When the mussel is open – which it is mostly; when it is closed, I get very worried that it has died – there is the odd bit at one end. While the rest of it is covered in this film – I guess it’s like mucous or something – this bit at the end reminds me of whale baleen. We’ve decided it must be where the mussel actually does its filtering work, since there’s nowhere else for water to go in. It’s actually quite exciting.

I went to Coburg yesterday.

I really wanted to get some gourami, but the girl said normal ones can get to be 8-10″ long, and also get quite aggressive when they’re that big, so I decided to leave off. I did, however, buy 4 yiddle black and white angels; they’re so cute. They’re only about 2cm long, if that, in the body. It will be fun to watch them grow. I also got mussel, just for the heck of it. Doesn’t do much… apparently they can move, so I’m looking forward to having that happen…

One of the Colombians seems to have dropsy… he is looking decidedly pine cone-ish. I’m sad. And he refuses to be caught; he’s still very quick.

The chain plant is doing very well.

I have given my cute little bristlenose catfish a name. It isn’t very original, but I like it: Fido.

There are three or four bits of the chain plant that have spouted their own suckers, which are going in different directions; that’s fairly exciting.

The angels appear quite happy in the main tank. I caught one of them having a nip at Fido the other day; I told him off. Bad angel.

J has a new macro lens for his digital camera… and has forgotten how to log on as himself.

Decided the angels were quarantined long enough – they got moved tonight. Seemed a bit lost when first they got into the big tank, and although I had fed the tank about an hour before I gave them a bit more food because the Colombians, in particular, were making overtures of aggression that I decided to nip in the bud (and other appropriate cliches).

I think one of the neons in the qt has been et. I have only been able to seen 2 for the last couple of days. Curious; I think it was the fattest one, too.

J came home; he was almost as distraught as me about the fish. We did a water change right there and then. J isn’t convinced that the ammonia is a result of lack of water changes… thinks the filter is working all right and all, so it shouldn’t be a problem… we wonder whether the tests might be past their use-by, since we’ve had them forever. Must check that.

Also did a water change on the main tank. Looks better with water to the top.

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.

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.

Haven’t written here in a while. I am thinking of renaming Ajax, or at least giving him a sobriquet: Action Snail. He has been zooming around quite a bit lately, which has been rather exciting, particularly when Mum was here – she thought he was pretty cool.

There are no new babies left. I didn’t realise this for a number of days, and then I looked carefully and realised there were none left! Notwithstanding being moderately cranky when they were born, I am a bit sad at them having been et. Oh well.

The lily pad plant is going nuts, which is great, and the chain plant is also going well. I do think I need to buy some new plants, though, since they are the only two plants I have left, which is a bit sad. I am also thinking about new fishies… maybe slightly bigger ones, to give a bit more presence to the tank. I’m considering silver dollars.