they would with dropsy, and James ‘fessed up to having given them two blocks of bloodworms. We figured they must have eaten almost the lot and just been bloated by food, not sickness. We really do have to be stricter about feeding them (or not, as the case may be).

We decided to try out the Northcote Aquarium, just for something different: it’s a bit closer to home, and we hoped they would be a bit better with fish advice than Coburg sometimes have been. NA is a very different set-up from Coburg, certainly. The man there was very willing to talk to us. He asked about the pH and the hardness, and said the low pH was the problem because mollies prefer brackish and slightly alkaline, and angels prefer water around 6.8-7.0 too. He recommended we out the pH up and make sure it always stay there. It was really great for him to be so frank and not try to sell us medicine; I’d asked about it, but he didn’t think we needed it. He also said the red marks were probably from the acidic water.

As a consequence, we came home and put the pH up – it’s around 7 now, we think. We also put Mr Flex into the bucket (so that he’s got more room) with water from the tank (we were doing a water change anyway) plus some salt, and put his pH up too. A few hours on, I can report that he seems to be doing significantly better: the flex appears to have fallen up. I think there’s still a bit on him, and his fin looks pretty red, but I’m more confident about him than I was. The bucket isn’t ideal for a prolonged stay – it’s meant to be cool this weekend, and we’re off to Ballarat. Maybe we’ll put him in the isolation tank, in the actual wank, just for the sake of the temperature. As well, I’m not actually sure that it was flex, as apparently that usually happens around the mouth.

The angels are looking a bit better, but they’re still not acting 100%. Very strange – looking on the web to find out what pH ranges our fish prefer (which we obviously should have done before…), we found a site saying angels actually prefer slightly acidic water when they come from the wild – which I’m sure these didn’t, but still surely they can’t have changed so much in captivity to prefer alkaline? Perhaps it was just a matter of having the pH drop so much in so little time. We’ll have to watch it carefully. We changed the carbon in the filter, too, since it’s been in there a while – it might have been exhausted and leeching bad things into the water.

So after all that, we have two angels which still aren’t out of the woods, and a molly who might yet die. We’ve decided that, having been rash in the two previous months we will err on the extremely conservative for the next while. This means frugal feeding and no more fishy buying for a while – probably until Feb, when we’re back from Tas. We’ll also bring back James’ old little tank from Ballarat: we will finally set up a quarantine tank. I think we should build up our platies – the three left are looking lonely, and aren’t schooling together – and I think we’ll also get a few more angels. I’m so glad that we won’t have to start over; James was getting very dramatic last night and talking about what we’d do to start again, after all our current fish died, as they were obviously about to.

I did a bit more pruning of the plants – aquascaping – during today’s water change; it’s looking a lot better and less bare than after the last, partly because I moved some taller plants to the middle and partly because the other plants have recovered fromk their last pruning.

I cut back quite a few of the plants when we did a water change on Saturday. I was a bit heavy-handed, I think, so it looks a bit bare in the upper third – which is certainly different from before. The fish were quite shocked,I think, to find themselves a bit exposed. Oops. It’s a bit better looking today,as a couple of plants have come loose, and are floating at the top of the tank.

I wonder whether we are overfeeding? Some of the mollies are looking a little portly. I will definitely be bringing back “bloodworm and brine shrimp as treat”, rather than everyday food – which we’ve done a bit lately, simply because they seem to enjoy it so much – and also have a day without food. One problem is that James simply cannot bear for the fish to go without food; he imputes his own hunger on to them, I think, and sometimes feeds them just to watch them. No harm is meant, obviously,and he doesn’t do it too much, but…

I am very glad we made a cave with two rocks, as the cloaches are spending a large amount of time in there – at the moment, all three are crowded in there. This may get to a problem when they grow more – a few more fishy inches and they won’t fit three, or even two, in there. We may have to consider more caves.

It will be nice to have the fish next year, to look at during study breaks. I don’t think they’ll be quite interesting enough to take up hours of time, but interesting enough.

It was still sad to find dropsy platy dead when we got home today. Even worse to find him with all his guts eaten out, and his body stuck to the filter intake. Nasty cannibalistic fishies.

The other day – maybe it was Monday – we checked the levels, to see if there was a chemical reason for angel unhappiness. Everything was the same, normal – except for pH. It had gone down to 6.4. May be a result of rotting food – not that I think much is left to rot – and I’m not sure how much of a difference this drop will make. Anyway, we added some sodium bicarb; checked again in 24 hours, and it had gone up a little. Must check it again soon, and do a water change.

Its stripes had almost completely faded. The one survivor is now in the isolation tank – at least partly to make it easier to net and remove him when he dies. He’s looking up at the top, mouth at the top of the water, and not looking at all happy. One of his gill-fins looks pretty ragged, so I wonder whether there has been bullying which I haven’t noticed? I am very sad.

Late that night

Last angel dead when we arrived home after meeting/dinner. Very sad.

Two of my lovely black and white angels have died

We noticed on Friday morning that one of them was sort of hiding, lying in the plants – not quite horizontal, but not vertical either. Then, later in the day, we saw the other three standing on their tails, about half way up the tank in one of the cornersm just floating there, looking up at the top of the tank. The fish basically stayed there, occasionally moving around a little, with one of the others sometimes pulling the lie-in-the-plants trick. We were worried, but we had to go to Ballarat for the night.

When we got home on Saturday, they were still all alive, but clearly not very happy. They barely moved from the more protected side of the tank, even though there has been no sign of bullying – I think I saw one of the other angels chase a b&w one, but only for a moment and not since. There was little change on Sunday.

This morning, one of the angels was dead. When I got home from work, there was another one dead. Tonight, neither of the remaining ones ate any food – one sort of floated close, but the other just hasn’t moved. I’m going to call Coburg tomorrow, and see whether they have been having any issues with them.

On a very different note, baby cloach’s stripe goes all the way around his middle. On the other two, one has a plain belly and the other has a black spot that’s in line with his middle stripe. It will be interesting to see whether the stripe grows, or whether he will end up like the other two.

We went to Coburg today to get more freeze-dried tablets, since they’ve eaten almost all of them, and some frozen food too – we got blood worms and brine shrimp. We also got 4 black&white angels. Oops. They are beautiful, though! They are stripey, not splotchy, and they have long flowing fins and tails. They also have double whiskers – that is, each side has two whiskers (or maybe they’re just split at the bottom; not sure). Their bodies would only be about 3cm long, but they’re bound to get bigger – the original angels are 5-6cm long now.

We still have that dropsy platy. We also have a couple of quite fat tetras. The new cloach is growing madly, as are the others, and I think everyone else is happy.

The tank is now looking well and truly full (except maybe for some sunset platies, if we ever find them).