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Environmental Collapse
Jul. 30th, 2021 11:31 amNow I know I haven't written much (at all?) about the fish: they have no tag.
They're not my fish, but nominally Looby Loo's and practically (especially if she's not around) M's. My knack of spotting "that dead one on the bottom" comes in handy remarkably infrequently.
It was fifteen or so years ago a bugger to set up. We had it planned as a birthday rpesent for LL. So we started with the empty tankful of water sometime in the November and daily testing and treatment with various potions and pills. We had expert advice from the shop we bought from (Ely Aquatics: I heartily recommend them) and by LL's birthday the water was not ready. We persevered (and LL was remarkably patient) until sometime much closer to Xmas and then put a bare handful of the hardiest of little fishes in.
Since then, we've been through the first loss--carefully buried in the back garden. We've had the live birth (and subsequwnt cannibalism) of a swordtail. We've had ick (yes, really). We've replaced lights, pumps, lights. Added automatic feeders. We've done all the usual housekeeping of filter changes, water changes, relocating the tank for building work (yes, they're hard work are tiny tropical fish: I've always said "their" fish are far more effort than "my" hens).
Fish have come and gone. Some, the spotty catfish, the siamese flying foxes, we've had with us for five to ten years. Even the little catfish have a good couple or more. We like our catfish.
We moved with a relatively (even for us: we don't stuff our tank full) small population and a really stable established environent. A couple of the glass catfish didn't make it, but the rest seemed fine. We restocked about a month ago.
Saturday night, LL and I found the puddle on the floor and traced it to a leak in the sealant. We taped it, marked the level, and M ordered a new tank. Thursday, it arrived. We transhipped the fish. A couple of the glass catfish didn't make it though (we had to replace quite a bit of water and it was inevitably colder), but everything was fine. We thought.
This morning, I switched on the lamps. Counted the remaining glass catfish. All fine.
By mid-morning, the water's murky, and all but four of the fish are dead. Glass catfish, siamese flying foxes (we've had these nearly a decade), (new) cuckoo catfish, some of the coreys. I think there are two "ghost" and two other coreys left. The rest is a heap of belly-up corpses on the gravel. What's happened? Delayed shock from the temperature change? Seems unlikely, they had a similar experience on a very cold January day when we moved house. It could be that too much new water, subly different here than there has destabilised things. Or the new filters has meant we've removed too much of the right sort of built-up gunk. Or the second massive change of everything in six months (for the existing fish). M's devastated. LL hasn't been in today, so she's yet to find out.
They're so tiny, so precious, and terribly hard to keep. And entirely our responsibility.
Still, we'll scoop out the dead, nurture the survivors, gradually (it'll take years) get the ecosystem in the tank back to health, and restock. But not too soon. We still have the same tricky hard water that made setting things up so pro;onged an exercise right back at the beginning. We'll have to be patient.
ETA: The tank may also have refilled a little too full and the filtration therefore may not have been working correctly. Four coreys are now quite happy.
They're not my fish, but nominally Looby Loo's and practically (especially if she's not around) M's. My knack of spotting "that dead one on the bottom" comes in handy remarkably infrequently.
It was fifteen or so years ago a bugger to set up. We had it planned as a birthday rpesent for LL. So we started with the empty tankful of water sometime in the November and daily testing and treatment with various potions and pills. We had expert advice from the shop we bought from (Ely Aquatics: I heartily recommend them) and by LL's birthday the water was not ready. We persevered (and LL was remarkably patient) until sometime much closer to Xmas and then put a bare handful of the hardiest of little fishes in.
Since then, we've been through the first loss--carefully buried in the back garden. We've had the live birth (and subsequwnt cannibalism) of a swordtail. We've had ick (yes, really). We've replaced lights, pumps, lights. Added automatic feeders. We've done all the usual housekeeping of filter changes, water changes, relocating the tank for building work (yes, they're hard work are tiny tropical fish: I've always said "their" fish are far more effort than "my" hens).
Fish have come and gone. Some, the spotty catfish, the siamese flying foxes, we've had with us for five to ten years. Even the little catfish have a good couple or more. We like our catfish.
We moved with a relatively (even for us: we don't stuff our tank full) small population and a really stable established environent. A couple of the glass catfish didn't make it, but the rest seemed fine. We restocked about a month ago.
Saturday night, LL and I found the puddle on the floor and traced it to a leak in the sealant. We taped it, marked the level, and M ordered a new tank. Thursday, it arrived. We transhipped the fish. A couple of the glass catfish didn't make it though (we had to replace quite a bit of water and it was inevitably colder), but everything was fine. We thought.
This morning, I switched on the lamps. Counted the remaining glass catfish. All fine.
By mid-morning, the water's murky, and all but four of the fish are dead. Glass catfish, siamese flying foxes (we've had these nearly a decade), (new) cuckoo catfish, some of the coreys. I think there are two "ghost" and two other coreys left. The rest is a heap of belly-up corpses on the gravel. What's happened? Delayed shock from the temperature change? Seems unlikely, they had a similar experience on a very cold January day when we moved house. It could be that too much new water, subly different here than there has destabilised things. Or the new filters has meant we've removed too much of the right sort of built-up gunk. Or the second massive change of everything in six months (for the existing fish). M's devastated. LL hasn't been in today, so she's yet to find out.
They're so tiny, so precious, and terribly hard to keep. And entirely our responsibility.
Still, we'll scoop out the dead, nurture the survivors, gradually (it'll take years) get the ecosystem in the tank back to health, and restock. But not too soon. We still have the same tricky hard water that made setting things up so pro;onged an exercise right back at the beginning. We'll have to be patient.
ETA: The tank may also have refilled a little too full and the filtration therefore may not have been working correctly. Four coreys are now quite happy.
