A Bullying Danio

After the death of a second Danio yesterday and a third hovering at the top of the water, I went back to the shop to see if she had any ideas. She looked at both and didn't think there was anything particularly wrong with them - apart form not being well! The rest of the fish in her tank that they came from were also fine.

So she exchanged both Zebra Danios for a pair of Leopard Danios in case there was anything wrong with the Zebras. Got them in the water and left them for a while.

Then whilst I was eating my lunch I noticed that the big Leopard Danio that I thought had laid eggs was back to being fat again - in around 5 hours... Something was wrong there also. So I watched it for a few minutes and whilst I was doing that it started to attack all the other fish. Most of the attacks were aimed at the Zebras, but it would also attack the Leopard Danios, Neons and even the remaining Halfbeak if they were passing by. But the attacks were none stop and it was chasing the Zebra Danios around the tank. One of them does appear to have an injury.

So I dropped in some food and half the Danios came to the surface. Big fatty ate most of it and when it wasn't eating it was bullying the rest of the fish to chase them from the surface.

So it was bagged up, returned to the shop and exchanged for, hopefully, a quieter Leopard Danio.

Once he was out of the tank the entire shoal did become more peaceful. I'm not saying there's no in fighting, there's still plenty, but it's now a few of them involved in much less violent occasional attacks, instead of one attacking everything in sight constantly.

And I thought they would be peaceful!

Another Fatality

After losing the 2 fish on Sunday, we went back to the shop with the dead fish and a water sample to see if she had any ideas. She confirmed the water was "perfect". Very generously, considering we'd had the Danio 3 days and the Halfbeak 3 weeks, she offered to replace both.

After consideration, we all agreed the Halfbeak had probably died because of the attentions of the male, whilst a bit of in fighting in the Danios could mean there were too many males. So I asked for a couple of Danios instead. To replace the 2 fish, she gave us 6 Danios! She also tried to give us females.

Now one of the Danios passed away last night - I daren't take it back in case I come back with more. It was swimming on it's own at the top of the tank yesterday, and now another is doing the same! Maybe there's a fault in her batch of zebra danios?

On a positive note, one of the Leopard Danios has gone form being extremely fat and about to burst to only slightly fat - so we're hoping she has laid eggs. I've hovered up some of the exposed gravel and kept the water to see if I can collect and save some eggs. Who knows?

Double Fatalities

First thing we noticed that the white spot infected halfbeak was lying dead at the bottom of the tank. She had been behaving strangely the last few days and we'd seen nothing of her really.

Then when I was feeding the tank some live bloodwormm, there were only 5 danios at the top. A quick search revealed a dead one in the plants. Not sure if it's severely rotted overnight or been mauled by the snail that was crawling away.

Again, this fish had been causing us some concern - it wasn't shoaling or feeding yesterday.

The trials and tribulations of a tropical tank!

Well, it looks like the dreaded white spot is back. This time the female halfbeak has a tiny spot on her tail fin.

Again, it's only the one spot and it's much smaller than last time. I suppose it only needs one to have got away and reinfected a fish. She's been quiet the last couple of days, but I put that down to the introduction of the shoal of 6 Danios yesterday and their zooming around the tank.

I brought forward the weekly water change to this evening and changed 15% of the water, instead of 10%. Added half a dose of treatment, because of the loach, catfish, snails and shrimps! I need to keep my eye on it and see when it breaks off. This time, although the instructions recommend keeping the dosing going for 48 hours after it drops off, I'll keep it going for longer. Will also give the tank more lights off time and I'm not increasing the temperature this time. Didn't do any good last time!

Danios

Added a few Dannios today. A bit earlier than I usually would, but with a busy weekend ahead and my daughter off school for the teacher's strike today, it was a good opportunity.

And they are mad! 3 each of the Leopard and Zebra Danios. The Leopards are slightly larger then the Zebras - presumably older stock. When they were floating in their bags they were obviously keen to get into the water. And once there the 6 of them darted around in a tight shoal, exploring the tank.

The female Halfbeak hid herself down in the bottom corner, where they weren't exploring. She has now ventured back out and is suffering the usualy flirtations of her male.

The Danios are great feeders. They are the first fish to really shoal and attack the food put into the tank. I was surprised at how much they could eat in 2 minutes. I fed what I thought would be enough and it was gone in seconds. It was really nice to slowly feed them more bits of food over a couple of minutes.

Not the most exciting coloured fish, but the way they move and feed they are going to be fun. If they let the other fish have a quiet moment. Just a pity the upsidedown catfish doesn't do much!

The loach becomes braver

The loach has started showing itself more and is a lot braver now than when it entered the tank 4 days ago.

It's no longer spending the day hidden away and it's not darting away the instant there's a movement in the room. It's even starting to put up with me quietly drifting over and watching it, although when it sees me watching it, it does tend to swim off to hide.

It is getting interesting to watch and the snail population is not what it was. So here's hoping for a happy occupant!

RIP The Snails

The Loach has definitely masacared the snails - gone are the brief snails galore days! Every so often he rattles one against the stones. There's a definite reduction in the number of adults, although a load of babies have hatched today for him to work through next!

Best of luck to him - although we are considering moving some snails and / or eggs to a separate tank to keep a constant supply of snails for him!

The loach ventures out

Started to see a lot more of the loach today, but every time there is movement in the room it hides. It's OK if the movement doesn't cause vibration, but if anyone walks by heavily it swims to hide.

But I have to congratulate it - the snail population certainly seems to have been devastated! There are still plenty about, but it's already down to a reasonable amount, rather than a plague. But I keep getting a fright when I hear a knocking on the glass as the loach bangs a large snail against the glass. It's amazingly loud! Not sure whether it's an attack on the snail, or an accident as it tries to get a snail off the side of the tank higher up, which then slips down and it's trying to catch again.

And I've caught a brief glimpse of the upsidedown catfish hiding under a ledge on the outside of the cave. It's well covered by plants, so difficult to spot.

Also managed to get some pictures of various occupants today - I think everyone but the upsidedown catfish. So will start loading some pictures to this to make it more interesting.

Frozen Daphnia

Just dropped in (for the first time) a block of frozen daphnia. I use these every week for the goldfish, but not before for the tropical tank.

It span around the top for a few cicruits, breaking up at the back corner a little each time. The female halfbeak happened to be waiting for it on the first cicuit and managed a few good mouthfuls of daphnia as it went past.

Problem was it kept getting caught in a back current just at the point where it broke up, then finally dropped in that corner. Next time I try it, will not have the jet from the filter going straight down the back - that seems to give the most water movement.

Also, although the fish did enjoy it, mainly because it caught and settled, a lot finally sank to the bottom. Neither of the new occupants are anywhere to be seen - hopefully they will come out later for their feed to clear up. But a whole block might be best keeping for when there are more mid water fish - 2 halfbeaks and 5 neons aren't going to catch much! The shrimps, snails & catfish will enjoy the rest!

New Inhabitants

Well we now have 2 more new inhabitants.

First, there's polky - the polka dot loach that the shop owner assures me won't grow much more than about an inch longer than current size but will eat baby snails like they are going out of fashion. A bit jump and hides when you arrive into the room, but settles and appears soon.

Then Turvey - the upsidedown catfish. Nice little creature - although only seen 1 flash of 'him' since he went into the tank. It was hard to find any in the display tank - I expect it will be harder to find him in our tank.

Getting ready for the next occupants

I went into the shop as I was running passed to see if they still had the halfbeaks, but the ones in the tank are still covered in white spot. So won't be trying to control the frisky halfbeak that way, just yet!

On a positive note, my white spot hasn't yet returned - been clear for 7 days now. So hopefully that trauma is over. But the snail population continues to grow so we're looking at getting an upsidedown catfish tomorrow, and maybe a small loach that she's recommended.

All of the tanks have their own water supply, so white spot in one isn't a problem. Will also get some bogwood for the bristlenose catfish. That's recommended for their digestion, plus for other fish, but not seen any real bogwood before elsewhere. £4.50 for a huge piece - I'll probably chop it into at least 2 to fit it into the tank. Not really sure yet where I'll fit it in! Each piece must be at least 15 inches long!

Snails Galore!!!

More mini snails are appearing - the breeding cycle has started again! The catfish can't be eating enough eggs! But we've got an upsidedown catfish on the wish list and I've read they eat snails - so that's what's being added at the weekend!

Halfbeaks getting (too???) frisky

Might need to return to the shop that we got the halfbeaks from as the male is becoming over attentive to the female. Every time she breaks from cover he's inches behind her. Even when she's trying to eat he's there, getting in her way.

No idea whether they will have any females left and I need to check if the whitespot has definitely been cleared from the tank. But I'm going on the theory that Guppies and Mollies are kept on the ratio of 2 : 1 for the same reason, so it should work with these little guys.

Still can't decide what else to put into the tank - that decision changes by the hour!

A quiet day

A fairly quiet day today - so far! No sign of the white spot - hopefully everything was killed and there are no more growing on the fish.

For the first time since I put the plants in place the 2 malaysian trumpets were on show - I thought we'd lost one! No doubt those 2 will start breeding at some point.

The rest of the unintentional snail population is growing exponentially - I need something that will take an interest in the snails and their eggs! I could hand pick them out and other similar methods, but there's just something about controlling the population 'natures way' and providing them as feed to a fish. I suppose it's the knowledge that snails could get in again and any control method I use now is not going to eradicate them all, so an ongoing snail eating fish control could be interesting.

I've still got to decide what to get, so why not?

Bloodworm for the halfbeaks

Dropped the temperature to 24c as there's still no more signs of the white spot, although working in that room so the tank was well above that all day!

Looking at the halfbeaks and the female is definitely growing a large bump. I'm hoping that it's not a tumour or cyst and if I'm lucky she's pregnant. The male is still very attentive, but she doesn't want to know.

Tried them all on frozen bloodworm this morning. Dropped half a defrosted block into the outflow of the pump and the bloodworm shot across the tank, giving the half beaks just seconds to grab what they wanted. Then the neons had more than their fair share as the blodworm sank and got caught onto the plants, which are growing well and I had to cut back yesterday.

The end of the first trial?

No more white spots have appeared - so I'm hoping that's over. I did a 10% water change before adding a second dose of medication yesterday lunch. The 48 hours since the last spot dropped off have now passed, so I've just repeated the 10% water change and added a carbon filter. Also leaving the lights on a little later as I'll be working in here later and the lights are also supposed to affect the medication, according to one source, but not the instructions on the packet.

Dropped the temperature 1 degree to 25c to start to bring it back to it's normal 24c.

Halfbeaks Reaction To Treatment

Yesterday's report...

After starting the treatment for whitespot I also turned the water temperature up from 24c to 26c. In the evening the Halfbeak (the infected one) spent ages displaying to the female.

The white spot dropped off overnight so it was gone by Friday morning, so hopefully only a short course of treatment. A small water change on Saturday followed by a second dose of medicine. Not sure yet how long I leve it before putting more fish in, but might try to get the fish some live food over the weekend for a treat. Maybe even look at a brine shrimp kit.

White Spot!

Noticed earlier a small white spot on the tail of the male halfbeak. Just the one and the female is clear.

Went back to the shop and looked in her tank and two or three of the dozen or so halfbeaks in their have one or two spots, so she's not cleared up an infection properly.

Good on her, she was just going to give me some medicine in the correctly measured out dose for my tank, but the standard one she uses states it's not safe with snails and shrimps - so I couldn't use that. Instead she gave me some 'original formula ws3' at half price - presumably trade price - because she'd caused the infection. At least I've got it now if there's an infection in the future.

So first dose gone in - but only a half dose because the neons / catfish / shrimps / snails count as sensitive - everything but those infected!

Fingers crossed it goes quickly. She does have separate filters / water systems for all of the fish tanks so hopefully she won't spread an infection and she was treating them as I left.

Wonderful Cleaners!

I moved an ornament between tanks last night to see what would happen. It was a bright orange starfish that had been added to the goldfish tank some years ago - the sort of thing that's absolutely banned from the tropical tank.

But it was so covered in algae that I thought moving it for 24 hours might be a treat for the inhabitants of the tropical tank, so after a quick rinse it was moved. Today it was popular with some of the snails and later the Bristlenose catfish. So tonight I removed it, gave it a quick rinse and replaced an amazingly clean starfish into the goldfish tank.

With that team growing bigger, hopefully the tropical tank will never have algas. I just wonder if I could put some small snails into the goldfisg tank?

A New Snail

After the death of the apple snail and with the nitrite levels almost down to zero, I bought another snail, before my daughter noticed the absence of the original!

I could tell the original snails apart, but the new one looks identical to the surviving snail. I'm sure I'll spot some difference that lets me tell them apart. But I've spent half the day looking for the original snail. It suddenly appeared this evening - no idea where it's been hiding. No wonder the bristle nose can hide well if a snail can go missing.

Cycling Almost Throrugh???

Still reading slight nitrite levels, but this is the 6th day and they are close to zero now. Hopefully in a couple of days they will be completely gone and I'll be happy to stock properly.

The fish I have got are also settling down together. The neons are no longer afraid of the Cerebes Halfbeaks - in fact they seem to have accepted them to the point of shoaling together. There were a few times when I looked in and the shoal of Neons were shoaling under the Halfbeaks.

Apple Snail Dies...

The closed up apple snail from Thursday has now officially passed away also. The water was looking less clear than usual, so I netted the snail and when I lifted it out, it was slowly draining it's contents out of it's shell.

Poor thing. Apart from some damage to the back of the shell, no idea what's happened there. The other snail is looking fine, although he's going to miss his mate. Will let the water settle and then bring a new one into the tank in a few days.

On a brighter note, the cerebes halfbeaks are settling in well today. Spent 15 minutes before bed last night watching the female chasing dried brine shrimp and other bits she could find. I was dropping it into the outflow of the filter.

Tried the same this morning, but the male halfbeak seems to prefer flake food. He did have a bit of a go at the neons this morning, but they quickly learnt to ignore him and by lunchtime they were happy to shoal under him. He then spent the rest of the day pursuing the female halfbeak around the tank. Except for when she swam to the bottom (he always stays near the top), the make halfbeak is always within a couple of inches of his partner.

Cerebes Halfbeaks

The water levels seem to be almost down to long term levels, so we've added a pair of Cerebes Halfbeaks to the tank today. Only added late in the day, but it looks like they will be passing their time away swimming into the current generated by the outflow from the filter.

Interesting looking fish, they are swimming mainly at the top of the tank. Should be easy to find each day - unlike the Neons that like to live behind the plants and the catfish, who's favourite hiding place is still to be discovered. But I can spend hours searching for him, not find him, then he's suddenly about next time I walk into the room!

Levels Settling

On only the third morning the nitrite and nitrate levels have dropped. It's only 48 hours since I read 0.5ppm, already it's down to 0.25ppm. Even allowing for the fact that I didn't do nitrite / nitrate readings the day before, it's only a couple of days during which the levels seem to have peaked.

We're hoping that the levels have really settled off tomorrow or Sunday and then we can look at a couple of Halfbeaks.

The First Casualty

Sadly, the Red Crab has quickly passed away in the night. He didn't last long - but then I wasn't hopeful when I got him home and realised what I'd been sold. There's a valuable lesson there - ask the assistant to show you which specimens they have caught before they bag it. And if they bag it as roughly as that guy, ask to check it again.

The water also started reading nitrites & nitrates yesterday for the first time. Strange to get both, yet no ammonia / ammonium. Immediately did a 20% change, followed by the same this morning and will do another tomorrow morning. Also bought yet more plants! With 2 removed and 1 swapped with 1 from the other tank, that takes me to 21 plants in 80 litres of water.

The snail that I've been worrying about on and off since Sunday morning has also closed up and gone on strike. There's still tension in the base of the snail and as I'm typing it's suddenly started bobbing slightly - I think it's filling with air.

The nusicance snails brought in on the plants are thriving. Started removing some in case their total waste is affecting the nitrite / nitrate. The catfish is doing an excellent job of eating their eggs now (there's more for him to eat now at the front) - or I would be inundated.

I did also find a shrimp shell a day or so ago, so one or both of the ghost shrimps has molted. That explains their disappearance.

No snail eggs, yet

Lowering the water levels in the hope that the apple snails would lay some eggs didn't have any success last night.

Tried feeding the fish without raising the water level this morning, but the flakes got caught on the filter before the fish saw them. So I had to return the 8 litres of water so that the fish could feed, then remove it again tonight in the hope that there will be some eggs in the morning.

What I did also notice was that the tank is getting very warm in the daytime, but then cooling at night. This is because the room it's in gets warm (small room with 2 computers running in there today - it's my workplace), but once I finish work it can cool right down. The tank was around 24 / 25 degrees in the day time, so I raised the heater setting from 22 to 24 to try to maintain the warmer environment.

Still not reading any ammonia / ammonium - 12 days after adding to first occupants. Might get a few more grasses and other plants to throw in soon! 16 (2 small ones died straight away) aren't enough!