Double Tragegdy!

A double tragedy - and neither of the 2 fish that we were expecting!

First, I noticed a Bloodfin Tetra stuck, and very dead, in the base of the Java Fern. Removed that and then saw a Neon Tetra stuck, and also dead, between the breeding traps!

The Neon - well, I'm not sure if he died and then floated there or swam there and became stuck. It hurts, either way. The Bloodfins I have seen one attacking the other - I think we had 2 males. So now he's alone and attacking his reflection.

We had decided only this morning, before returning home from our trip away, not to get any more occupants until after our main holiday. We go in just over 2 weeks and I didn't want to risk introducing whitespot etc into the tank next week. That would only leave me a week to treat it. With the baby Guppies growing, there's enough load on the tank anyway.

So when we come back we have to decide whether to get more Bloodfins (I really liked them!) and Neons, or Cardinals.

The female Panda Cory is still very quiet - I've not been able to find her, she's moved from her hiding spot of an hour ago. And also the male Guppy is still very much hiding. But I did knock a load of food off plants yesterday as I moved them about, maybe he's eaten too much of the loose food.

Maintenance -

Neons Settling In

Quite a bit of aggression between the Neons this morning - in 1s and 2s instead of a shoal. Eventually 4 did calm down and shoal, still looking for the 5th fish.

Poured in some frozen daphnia and the Yamato Shrimps and Green Apple Snails appeared for feed time. The Neon Tetras tried some if the food, but not much. Too busy chasing each other around the tank. There are 2 noticably different colour patterns between the Neons today - some are blues (and red) whilst on others they are more green. Trying to work out whether the greeny Neons are the ones doing the chasing.

I have read today that it is normal for the Neons to chase each other more prior to the lights coming on, so maybe this is to be expected.

Water levels are still showing absolutely no ammonia in the tank. Reading up about this and it could be the large number of plants are consuming it all. Might need another hardy fish later in the week.

Just spotted the other tetra on it's own in their favourite hiding place whilst the others are mid water. Maybe the move has triggered spawning behaviour of something. Lights are still only on for 3 hours per day - so will come on later.

Neon Tetras

Still no changes in the water quality. Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite staying at zero. Whereas this is excellent for the snails and shrimps, it does mean the cycling isn't starting.

So went back to the shop and, with their advice, bought 5 neon tetras. Settled them into the tank and prepared 16 litres of water for a water change tomorrow if the levels go mad overnight.

The Neons are shoaling well, but very difficult to get them to take food. A couple did finally spot the flakes at the surface, but the Neons seem to prefer the bottom of the tank, in with the 18 plants! One did get an entire flake into it's mouth and then try to eat it - so the others then started to try to steal the rest of the flagk from it. Eventually they did break off most of the flake, leaving just a tube of flake in the fish's mouth - it looked gormless with it's mouth stuck open.

Later 3 of them looked quite fat from the foor, the other 2 looked skinny still. Tried a couple of flakes later, but still no feeding.

A slightly bit of agro between one of the Yamato Shrimps against a couple of the tetras, but only slight positioning. Neither hurt!