CanadaquaBetween Pond and Tanks

Spring news

It’s a wonderful feeling to see all three of the goldfish back? They even grew a bit, I think (about finger length), but they’re certainly ravenous. We had a bunch of algae in the pond, and even though we took some out, they did quite a job in getting rid of the rest. I started feeding them again two days ago. One of them, unfortunately came through the winter with a bit of tail rot, but he seems perky otherwise, and I’m only treating with Mela- and Pimafix. Hope it gets better.

Still no neons

Added 7 more glowlight tetras today, bringing their total number up to 10. It suddenly looks a lot more lively in that tank. I have the feeling the three old ones are a tad territorial, but it’s not easy to tell them apart. Looks like mere bickering, though, I’m not really concerned.

Everyone is peachy

… and the little pleco doesn’t look like he took any damage. I hope I caught it in time, and that the weeks he spent at the LFS were enough of a quarantine.

I still don’t know why the QT suddenly crashed like that, but I guess that small a system w/out any plants is always vulnerable. I might also change the filter material. I don’t trust those all in one pads that came with it. When you change one (though I hadn’t, so that wasn’t it), all the nitrifying bacteria come out with it. That can’t be good.

The mystery Ranger Pleco btw. seems to be a Pterygoplichthys weberi.

QT crash

Had a heart attack this morning. Went to check the ammonia in the QT as I did every second day, and it was through the roof. Did an immediate 75% water change w/ Prime and Stability, and the pleco, who’d been just hovering on the bottom immediately picked up a bit, but ammo was still not in any comfortable range. I did small 1 quart water changes every fifteen minutes for a few hours, w/out bringing it down any further.
Around 4p.m. I finally gave up on it, netted the pleco, checked him over for any signs of burns, but didn’t see any, and moved him into the main tank.

Lost one of my cories today

He was the smallest and always a little less boisterous than the others. Yesterday afternoon I missed him at feeding time, and searched in vain all evening. This morning I found him still alive, but sticking to the filter intake. I put him in a QT by himself so he wouldn’t get picked on (not that there was a mark on him), and an hour later he was dead. I have no clue what killed him. All I can think of is that he was fighting something since I got him, and the stress of being moved to the main tank on Wednesday weakened him further. But I have no idea what he could have been fighting. Apart from the fact that he was half the size of the others (and they’re all not fully grown, so I thought he was just a bit younger), he didn’t look any different. He was definitely out and about and feeding with everyone else yesterday morning. Water tested the same as always (amm/trites 0, nitrates under 20).
Needless to say I’m keeping a sharp eye on the others now.

Rory

They still had the Ranger (mystery) Plecos at my LFS today, and they assured me that they would take him back in case he got too big for my tank. I mean, what’s a girl to do, faced with the tiniest cutest wiggliest most interestingly patterned pleco ever seen? And who can resist a mystery? Right? Right? Right.

So *erm* anyway. He’s in the QT now. Most people I talked to who know plecos, seem to think he’s some kind of peckoltia. Anyway, I named him Rory (‘Rose is Rose’ fans will understand).

Big Adventure

Moved the cories into the main tank today. They, of course, went immediately for cover.

I think I’m almost as stressed out as they are, even though everything went smoothly. They were easy to net in the QT. I added some Prime and Stability to the main tank to give everyone a good start, and now we’ll have to see. The glowlights are merely curiously peeking at their new neighbors now and then. Cthulhu hasn’t come out yet. I know I’ll be eagle eying that tank again now for the next 78 hours to make sure everyone is ok.

 

Here’s one in the background, trying to blend in behind the glowlight tetra:

Tomorrow I want to see what my LFS has for as as far as a next batch of newbies is concerned.

They’re alive!!!

It’s slowly getting a little warmer. A lot of the snow has melted over the last week.

 

We’ve on and off seen the two orange of our goldfish over the past couple of days, but today we were finally able to ascertain that all three of them are in fact alive and well and happily nibbling on the algae that the longer days bring to our ponds. (Man, there’s a lot of those.)

They sure like their brine shrimp with spirulina

Niam!

I was just going to buy fish food

… and then they had these cute little cory cats. You know how it is. Anyway, five of them are in my QT right now.  I fed them and the tetras a couple pinches of dried bloodworms yesterday and they totally went wild.

Here they are happily munching on some NLS pellets I got for them yesterday:

 

The Mohicans really appreciated the change from the flakes and gobbled up quite a few of those yummie new pellets. The guy in my LFS said, even his BN likes them, so Cthulhu might be in for a treat tonight.