Danios at it again...

2 of the female zebra danios are being pursued by up to 4 leopard danios and I've recovered at least one egg, although no idea what to do with it at the moment! Only 8 days until I go on holiday.

Also, a records with the shrimps - one has carried the eggs for 14 days - hoping they hatch and some survive...

Off for a break away, so that's about it for today & tomorrow - more desertion of the Guppy babies!

Amazing Gymnastics???

I managed to quietly catch the female Guppy I was talking about yesterday and placed her in the ice-cream tub. But I could see although the move had been easy and quiet - the net had only been used to guide her into the tub, she wasn't settled.

I checked on her 10 minutes later and she was quiet and with the lights off I thought she would settle for the night. An hour later, on my way to bed, I checked in and the tub was empty - jus the fake plant I'd included for cover floating in it. After 5 minutes' searching I saw her swimming around the back of the tank, possibly without the gravid spot.

This morning she is definitely thinner and not such a gravid spot, so either she had the drop or miscarried as she performed her gymnastics. Whichever way, there's no sign of any fry in the tank, even when I searched before the lights came on. So it looks like we have missed our chance there. Probably good in the long term - it would have been hard in 3 weeks tonight releasing small fry into the tank and probably watching some being eaten - the night before our holiday!

On a more positive note, the younger shrimp is carrying eggs again. I saw a female sized case floating around the tank, so I presume the other female has just molted. But what's the chance of being able to do anything with these babies - when they could be hatching just a week before our holiday? I suppose it would make a learning exercise to try to get them to hatch. Better to try now and lose them part way down the line and then get further with the next batch.

Maintenance -

Shrimps mating and a danio fry has survived

It looks like adding salt may just have done the trick for the shrimps! I should know for certain in a few days, but I've seen the older shrimps swimming around with him mounted on top of her. Quite a bizarre act to observe!

Last time around it was three days after witnessing the potential shrimp mating that I noticed her carrying eggs, so I'll have to watch carefully from Thursday to see if anything has happened.

It's just a shame that if anything hatches this time around it will only be 12 days before my holiday! I can always move her to the small tank after a week and take that to my in-laws for them to keep feeding!

Speaking of the small tank, we have found at least one Danio fry swimming in there, possibly 2. We're planning to release the existing fry to the expance of the main tank some time this week, so his breeding net will be freed up for anything in the tank to be moved to - if we are moving the shrimp in... Not sure then what killed the others off - could have been low oxygen or high wastes if moving them and adding some water saved this one or two.

Sods law is that if it's going to work it will be this time - just before we go away. I expect the Guppy will also decide to drop some fry soon! I have been watching her tummy changes for 25 days...

Another departure...

Not a good day! Blackie, the paralysed Guppy, was ddead when I looked in this morning. No idea what has happened there - nothing on the other fish. Then I did a good clean with a 20% water change. This had been planned for morning, but got delayed until evening.

I forgot to aerate the bottle the baby Danios are in and it was planned that they would come out of there today - I was intending to use the water taken from the main tank to set up the small tank. When I got around to that nearly all looked dead. There are maybe one or two that are swimming about.

Also, the shrimps haven't carried eggs for a while. Was pondering that and researching what could have got Blackie when I found a few diseases for which the treatment is salt. I've had salt in the tank occasionally, not often. I first added it when the female halfbeak had a strange growth - so the 26 April. 15 May I noticed the shrimp carrying the eggs.

She lost them after a large water change (and low oxygen) and at some point recently I added salt again, and I'm sure it was after that both shrimps carried eggs. Then the last few weeks I've done quite a few water changes.

Maybe, just maybe, the shrimps will only carry eggs when there is salt in the water? I'll hve to watch for that.

Maintenance - O2 normal; nitrate approaching 20ppm; 20% water change; 2 teaspoons tonic salts added; baby danios to spare tank.

The eggs have gone...

Just a quick one to note that the eggs seem to have gone from the shrimp, again. Didn't quite reach 2 weeks, so I doubt that they have hatched.No idea what has happened this time, when she carried them for so long. Even if they have hatched then it's likely that someone in the tank will eat them before too long.

Next time...

Another quiet day...

Nothing much has happened today - the Guppy fry continue to grow at an impossibly slow rate - will they really reach a decent size by 4 - 6 weeks as I have read? If I'm optimisitic, they might be a whole 6mm long now. The Danio fry does seem to be growing - maybe 10mm long. But it's hard to work out the size of any of them - they are all so active.

The best way of feeding the Guppy fry seems to involve gently chasing them around the tank by moving the floating plants. Once they are woken up properly they are really eager to feed. Or maybe it's just their age - they are more willing to feed.

Still the older shrimp carrying eggs. Sometimes I think the other might have a few eggs, but I think it's just her keeping her balance.

Apart from that, I've not noticed the dreaded whitespot for a few days. Hopefully, the cycle has finally broken. Now I need to work out why the halfbeak has lost his colour and get him back on form.

The babies continue...

I'm continuing to change small amounts of water for the Guppy fry and feeding them regularly, but at most they have grown 1mm to 6mm - but it's hard to measure any of the fry in the tub. They are only 48 hours old, but I'm impatient! I wasn't sure whether they actually fed for the first 48 hours or not, but with the Danio fry also in the tub, some feeding was required.

I am a little disappointed that the eother Guppy doesn't look heavily pregnant, but reading up on how many fry are usually in a drop, it looks like this wasn't Blackie's first drop - there are still about 30 survivors - and I don't know if she ate any of them.

But I was looking carefully at her today and wondering if she is carrying a small number of fry - reading up last night, a first drop can be 8 - 25 fry. So watching her carefully as her gravid spot is speckled slightly, like Blackie's on Saturday. So I'll watch her behaviour tomorrow and see if her tummy flattens at all.

It's also a shame about the shrimps - the newer female, that was carrying plenty of eggs, has lost most of her eggs. There are still a few there and she's fanning them with her swimmerets, so there is still a chance of babies. Pity, my plan was to watch for when the eggs were hatching on the older shrimp and then to move the younger shrimp into a separate tank, expecting her eggs to hatch the day after the older shrimp's eggs. That plan is out of the window...

Last Monday is was the death of the favourite resident, today it's a birth. Well, births to be precise - 25 to 30 of them! The female Guppy, Blackie, whom I managed to catch late last night did indeed drop her fry this morning.

She was sitting quietly at the back of the ice cream tub, with most of the fry swimming around the other side of the tub. I was amazed that it happened so easily, that I guessed the right night (first time!) that they would be born and how big the fry are! I would guess that they are each 5mm long and actively swimming around.

The other baby we have - the possible Danio, isn't gowing that quickly, although it is growing. So since we now have a tub in the top of the tank setup for growing on (if only for a week...) we're in the process of moving him over as well. It means only 1 baby tank to care for but the benefit for him is that the water in that tank is far warmer - heated by the water around it and the lights overhead in the daytime.

I read that Guppies do show growth spurts when a water change takes place, and the danio fry has been in the same water with only small amounts changed. Given the position etc of the tub I'll be changing water from it quite frequently. I'm not sure how long they are in the tub before they get to a size at which they can be released to the main tank. I did read that they are mature at 1 month - so it can't take too long.

And the other good news is that I'm sure we have not one but two shrimps carrying eggs. I saw the second one for certain yesterday, without eggs, so she's only laid them overnight. Looks like one is making the other maternal. I suppose it's nature's way of producing more baby shrimps at the same time and thus increasing the chances of some surviving.

So the cold baby tank might have 2 shrimps in it soon enough!

Guppy closer to dropping

The Guppy, Blackie, must be getting very close to dropping her fry. Her tummy is starting to square off, the gravid spot is black, with other colours there and she's spending most of the time hiding in the corners.

We did try to net her, but she wasn't having any of it. I'vertried a few times, but she always hides behind plants (there are loads) or decorations - and it's not easy to net her in a cave... Although now that the lights are off she keeps swimming out into the open - until I put the net in...

Also, the older female shrimp is once more covered in eggs, so maybe that was the shrimps mating that I witnessed a few days ago. I'm pretty sure I saw her yesterday, without eggs, so today is day 1. Must keep the oxygen levels up this time and see if we can raise any. Quite a fast turn around since the first batch of eggs were lost - less than a week ago. It must be a good sign - they at least are happy in the water.

I was also watching the Corys for half an hour this afternoon. Fascinating little fish, just watching them and the shrimp feeding on the algae pellets and a few flakes that had drifted to the bottom of the tank. The Corys really struggle to find the food then take little nibbles, whereas the shrimp appear from nowhere, steal a whole pellet and swim off to eat it in peace. The large shrimp even 'fought' off the loach - which is about 8cm long! The shrimps then sit in a plant and eat away at the pellet, although loads of it does drift off in the process - messey little eaters.

When the loach finds a pellet there's a load crscking sound - almost a pistol shot sound, as he is biting bits off. Sometimes he takes several bites before losing it, other times he can't find it after his first bite. Then he swims around until he smells out another pellet.

The bottom feeders are surprisinlgy interesting to watch. Not like the top feeders that charge at the food and then it's gone. Much more fun than I thought they would be.

Finally, a peaceful day...

After the traumas of the last week I'm happy to say that so far it's been a quiet day. One white spot has appeared on the Halfbeak - a day longer to reproduce than normal, but a dose of the medication was going in anyway.

The water is beautifully clear now that I've removed the venturi from the Fluval 2plus - it was making so many tiny bubbles that the water wasn't as clear as I wanted it to be. Now with that just filtering and a separate air supply, the tank water is clear. I've got the air turned right down as the air curtain is too small for the powerful Tetratec APS50, even though that is underpowered for my 90 litre tank! Will pick up a longer air curtain tomorrow to try it out.

Having said that, I've also got an O2 kit and that's reading around 8mg/l with the new air pump. Just before I switched the pumps over it read 5mb/l - gone from bottom of the desired range to top of the range. Any higher and I'd need to add more occupants to use more oxygen!

Speaking of which, I did see the original male shrimp had mounted the original female shrimp - who has now lost her eggs. I'm not sure whether that is the normal breeding behaviour of shrimps, but it certainly looked like that was his intention. Maybe in a few days / weeks she'll me carrying eggs again. Hopefully the reason she lost the eggs earlier this week was just the reduction in oxygen levels and the next batch will go on to produce some babies. Even better if one could survive to adult-hood!

Recovering from low oxygen

Increasing the air input yesterday seems to have helped the tank to regain it's balance. I did the water quality tests just before a 20% water change and the Nitrite was back to zero. I can only assume that lowering the air input lowered the oxygen (hence the shrimps at the top of the tank with the Guppies and the Danios being a lot quieter) and this affected the bacteria also. Makes sense, I suppose.

Unfortunately, the shrimp is no longer carrying eggs. Even I am not optimisitic enough to hope they all hatched and are hiding - I think that she was removing them yesterday as I was trying to recover the oxygen levels. Maybe as the Oxygen dropped the levels got too low for the eggs and they died - just days before they should have been ready to hatch.

Unfortunately, it also looks lile the white spot is back! The halfbeak seems clear - he usually shows new spots on Wednesdays though so we'll see tomorrow. This time two of the Neons seem to have tiny whitespots. Will I ever get the tanks sorted and running happily?

Enjoying the tank

I'm really enjoying the tank, and watching everything grow. Even if there are a few traumas, such as watching the possibly sick cory. It's still skulking around the tank, although I think I have seen it eating. But it's hard to know whether I'm watching just one, or if they are taking it in turns to lay low.

But Bristles, the Bristlenose Catfish is growing well. I measured him at 45mm a few weeks ago and today he was stretched out cleaning the glass, and he's now 60mm in length. Not bad for a little fish that arrived 2 months ago and was a tiny 15mm long!

My other concern is the upside down catfish. He was larger when he went into the tank and we never see him. I think I've just seen a flash of fin from within his cave, so he's still alive. But if he's growing well, there's a chance he'll outgrow the cave door. He's not been out (that I've seen) for 10 days and it was a squeeze then to return to the cave. I suppose give it another week and lift up the cave and turn him out! The gap at the bottom should be big enough once the cave is lifted.

The local shop I use did have some catfish caves. Maybe one of them could be used. I suppose point it to the back / side of the tank where the entrance is quiet, but where we can peek into it when we want to.

The shrimp continues to carry her eggs and the new shrimps are finally starting to venture out - both took algae pellets today and hid away with them. So, apart from why aren't the Neons coming up to feed - though even when they had the tank to themselves they hardly fed - I think the tank is quiet & relaxing.

The end...and the beginning?

One of the Albino Corys appears to be unwell - it's sat around at the front of the tank all day, only moving when another fish has shifted it out of the way. Even dumping bloodworm pellets around it didn't arouse any interest, although the arrival of the other fish caused it to hide.

But on a positive note, I saw the largest shrimp at the back of the tank fanning it's swimmerets. I tried to convince myself there were little white dots on them, and even called my wife in, but she wasn't convinced.

But then the addition of a couple of algae pellets brought it out for the first time in a while. All of the shrimps have been hiding together around the bogwood since the addition of the new shrimps. Totally unsocial!

But this one came out for a favoured feed and then took a small piece up to a nearby plant and I had an excellent opportunity to admire the light green eggs covering the swimmerets. I did try to take a photo, but after 10 mintues I gave up looking for charged batteries.

But it does look like the shrimp is carrying eggs, so hopefully in a couple of weeks we should have a load of baby shrimps - although if I don't intervene, it will be a load of baby shrimps as fish food!

Growing On Tank

In the hope that I do have a few Baby Danios, I've moved the bottle of water, with it's one 'fish' and many moving blobs, to an old tank. I've also added some water recently taken from the tank as those bottles too also seemed to have some random movements.

It's hard to know whether this is right or not. It's not cycled, but there's about 8 litres of water and only a handful of microscopic fish. I've also added a stem from an 'oxygenating weed' to the tank for shelter and the beneficial properties that will hopefully take.

As I said yesterday, if only 1 of the babies grows up to be worth transferring to the main tank then I'll consider it a success. There are so many little blobs that hopefully that will be the case!

Quiet day in the tank really. Only point of note being that for the first time since Monday I'm certain we still have all 4 shrimps - for about 30 seconds all of them were visible in different areas of the tank. So the babies haven't been easten by the loach!

More Shrimps

The shrimps are doing well and with the reduction of the snails (I don't think there are more than 1 or 2 left!) the bottom of the tan hasn't been so tidy as it was, so I've added a couple of new shrimps.

At the moment, they are keeping themselves to themselves and hiding together under the bogwood. I expect the cave where the other pair hide is to scary for them - it's shared by the 2 catfish and the loach! They are only about 2cm long - so over what the loach will count as a mouthful when fully grown, but they look so small compared to the other 2 shrimps, which are actually only 2.5cm & 4cm each. But the narrower body shape makes them look a lot smaller.

Hoping they will thrive and maybe we're starting to form a community - who knows, get enough and they might breed...

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.

The Shrimps Are Back In Town

After being very elusive for a few days the Ghost Shrimps suddenly both made an appearance a few minutes ago.

For a couple of days I've only ever had a glance of one of them, hiding in or on the cave. To be honest, I've seen so little that I did think one had died and at times they have hidden for so long, I assumed both were gone.

But then suddenly both Ghost Shrimps made an appearance on more obvious rocks and there's one (or is it both taking turns) scurrying around the water like they were when they first went in a week ago? Maybe they have both simultaneously molted or something, but their behaviours have changed in the last 10 minutes.

Ghost Shrimps At Home

I just happened to look into the tank this afternoon, after only seeing the elusive ghist shrimps coming out of hiding once early morming, and I saw one of the shrimps heading towards a hiding hole.

I've got a 'rock' ornament at the back of the tank, under the filter and heater. Quite often if the shrimps are out they are on this piece. There are a few entrances holes into it and it was into the uppermost of these holes that I just happened to see a shrimp slowly retreating.

The Ghost Shrimps are at best to see. When hiding in a 'cave' they may as well not exist. I've not found anything that says how much fish space they effectively take up, but I'm sure 2 won't be taking up much. Am tempted to get a few more as the Ghost Shrimps are hard to spot at the best of times. But no idea how many Ghost Shrimps there should / can be in a community.

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.

Occupants settling in

Apart from only now finding one of the surprise 'Malaysian Twist Snails' (maybe I've crushed one - I moved an ornament around where they were seen), the rest of the tank is settling in.

Still no ammonia forming - snails aren't doing their job of poluting the water! A few plants are showing a bit of decay - so I've increased the lighting to 3 hours per day (will be a slow weekly increase).

The Yamato shrimps are hiding and it took most of the night to confirm that there were still 2 alive in there! The Gold Apple Snails are equally unadventurous, and hiding around the back. Made the mistake of switching the room light on in the evening and they both virtually ran to the back of the tank!

Dropped some food in and the shrimps went mad! One did eventually settle onto the filter and appear to give that a good grooming. That one seems to be slightly more aggressive than it's hungrier counterpart.

Interesting to watch both Green Apple Snails climb to the top of the tank (quite quickly) together. There are also a few other small snails about - how many were on that first batch of plants?