Wednesday 27/8/2015: The Death of a Monster

         I unfortunately have bad news. My family's Pleco passed away on Tuesday the 25th of August 2015. It all started that morning. After breakfast, everyone in the family was there to watch as our beloved catfish, longest surviving fish in our tank, began twisting himself left and right, slowly floating in the tank as he thrashed back and forth. Eventually, he settled behind his castle, not moving much. He stayed there for the rest of the day. That night, my dad decided that he was not going to recover, and that he needed to be removed from the tank. Even my father's fish-apathetic heart was softened a bit by the departure of the fish we had had for nearly as long as we had our tank. While I witnessed, he caught the Pleco, still alive, in the fish net. It tried feebly to free itself, but it's inability to even swim only further proved it's doom. Once the catfish was raised out of the water, he stopped struggling, and was flushed peacefully. After nearly 2 years of terrorizing the fish in our tank, the Pleco was gone just two days after we bought six over sized fish in consideration of his voracious appetite. Having ended the lives of countless tetras and other small fish, he went how I hope he would have wanted to go: Valiantly, explosively, and without any small fish around to see it. Maybe he has been waiting all this time to have a chance to die in peace, and once we removed the last Glowlight tetras, he was finally free. The few pictures I took for my last post are likely the only remnant of the fish we raised from just a couple inches long to adulthood. 

          Now if only the Angelfish would die and leave the Silverdollars, I could have some Danios or tetras again in that tank...

          In other news, my brother's Betta is doing great in his five gal tank, and we have already trained him to tap my brother's finger to get his food. We are feeding him a halved Cichlid wafer twice a day, and plan to fast him on Thursdays. My brother's ultimate goal is to train his Betta to jump through a hoop, but for now we're focusing on simpler tricks. Seeing that cute little Betta gives me even more reason to go through with my plan to change out the fish in my tank. 

          Speaking of my tank, the Danios are doing great. Today, I spent a while trying to get some pictures of them, as they tend to group up on the surface after evening feeding, but they were moving so fast that only 20 out of the 140+ pictures I took were any good. The Glowlights haven't changed much (I still can't bring myself to tell them that their old nightmare is dead), but all the Danios are doing great. In fact, I feed them too much, so I am planning to fast them once a week just like the Betta to let their insides have a break. Here are a few of the decent pictures I managed to take. Sky and Streak were almost non stop chasing each other, doing crazy acrobatics as they roamed, while Darter would retreat to the bottom every once and a while for a second or two of rest before joining back in the fun. I wish I didn't love these fish so much, it would be so much easier to get new ones.

 All three fish together. I think the one facing down is Darter, the left one is Sky, and the top one is Streak.

Here's another threesome shot. Darter is doing something really weird, and I can't tell which girl is which with all the blur.

 Here all the fish are moving really fast. As usual, I can spot Darter on the top because he is smaller, but I need a good view to tell Sky and Streak apart, which I don't have here. I love the long fins on my Danios, they are beautifully patterned and give them a regal look.

And here is possibly my best pic of Sly yet. You can really see her regal dots, though her face is a little out of focus. I guess when you take as many pictures as I do, some of them are bound to turn out good. 

          And those are the fish. Aside from playtime, they still have much the same habits as before, though Streak has mostly stopped bothering Darter. They tend to team up to annoy a Glowlight or try to oust Sky multiple times per minute. Because they are such voracious eaters, I have to feed extra so some of it will drift down to the Glowlights, but this means that all my Danios, and especially Sky, who seems to be the best eater perhaps due to her experience in the currents of the top, Are getting kind of fat. Not fat like the Glowlight's all-round fatness, but more of an overly large belly kind of fat. That is why I am not going to feed them tomorrow. 

          School is going good so far. I may end up taking another AP, but hopefully I will be able to keep up this every other day posting. My parent's dislike of fish shopping means that at least this weekend, there will be no news on that front, but I will still have all of our fish. Now that I have finally found my phone after losing it for a day, I hope to find time to take good pictures of my brother's betta and the fish in the main fish tank. Maybe I should figure out if I can make a photo album for all the pictures I don't use in my posts. Hopefully the internet could handle that kind of massive folder.

Monday 24/8/2015: School Starts, Tank Troubles

          Well, I'm back! A lot has happened over the past 2 days. We took the Cichlids back to the store where we bought them, but the blue one was too damaged, so I sadly think he was flushed, or the fish store equivalent. We were able to get some fish in refund for the pink one, and unfortunately our carefully thought out plans did not survive first contact. We had been planning to get some platys or Swordtails, but further research showed that they are too small to escape the jaws of the Pleco, pictured above. The fish that the workers were suggesting all become huge, and eventually my mom overrode me and bought a grand total of 3 angelfish and 3 Silverdollar fish. I knew that both of these species grow to 6 inches and require much more than our 20 gallon tank, but they were better than the Bala sharks that were the only other fish the catfish wouldn't swallow. I was thinking maybe we could keep one angelfish in our tank, and that would already be too small, but my mom's dream of having many beautiful fish came out on top. I have been uneasy ever since. I told my mom that we could replace the Cichlids with 6 or so other fish, expecting platy-size, but 6 large fish will likely shrink to 5, 4, 3, 2... until the numbers are what our tank can handle. My dad's feelings are that, if a fish is kept in a too small tank, it will stay small, and also a generally uncaring attitude towards fish I have mentioned before.
          On a much happier note, I bought my brother a 20 jd (25ish dollars) 5 gallon Betta tank and a blue normal Betta! It includes a glass cover which I keep at least half an inch above the water so the Betta can breath, a tiny filter, and a bright blue light I am sorely tempted to confiscate for use to help my plants grow. The shop manager and my mom decided a heater wasn't necessary, and I think they are right during the summer, as I have been able to easily keep it at 25-27 degrees centigrade (77-81F), but I will definitely try to buy him a heater as soon as possible. We got home, and I had an hour to release the too-big fish into our main tank and get my little brother's tank set up before going to a doctor's appointment. (This was Sunday. The weekend here is Friday-Saturday.) I used our fresh dechlorinator and added some aquafine general care medicine to the tank, as I had done to the main tank that morning, to hopefully keep the fish healthier. After I slowly released the betta from the small aquarium bag that was still many times bigger than his previous home in a clear plastic cup, he had a great time wandering around exploring his new home.
          I got home from my doctor's appointment right after my siblings got home from school, and luckily my brother (who is 8) had not yet gone to his room. The bright green medicine I had put in still had not quite cleared up, but the tank was much better than before, when I couldn't even see the betta from across the tank, despite using exactly as much stuff as was recommended.  Once my mom convinced my brother to go to his room, presumably to make his bed, I was able to give him what I have decided is his early Christmas present. He has already grown to love the small Betta, although I will not let him name it for a week, and we have big plans for teaching it the cool tricks we read about on the internet. For the foreseeable future, we will be feeding it halved tetra Cichlid food, as we couldn't return that, and I think it is alright because the food has over 40% protein. It seems to like it fine, even though I have heard that Bettas are picky eaters. After the very first feeding, he was already begging for food, and does whenever we first come near him. Unfortunately, as I am writing this late at night, I was only able to get some pictures of the tank and Betta under cover of darkness, even though I turned on his bright blue light for a few. Here they are:

          I also have a picture of the main tank, terribly overstocked even though you can't see most of the fish in this picture, with my makeshift lamp filling in for the fluorescent lamp we are waiting for in the mail:

          Anyway, so far as my tank goes, everyone has been doing fine. There was one point where I walked in on a rebellion by both lesser Danios against the queen, but she still rules from her lofty domain. Everyone is doing fine, although it's hard to tell with grouch and lurker because of their sour attitudes. Most of the time, the descriptions I gave in my last blog are holding up perfectly, though the male seems to be doing a lot better, bothering the queen and more adeptly avoiding the other. Happily, as it has been a week since I brought the Danios home, I can now name them. The first is easy, as I have been thinking of this name since I put the fish together:

 Ever since I put the fish together and started watching them, I have thought that the best name for the Queen of the tank is Sky. Sky is named, of course, for her territory at the top of the tank, which she valiantly defends even when multiple outsiders invade at once. She has proven herself in battle so many times that even my original female will usually flee as soon as she gives chase. This picture is one of the rare instances where Sky descended from her bubbly throne to the lower levels of the tank.

Surprisingly, a name for my original Danio does not easily spring to mind. In fact, I have barely four or five pictures of her. She darts around so fast, causing enough mischief for the entire tank, that she is incredibly difficult to photograph. While Sky spends a lot of time moving too, she has a set pattern she tends to follow. Streak is a beautiful girl, and even though she is under Sky, she is the biggest of my Danios. (In this picture, she isn't the one in focus. She's the blur in the background.)

And, last and kinda also least (sorry!) is the male. He spent his first few days in my tank being tormented by Streak, but has gradually become comfortable and even joins her in bothering the others. If you can't fight them, join them, right? He is actually in the above picture, and you can see that he has almost a mirror copy of Streak's circle on his left side that is his only defining mark. Darter seems quite happy now, and I am getting to see more and more of him and Streak now they aren't always playing tag.

           Now that school has started, I may end up only posting once a week, but I will do my best to see how long I can keep up this every-other-day thing. If anyone reading this has any ideas on what to do about my family tank, and is living in a time frame no later than November 2015, I would greatly appreciate some advice. Even if all you can say is "You're doomed", I would still be glad to read comments. Thanks!
-Sawyer

Saturday 22/8/2015: Second Post, Transfer

          Today was another big day. It started with my family going to the fish street. I bought much-needed water conditioner, fish flakes, and a nitrate liquid test kit (the clerk insisted I didn't need ammonia testing. I knew she was pretty much wrong, but boy scout training kicked in and I just accepted it) My family also bought some more gravel for our main tank, two beautiful fish, and some food for them. Unfortunately, the fish we had bought turned out to be a blue and red peacock Cichlid and a pink one. Once I got home and researched them, I broke the terrible news that A. Cichlids need more than our 20 gallon tank, and B. Two male Cichlids together in a tiny tank = awful idea.
           After much consternation, it was eventually decided (largely by my dad's lack of desire to drive back to the fish store, and rather uncaring views about the lives of fish) that we would return the pink one to the store tomorrow. As I watched, both tended to hide in corners, occasionally coming out and fighting. The pink one seems to be dominant, which is sad because I much prefer the beautiful blue and red one. Hopefully everything will go well, the store will take back the pink one, and the blue and red one will do OK in our smallish tank.
          In the complicated pre-release ritual (before my research), we had to evacuate the 2 Danios as well as the 2 Glowlight tetras from the main tank. The Glowlights had been in there for months, and a group of three had even survived a mostly unsupervised summer with the catfish, though one was presumably eaten a day after we returned from vacation. The Danios had been in the tank since Monday, with no further casualties after one was eaten the first night. After using a plastic bag to hold them and bringing them up to my room, my dad and I did a water change on the main tank and then put in the Cichlids. As the light on the tank had burned out and we found out none of the fish stores had 12 in t4 fluorescent lamps, I had taken the top off a lamp and balanced it sideways to give the fish at least some light, and after half an hour, I turned it on. The glass and Pictus catfish weren't too affected by the new arrivals to their tank, though the blue and red Cichlid tends to use the glass catfish's hiding spot behind the filter, and the pink Cichlid sometimes bothers the Pictus when he ventures out of his cave.
          Over the past few days, I have been quite distraught because my Danios have had red gills, a sign of Ammonia poisoning, and with our dechlorinator all used up, I couldn't do water changes. Now that I could finally give them some clean water, I replaced a third of their water while the refugees from the main tank were sitting in their bag acclimating. After due process, I released the fish, and was happy to see the 2 Danios dart around their home. The Glowlights went back to doing what they have been doing for the past few months, with no sing of illness or issues: they slowly swam along the bottom. Sadly, the male Danio I had in my tank didn't make it. After releasing the others, I was surprised not to see him. How could the Pictus take victims in another tank? I soon found him, weakly lying on the bottom at the back, and although he swam weakly when I netted him, I could tell it was too late. The Ammonia had taken its toll. Without a separate hospital tank, I did't want to leave him in with the others. As I made my tank's first flush, I decided that I will change the water in the tank twice this week, and at least once a week after that.
          On a much happier note, after I turned on the lights and re-potted a plant that had been knocked loose while I was retrieving the body, my Danios have been having the time of their lives. Darting around, chasing each other, annoying the Glowlights, they just don't stop. I spent an hour tonight taking pictures on my hand-me-down Iphone and figuring out who's who, and another hour going through all the pictures deleting all the ones that were hopelessly blurry. I have some descriptions of the fish with pictures, but before that here's my favorite blur:

  

This is one of my Glowlight Tetras. Although I have made a rule that there is to be no fish naming until the fish has lived for a week, this one has been with us for months, so I felt free to name them. Because my Glowlights tend to sit around and look grumpy, I have given them names that reflect that.
Lurker, as he/she will from now be known, is an interesting fish.
Lurker can be distinguished from my other Glowlight only by the

 fact that the other one has a small white spot on it's right side. Although they are nearly identical and spend a lot of time together, lurker is special because, as the name suggests, it lurks in the barrel decoration in the center of my tank. While there, Lurker glowers out at the rest of the world, only moving when an annoying Danio darts through it's barrel. The picture at the top of the post is the best result from my attempts to take pictures of Lurker lurking using flash.

Lurker's companion is equally moody, either because that's just how Glowlights are, or maybe as a result of having to watch all their friends get slowly picked off by the ever-present nighttime horror that is my family's Pictus catfish. Either way, Grouch is a sullen little fish. It tends to stick near to the ground, floating usually on the right side of the tank. Grouch is lucky because, without it's tiny white speck, I wouldn't be able to tell which Glowlight is which. Other than that one speck, they are completely identical. That's OK

though, because Glowlight tetras are beautiful. A bit shorter than the Danios, but much thicker, you can see their silvery bellies and orange colored spines right through their transparent skin. Maybe if I get a few more, they will be more active. I hope they will be more comfortable without the constant fear that, maybe, they are next in line for the slaughter. Even though Grouch is on the outside, it seems to be bothered a little less by the Danios, as they seem to particularly enjoy chasing Lurker out of his barrel.

As my Danios still haven't been with me a week, I am not going to name them yet. This one is the dominant female, and she is one of the ones I rescued from the Pictus. You'll notice that each of my fish has a distinguishing feature on their right side. With Grouch, it's the white spot. With Lurker, it's the lack of a white spot. With this Danio, it's the 5 ripples in one of her blue lines, which you can kind of see in these photos. Like I said, this one is the dominant female, even though she doesn't usually bother the others. This fish

has claimed the top three inches of the tank, and except during feeding, she defends it valiantly. My original female regularly tries to encroach on her territory, but is quickly chased down without much of a fight. This Danio spends most of her time playing in the current, and I got the most pictures of her, even counting the fact that most of them were far too blurry- you can only see her when she is a few inches from the glass and not moving like lightning.

This one is the surviving female from the pair that I put in my tank.

This Danio's distinguishing marking is her unique circle-and-wave pattern, which you can see in the top photo. After watching these fish interact for over an hour as I took pictures of them, I can usually tell who's who as long as they are turned to the right, and not moving like lightning. Unfortunately, even though it seems that they are facing the right direction, they tend to move incredibly fast. Out of the 300+ pics i took, only 60 were any good. I can also 

tell this one because of her long, beautiful fins, which you can see when looking at her head on. This Danio is the middle in dominance, and spends her time annoying all the other fish in the tank. She occasionally goes up and gets chased from the surface by the dominant Danio or flushes Lurker out of it's home, but she spends most of her time swimming around the bottom and chasing the lowest Danio. As the first, she has a special place in my heart.

And finally, the lowest of the pack. He is noticeably smaller than the other Danios, and spends his days getting chased around by the original female, but otherwise he seems to be doing well. His mark is less noticeable than the other Danios'. On his right side, his line just gets a bit wavy, while on his left he has a small circle which you could see in the second photo if it were bigger. He shares his territory with my original female, but only because there isn't really anywhere else to go. However, he still gets occasional moments of

peace while his tormentor bothers the other fish. Hopefully things will settle down or he will just have to get used to being chased. He is by far the hardest to take pictures of, as he spends most of his time in the back of the tank or being chased around really fast. My Danio hierarchy might benefit if there were more fish to spread around the annoyance.As it is, the 2 newbies are pretty peaceful, so the other has to work extra hard to make up for them.



          Well, those are the fish in my tank, and their current habits. Over the hour I watched them. what I have written seemed to stay pretty constant, with Lurker occasionally chased out of his home to spend time with Grouch, the alpha defending the top, and my original Danio causing mischief. Interestingly, right after I turned off the light all the Danios gathered at the top of the water and didn't bother each other. Maybe at the fish store they were fed after lights out?
          Although my original plan was to use Danios to cycle the tank and then put a school of tetras and a Betta fish in once the tank is ready, I am growing kind of attached to the fish I have now, and Rick, whose blog is pretty much the definitive source for info on my type of tank, thinks that might be too many fish. Maybe if my sister buys a tank, I can give her these fish, or...
          Anyway, that is not a problem for today. I just hope the Cichlids do alright tonight and my fish stay happy. School starts Monday the 24th, though, so I won't have as much time for fish.
-Sawyer

Thursday 21/8/2015: First Post, Murder in the Night

Here is a picture of my new R338 tank all set up and beautiful, with 2 Zebra Danios in there to cycle the tank. I would try fishless cycling, but I have absolutely no idea where in Jordan you find pure ammonia. 

          On Saturday (15/8/15) I surprised my dad while we were visiting a street where every other shop is a fish store by taking out my own money and buying myself this tank. I have not had my own tank in 5 years, and I couldn't wait to fill mine up with fish. 

           Many hours of research later, I had learned many things, 2 of which are:

1. Adding a whole bunch of fish to a tank when it is brand new = bad, and 

2. No matter how much I know Oscars are too big for my tank, that doesn't make it any less fun to research them.

I started out with a medium house decoration and a fake plant stolen from our family's fish tank, as well as a nice inch and a half of gravel. My original plan was to rescue our Pictus catfish from execution for it's murder of who knows how many minnow-type tropical fish. However, further research showed that it needs much more than 10 gallons to do well, and the result was that I moved the house downstairs, as it had recently outgrown a small barrel ornament. 

           After letting the tank settle for a few days, on Wednesday I began to start filling my tank. I went to the store and bought 5 Danios, 2 for my tank and 3 for the family tank.  

This is one of my Danios, a large female who tends to swim around the bottom of the tank. Although you can't really tell from the picture, she is a little under an inch and a half long, and has some interesting mottling in her stripes. Who knows? She might even be part leopard Danio! She has nice long fins, but the ends are tattered from being nipped at in the store.

This is the other Danio, a smaller male about an inch long. While he looks rather puny next to my female, he seems to be healthy. He prefers darting around among the bubbles at the top of the tank, and I didn't have much luck trying to get a picture of him. Every once and a while, he swims down and gets chased around by my female, but they dart so fast they only show up as blurs.

          Although I originally intended to try to find some silk plants, I was convinced to pick up live plants, what I think are Anacharis and Red Ludwigia along with a nice barrel decoration and a (too big) heater. Once I got home, I spent an hour setting up my decorations and letting loose the fish into my tank and the family tank. At 4:00, I realized that the things the water plants had come wrapped in would not actually let them grow, and I did not have a plant growing substrate, so I spent 2 hours cutting the bottoms off of Styrofoam cups, putting in a few coins as ballast, and filling them with potting soil topped with silty clay. I had just finished putting in the dirt when my mom called me for dinner.

           After dinner, I carefully put the stems of the plants into the homemade pots, cut some pieces of paper as covers so that the dirt wouldn't all come out, and replanted my garden. The Red Ludwigia was having a tough time behind the barrel where the current is strong, so I switched it to the left. Over the last few days, my fish seem to have gotten used to their new home. I originally planned that this coming Saturday I would get 2 more for this tank and a few for the Family tank, but then disaster struck. This morning, I woke up to find that in the fish's first night, one of the Danios had disappeared. It seems that, even though a larger cave means the Pictus no longer has to spend his days sulking in a corner after he outgrew his old home, he is still hungry for fish. Even though the Danios we put in are barely smaller than the tetra type things he has lived with for months, it seems at least one was too small to escape. My new plan is to evacuate all surviving Danios to my tank on Saturday, although if another is eaten tomorrow morning I will risk ammonia casualties and move the last one up. My plan for this Saturday's fish trip is to have four Danios in my tank and try to find some more of the fish that can live with the Pictus. 

         Unfortunately, this created a problem. My original plan was to use 4 Danios to cycle my tank, then move them to the Family tank and replace them with a small school of Neon Tetras and a Betta fish. Now that sending them there would be sending them to almost certain doom, I had to come up with another solution. Luckily, just hours ago I managed to convince my sister that she should really get a fish tank, and that the guppies she adores are compatible with Danios. 

        However, as I have no plans to expel the Danios for at least 3 more weeks, for now all there is to do is to wait for Saturday's trip, and hope the catfish is full.