Archive for the ‘fish’ Category
poor wee sole
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007I have an unwell platy. I think she has swim-bladder problems, as she can only scoot around with her front fins, and pretty much sinks when she stops. I put her in an isolation tank, but it’s not looking too good.
Yeah, I care about platys. I have hundreds of them. They make hundreds more on a monthly basis. They’re cheap. But they’re still animals.
a good day
Sunday, February 25th, 2007Lots of walking today. Went to the Vancouver Aquarium - which is beyond nifty; they even had some Corys, even though I’m supposed to mention the sea otters and belugas. Then I took a long walk through town, ostensibly heading to MEC. The Van MEC is huge!
I walked about half the way back to the hotel. This was probably far. My feet hurt.
new greenery
Sunday, November 19th, 2006Finatics were having their opening sale (yes, it seems that they were open before, but not officially) so I got a whole buncha plants to replace the rather gnawed/algaed ones I had.
The algae eaters were not pleased to have the tank delved about in, no sirree.
wily fish
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006I took ten of the small platys over to Mike’s store last night. Catching the wee things was hard; I doubt the expression as difficult as catching platys in a planted aquarium will ever catch on, it’s definitely true. Maybe I should have tried thinking like a platy. On second thoughts, maybe not; all our ones seem to do is ingest, excrete and procreate.
In order to replace our dear departed cory, I picked up a couple of tiny Oto cats. They’ve been happily smooching the algae from the rocks ever since they were released.
dead cat
Thursday, October 26th, 2006We lost a cory the other night. There were no warning signs beforehand.
frying tonight!
Sunday, September 24th, 2006We have 22 eentsy platy fry bopping around in the isolation tank. They may be small, but they’re crafty and difficult to net. There are about 3 I didn’t manage to catch, and they’re (figuratively) thumbing their noses at me from under floating fronds.
stones, as current vernacular would have it
Thursday, September 7th, 2006
I’m no fan of billboards, but I have to congratulate Mike of Finatics for sheer gall when he put up this sign. See the plastic shark on the building behind? That’s Big Al’s, one of the biggest aquarium stores in Canada. Mike’s probably not going to get any favours from them any time soon.
not the smartest loaches in the tank
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006Came home, said hello to the fish, and did a quick count; I was one loach down, and the CO2 generator had an orange tail …
Seems that one of the loaches had decided it was way cool to get wedged up the back of the gas generator, and couldn’t get back out. I gingerly pulled off the device from the side of the tank, and the loach fluttered off, a little dazed.
No sooner had I put the generator back did another loach zoom up and get jammed. It must’ve been told that you got a “wicked headrush, dude”.
And for this reason, loaches don’t rule the earth.
breed like … platies
Friday, September 1st, 2006We’ve got about about 7 more eentsy platy fry.
fish++
Monday, August 21st, 2006We have a couple of tiny platy fry in the tank now. I hope they make it.
icky poo
Saturday, August 12th, 2006A couple of the clown loaches have a mild case of Ichthyophthirius, so I’ve had to dose the tank with formalin and malachite green. I hope the little guys get better soon.
clicking loaches!
Tuesday, August 8th, 2006Our little clown loaches were clicking like crazy after I fed them tonight. It sounds like tapping a tiny pebble against the glass. It was only today that I discovered where the noise was coming from!
loaches!
Sunday, July 30th, 2006We are troubled by water snails, so Mike at Finatics suggested some clown loaches. We now have four Chromobotia macracanthus zooming around, and they’re the only ones that’ll stand up to the algae eaters.
And I get to say loach again: loach!
deadfish
Saturday, July 29th, 2006We lost one of the platies last night. I couldn’t see anything wrong with it; its eyes and scales were still bright, but it was definitely dead. The water’s clean, and has very low nitrite and ammonia levels.
Poor wee fish.
say no to NO2
Wednesday, July 26th, 2006clean water, happy fish; checked the nitrite and ammonia levels, and they’re way low. The water’s sparkly clear, so I think things are slowly settling down in the tank.
more fish
Saturday, July 15th, 2006Got more fish from Finatics today: four high-fin platies, three algae-eaters, and three more threestrip corys. Our tank is busy!
butterfly, fish
Monday, July 10th, 2006Two unrelated pictures: a butterfly
and a cory, admiring itself
The Edwards & The Feldmans
Monday, July 3rd, 2006We now have fish; some scissortail rasboras and a few threestripe corydoras. Not the most challenging of fish to keep, but entertaining and hardy enough (I hope) to survive this impractical fishkeeper.
I’m emphatically not naming them individually, but as groups: the corys are the Feldmans (though may yet become the Doctorows, since the spelling is closer), while the scissortails have to make do with being the Edwards.
completely tanked
Sunday, July 2nd, 2006I spent most of yesterday setting up the aquarium. It’s an 120l one, so it’s a lot bigger and heavier than anything I’ve worked with before. It’s been running since then, getting the water ready, and I put in a couple of plants today. Real plants, that is; not the plastic ones that came with the tank.
The tank’s already got a couple of denizens; some tiny snails that were lurking on the plants. I don’t think they’re anything to freak out about yet. If they’re still alive in the morning, at least I know the water’s not completely toxic.
The biggest problem has been making sure the heater’s working. Today it’s been hotter in the house than the tank, so I don’t know if the set-point’s wrong.