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June 30, 2005

Gahh... another lesson to remember...

Male gouramis don't like to be in close proximity to each other. Except for the honey and flamingo ones. Well, they probably don't like being in close proximity either but at least they don't kill each other over it. Just lost the replacement Burmese chocolate gourami that I picked up a few weeks ago to replace one that "disappeared" while we were on vacation and I'm pretty sure it was nagged to death by the existing one cause I saw him being chased around for awhile. But other times they seemed to get along ok. But anyway, probably not a good idea to keep more than one male gourami around unless you have enough tank space (which obviously I don't in a 5.5 gal). The sole cherry shrimp that I saw in this tank finally passed away as well. Sheesh.

Posted by ronin at 4:20 PM | Comments (0)

Temporarily overpopulated again...

I guess Erin has been a bit bored lately so she's been rearranging the 12 gal and 3 gal tanks a bit. She said the black female guppy that was originally in our 12 gal was pregnant so she somehow caught all the 20+ odd guppy fry from the 3 gal and dumped them into the 12 gal and then brought the one female guppy into the 3 gal. So the pregnant guppy was sharing the 3 gal with just a pygmy cory. The guppy didn't look that pregnant to me but lo and behold the next day there were 2 new fry in the 3 gal. Weird. We're keeping the mother in the 3 gal for another few days just in case.

Meanwhile we've got a ton of these guppy fry in the 12 gal. Surprisingly none of the existing large fish go after them so they're pretty safe. Maybe this will give them more room to grow out in but we'll see. Makes the 12 gal way overpopulated though.

The drab red honey gourami we have in the 12 gal seems to be losing chunks of her tail every night. Don't know who's doing it but the other gourami in there seems to be fine. Grrr....

Lost the old female guppy with the curved spine this morning. Been looking a little weak the last few days and last night Erin transferred her over to our "quarantine bowl" along with another female guppy cause she said they looked sick. But she was dead this morning. Oh well, she had a fruitful, if somewhat short, life. She contributed to the current 20+ fry group that I mentioned above so her biological destiny was fulfilled at least.

Speaking of curved spines, according to an article in the September 2005 issue of Aquarium Fish Magazine, that may be caused by a lack of vitamin C in their diets as they were growing up. Will have to check if the food we're feeding has a decent amount of vitamin C supplemented in it.

Posted by ronin at 4:09 PM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2005

Lesson to remember...

Swordtail males HATE each other. Never own more than one unless you have a big enough tank so they can be far, far apart. Which unfortunately I don't have. Anyway, picked up another trio of koi swordtails from AF last night and added them to the 12 gal tank. The existing male koi immediately went on a rampage, targetting both the other male and even the females. So this morning I took him out and exiled him to the 5.5 gal tank. Brought over the 2 male Endler's while I was at it.

So the new lucky male koi has the big tank all to himself along with 4 females.

On a negative note, my remaining female gold barb seems to have come down with some sorta fungus or bacterial infection cause it has these red ulcers on one side of its body that's looking rather raw so I started dosing the tank with antibacterial and fungal medicine. We'll see how it does in a week.

[UPDATE - 6/22]: Gold barb is all healed now. Guess the anti-fungal, anti-bacterial double-dose actually worked. =)

Posted by ronin at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

Tank juggling...

Noticed the last few days that the sole sparkling gourami seems to be a bit territorial towards other fish of the same shape, namely the Burmese chocolate gourami that's smaller. It left the red honey and flamingo gouramis alone for the most part though. I had a feeling that this remaining sparkling gourami was the cause of the last sparkling gourami death that occurred the other day. So I decided to move him over to the big 12 gal tank. And I figured I'd get another Burmese chocolate gourami to replace the one that went missing during our vacation. Anyway, things didn't turn out quite as planned...

First off I literally tore up the small tank trying to capture the sparkling gourami. That was a real pain in the butt. At first I was glad I moved the sparkling gourami to the big tank cause it's actually grown to be quite a gorgeous fish and the big tank just gives it more room to show off. After a few hours though I noticed that it was a bit aggressive towards the cherry barbs (again, torpedo shaped). *sigh* Oh well, at least there're more big fish in this tank than in the small one.

I also noticed that the Burmese chocolate gouramis seem to be territorial as well cause the smaller one that was already in the tank is constantly chasing the new, bigger one around. I think I'm going to have to remove the small one from the tank for a little while and then put him back into the tank to see if that fixes things...

[UPDATE]: The Burmese chocolate gouramis seem to be getting along fine now. Seems like it was just some sort of introductory hazing or something. ;-)

Posted by ronin at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)

Filter shrimp difference...

Was watching my two filter-feeding shrimp last night and noticed that even though both had those filter hands for feeding, they used them differently and had some other behavorial differences too.

My bamboo/flower shrimp would typically park itself near heavier water flow and then stick its filter hands out and remain motionless, occassionally drawing a hand towards its mouth to eat. It'll also occassionally make the rounds of the tank, picking up food from the gravel with the hands in a constant motion. It also seems to be less intimidated by the other fish in the tank.

The vampire shrimp on the other hand is one heck of a digger. I guess it uses those two large, spiny front legs to do the digging cause since it's arrived, it seems to have dug quite an impressive space underneath the left driftwood and that's where it spends its days, usually hanging upside down from the wood. It won't venture outside and search the gravel for food like the bamboo/flower shrimp and its a more proactive water-filter feeder. Instead of remaining motionless, it constantly fans its filter hands through the water and draws them to its mouth in a continuous cycling motion. It's just too bad that it hides so much cause I rarely get more than a glimpse of its head and hands at work or its tail.

[UPDATE]: Looks like the vampire shrimp does scour the gravel for food as well but it still tries to stay hidden when doing so so it's only scouring the area under the two driftwoods.

Posted by ronin at 8:22 AM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2005

Back from vaca...

and all 3 tanks have lost at least a quarter of their water. But for the most part everything seems to be ok. There were some losses unfortunately. The 5.5 gal was missing a Burmese chocolate gourami and today one of the sparkling gouramis passed away as well. Lost a cherry shrimp too. Will probably try to replace the lost Burmese with another one from AF if I get the chance.

The 12 gal tank was missing the American Flag fish which didn't surprise me much as it wasn't looking too good before I left. Probably not enough algae in that tank to sustain it. Unfortunately it was too gregarious to put in the 5.5 gal tank. I was happy to see that both filter-feeding shrimp survived though. =)

Posted by ronin at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)