For those of you who haven't ever set up an aquarium, let me tell you
that waiting those extra few days for the chlorine to evaporate, etc.
were really frustrating. I think I spent most of them wanting to run
right over and get some fish for my aquarium.
Finally, Friday rolled around and I went over and picked out a couple
of plastic plants and a handful of fish: A pair of guppies, an
irridescent shark, a betta, and, my personal favorite, a clown loach.
Unfortunately, by the next day, the betta had some fungus growing on
it's mouth. Luckily, the people at Eddie's Aquarium Centre (in
Latham, NY) were very nice and replaced my betta ree of charge. (And
I ended up with one which had coloration I liked even more.)
The next day, I noticed that my clown loach had ick, so I started
medicating the tank. Then a couple of days after that, I checked the
tank when I got up in the morning and the male guppy's tail was all
shredded and colorless and the female had lost a lot of her color,
too. Neither of them lasted the week. When I went to the fish store
to buy some replacements, it was mentioned that the betta probably
attacked them.
April 3rd, 1999:
So what's next for this page? Well, I plan to add links to other cool
aquarium site, some pics of my setup, a page listing my current
equipment, and a page with a listing of my current fish, as well as
irregular updates added above. So check it out:
My current fish are all listed on this page.
Badman's
Tropical Fish Page Is a good source of information about both
fishkeeping and some of the actual fish species. (Plus it happens to
be where I snarfed this cool background.
Well, when I left the tank alone for a week (my last Spring Break
< sigh >), my betta died of that soft fungus. I decided that I'm going
to stay away from bettas for a while. My clown loach also died, which
was a bummer, since I really liked him. (And the clown loaches I've
been seeing at the stores in the area recently have bodies that are
almost white instead of orange. I wonder if that has to do with the
season or something?)
After that, though, my tank settled down and it finished cycling. I
did get another bottom feeder, a paleatus catfish. I also picked up
a couple of black neon tetras. When I went to get the black neons, I
was kind of looking around for something else and I saw these
beautiful yellow fish. Then I saw that they were
barbs. < sigh >
After talking with one of the guys at the fish store, we decided that
the gold barbs should be fine as long as I got at least two. And he
was right, I've only actually seen them try to get another fish
once. Which is good, because they are very pretty.
Finally, earlier this week I decided to go get a couple of dalmation
mollies. My girlfriend suggested that I should try to get "the
bargain fish". I ended up with two dalmation lyretail mollies, one of
which was very pregnant. On Thursday night, my girlfriend and
I walked into my room and as I looked at the female mollie, I realized
that she wasn't pregnant anymore, but we couldn't find any of the fry
at first. We kept looking and finally we found one and then another.
As we gradually caught them and placed them in a breeding net, we kept
thinking that there weren't anymore. We ended up finding eleven of
them in about half an hour. Since my girlfriend has had experience
with livebearers, she suggested checking the tank again the next day.
I was now a parent!
The next day, I did a count of the fry in the breeding net and could
swear that I counted twelve. What was going on? I counted again and
again. Still twelve! How did another one get in there. Then I
opened up the top and realized there was one swimmming right along the
outside of the net. Upon further investigation, I found
three fry swimming along the outside of the net! I did another
check of the tank and found one last fry in a plastic plant. So now I
have fifteen dalmation lyretail molly fry in a breeding net. Pretty
much a bumper crop. (My girlfriend has offerred to trade some for
some of her sword fry when both are big enough.)
When I went to the fish store to get food for the fry, I realized that
I'm an addict because I was eyeing a tank of blue gouramis and went "I
don't have any more room in my tank...I guess that means I need a new
tank." I managed to resist the temptaion, though.
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