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March 28, 2005

Lucky shrimp...

Couple of days ago I had the cover of the 12 gal tank open while acclimating a noble gourami that I had just gotten from The Pet Shanty. I noticed that the bamboo shrimp had made its way into the filter tray again but thought nothing of it cause it's usually there every now and then. Was sitting on the sofa working on the laptop when I heard a slapping sound from the aquarium and then a light "thud". Shit, the idiot shrimp had jumped out of the filter tray and fallen into the gap behind the tank. So I proceeded to do what I did last time but wasn't as lucky this time around. Took a while to get the shrimp back up using the tape on a pole method and when I finally managed to get him back into the tank, he was sans one long antenna and looked a hell of a lot closer to death than before. I actually thought he was a goner cause he wasn't moving much afterwards. Plus he seems to have a protrusion on his head that I don't recall seeing before.

Anyway, he stayed in one place pretty much for the rest of the day/evening and it took him about 2 days to seemingly recover enough to climb back to his usual perch on the hornwort. I gotta hand it to him, he's one tough lil' fella.

Next time I'll make sure he's safely back into the tank before I do anything with the cover open.

On a side note, the gourami passed away after two days. Guess it was nicknamed the "frail gourami" for a reason. Just another gourami I won't touch again (along with the chocolate) until I have more experience and better water.

Posted by ronin at 12:31 AM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2005

Ugh I'm doing it again...

Within the last week I've stocked the 5.5 gal tank with a lot more denizens:

    • 2 Burmese chocolate gouramis from The Pet Shanty
    • 1 red honey gourami from AF
    • 1 honey gourami from Ocean Gallery III
    • 2 pallid licorice gouramis from The Pet Shanty
    • 2 scarlet badis from The Pet Shanty
    • 2 flamingo gouramis from AF

So now you know why I had to move the 3 Endler's into the big tank. All the above fish are tiny though ('cept for the honey gouramis) although I really should have a 10 gallon tank minimum with this fish load. Just can't control myself sometimes... =p Hopefully try to get some pics up later.

Posted by ronin at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2005

Ich?

Also seem to have caught an outbreak of ich amongst the three half-black female guppies in the big tank. Kinda odd cause none of the other fish in the tank seem to have it. Since I don't have an extra tank or bowl handy, I had to put them into a plastic washbasin that I've regularly used during water changes. Kinda feel bad but can't do much about it until I finish feeding the rest of the live brine shrimp that I recently bought to the fish. They're currently being stored in the goldfish bowl which is what I usually use as the sick fish tank.

Posted by ronin at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)

Oops...

I think I may have accidentally killed the 3 remaining Endler's that I originally had in the 5.5 gallon tank. I moved them over to the big tank cause I decided to make the 5.5 gal tank a small gourami tank but I think my damn gold barbs decided that the Endler's were lunch or something cause I saw the big female chasing after one when I first put them in and now I can't find any of them. =( Hopefully they're just hiding in the back or amongst the sword leaves.

I didn't think moving the Endler's over would be that much of a problem cause we routinely bring over juvenile guppies that were of about the same size and they all turned out ok. Grrr.... damn barbs. I really want to get rid of them but I'm afraid they're so huge now even the fish stores probably won't want them. =p

Posted by ronin at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)

March 8, 2005

Ick...

Discovered the corpse of the poor peckolita while feeding the guppies earlier this evening. Seems like it's been dead for awhile now cause it had been pecked at it seems. =( Wonder what went wrong here. I had noticed that it wasn't wandering around the tank as much for the past week but it didn't seem sick. Ugh.

Posted by ronin at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)

Invertebrate intelligence...

Sometimes you gotta wonder if animals are smarter than we usually give them credit for. Anyway, after a few days of hanging out on the hornwort, I guess my bamboo shrimp wasn't getting enough nutrition cause it made its way back up into the filter casing again. This time however, he was sitting ON the filter itself, right where the water flows out and over from the intake. I've already shooed him back into the tank twice with the use of chopsticks and nets but he still goes up there when I'm not looking. The last time I even took the filter out cause I thought it might be filtering out all the nutrients that the shrimp is looking for before it could get to the shrimp. But that only helped out the shrimp more cause he just sits in the spot vacated by the filter now. I'm going to have to find some mesh for the filter outtake eventually. But at least he doesn't seem to be as skittish anymore when I come to push him back into the tank. Doesn't jump like crazy when I push him around with the chopstick.

Posted by ronin at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

RIP...

Little Endler. 3 remaining.

Posted by ronin at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)

March 4, 2005

More pics...

Erin called me over to take pictures of the pygmy cories last night cause three of them were all resting on a leaf. By the time I got there though one had escaped to another leaf. But I took a few shots:

Pygmy Cories
50mm w/250D Closeup Lens, f/4.0, 1/60s, ISO400, Sigma EF500 Super off ceiling

Still amazed at how otos can basically cling to anything in any plane with their two pectoral fins. Very interesting to watch.

Zebra Oto
50mm w/250D Closeup Lens, f/4.0, 1/60s, ISO400, Sigma EF500 Super off ceiling

My poor abused honey gourami. Can't quite tell if his tail fin is getting worse but I'm still dosing the tank daily with Melafix. Gotta find time to remove the flag fish. Tough though cause he hangs around the bottom of the tank and with a planted tank, quite difficult to net when they're down there.

Honey Gourami
50mm w/250D Closeup Lens, f/4.0, 1/50s, ISO400, Sigma EF500 Super off ceiling

Another shot of the honey but you can also see one of the sparkling gouramis to the right. The sparklings spend a lot of time poking around the substrate for food. Pretty methodical in their movements.

Gouramis
50mm w/250D Closeup Lens, f/4.0, 1/40s, ISO400, Sigma EF500 Super off ceiling

Posted by ronin at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)