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After my last fish fatality,
I decided to impose a moratorium on my fish-related blogging until I
could get a fish to live a full 30 days. So here's the good news...
Mr. Tawny and Captain
Marvel II
On July 15, Black Adam
officially made it past the 30-day mark. Captain Marvel II is now
just shy of the 30-day mark as well. I have also added a third
goldfish, named Mr. Tawny
to the mix. They are all living happily in a 10-gallon tank with
an air stone and extra filtration. After I purchased Mr. Tawny, I
was kind of surprised to read that a 10-gallon tank is really too small
for 3 goldfish on account of all of the waste that they produce and how
big they get. Maybe down the road I will have to change my setup
a bit, but this arrangement seems to be doing the trick right now.
Well, it's beyond the point of being funny now...In just under 60 days, I have lost a total of 6 fish. Captain Marvel
kicked the bucket last night after only 4 days in the tank. I
took his remains back to the pet store this afternoon and exchanged the dead
fish for a live one. While I was there, I had a water sample
tested from my tank and the pet store guy said that my water looked
fine. No other ideas, no other answers..."He just died," -- that's what
the guy told me.
I have a 10 gallon glass tank waiting in the wings and I might get that
cleaned up and ready by the weekend. I am not sure what it will
accomplish to move to a bigger tank, but I am almost out of ideas and I
am beyond frustrated.
Well, today the inevitable happened...When I got home from work today, I made my way to the fish tank and I found that Chloe II
had finally given up the ghost. It was a good run. We had
purchased her back on May 7 and she lived longer than any of our fish
to date. I disposed of her remains and then cleaned up the tank by
changing out some of the water and doing a thorough vacuum job on the
gravel.
After
dinner, we headed for the pet store...again. I had a nice chat with
a very knowledgeable young fellow and he recommended we try our hand
with some goldfish, as they are much heartier than mollie fish.
So as of this evening, we now have two new fish. One fish is a Calico Fantail and the other is a Black Moor. I have dubbed the fish "Captain Marvel" and "Black Adam," respectively...and yes, I am that big of a geek!
I
have decided that there's really no point in uploading pictures of the
new fish at this point, given that we have gone through them pretty
quickly up to now. If they make it past thirty days, then perhaps
we'll share them with everyone. Keep your fins crossed!
Cronos
started out looking pretty good. He stood up against some
periodic bullying by Chloe II and he eventually became very comfortable
in the tank. By Tuesday morning, Chloe II had become strangely
lethargic but Cronos was still doing exceptionally well in his new
surroundings. Tuesday night, I decided to take Chloe II out of
the tank and put her in a fishbowl for a bit. I had read that
when new fish are introduced into a tank, they may be carrying ich and
consequently, the other fish in the tank mich contract the
illness. So I treated the main tank for ich and I also treated
Chloe II while she was in the fishbowl. After about 30 minutes in
the bowl, Chloe II seemed to be thriving again. Instead of
sitting at the bottom of the bowl (as she had been doing in the tank),
she was swimming all around and she seemed very comfortable. I
added her back to the main tank before going to bed. At that
point, Cronos still looked as if he was doing very well and I started
to think that both fish would be all right for a while.
Chloe
II
By Wednesday morning, Cronos had taken a surprising turn for the
worse. He was hiding behind plants and sitting on the gravel at
the bottom of the tank. He did not swim up to eat in the
morning. When I arrived home from work in the evening, he had
passed away. One flush of the toilet later, Chloe II was all
alone again.
Chloe II is lethargic again, but I have not given up on her just
yet. The pH in the tank appears to be just fine and the continued
demise of fish after fish has become a very frustrating
conundrum. There is a chance that the whole problem might be that
two fish simply cannot survive in our small aquarium, so we’ll see how
things progress with one fish from here on out.
It
seems as if our "new tank syndrome" has finally cleared up, so I
thought I'd try adding another Mollie to our aquarium. Chloe II’s
new companion is an all-black Dalmatian Mollie . I named our new
fish "Cronos" after the bassist/frontman of Venom, the most evil heavy metal band of all time.
Thus far, the two fish are getting along well, but only time will tell...
A few weeks ago, Thomai and the girls gave me a small aquarium and 2 Mollie fish
for my birthday. It was a great gift, as I have wanted some pet fish
for some time. One fish was a Dalmatian Mollie and the other was a
Creamsicle Mollie. I named them "Frank" and "Chloe" (respectively)
after an old Daffy Duck cartoon entitled "The Impatient Patient." In
the cartoon, Daffy plays a telegram delivery man who has to make a
delivery to a customer named Chloe. Chloe lives in a castle that
belongs to a mad scientist and when Daffy is first greeted by Chloe, he
is surprised to find that Chloe is a giant monster. Chloe greets
him with the words, "Duuh...My name's Chloe. Let's you and me
rassle." Daffy responds by reading his telegram aloud: "Happy
birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Chloe,
happy birthday to you STOP, Signed Frank N. Stein." I guess the
important thing here is that at least I think this is funny.
Anyway, Frank and Chloe got off
to a rough start due to something called new tank syndrome.
The water in our new tank quickly became cloudy and nasty-looking
despite the fact that it was fresh tap water and that it was treated
with aquarium conditioner. Within a few days, Chloe died.
This apparently happens from time to time as a result of the new tank syndrome. Most pet stores have some kind of warranty
when you buy fish, but you have to bring in the dead fish with two
water samples to start the refund process. If the death of the
fish isn't covered by the terms of the warranty (this is determined through tests run by the pet store), then you're out of
luck. It's kind of a hassle. So we simply bade Chloe
farewell with a very unceremonious flush of the toilet.
Chloe II
We tried to tidy up the tank a
bit shortly after Chloe's untimely demise. We changed out some of
the water, scooped some of the crud off of the gravel, and rinsed out
the filter while Frank got used to life as a single fish. But
shortly thereafter, we tried our luck again and we introduced another
Mollie to the tank. She was a Gold Dust Mollie and I named her
Chloe II. Chloe II was bullied relentlessly for a few days by
Frank who insisted on making it known that he was the boss of the tank.
Eventually, things calmed down and Frank and Chloe II began to coexist
peacefully.
By this point, a decent film of
gunk had accumulated on the floor of the tank and it was clear that the
time had come for a thorough tank cleaning. I purchased a gravel
vacuum which was supposed to operate like a siphon, but the vacuum
required a significant amount of back and forth movement to begin the
siphoning process and the result of this attempt was that I created a
much bigger mess than was necessary. The tank actually became a
bigger mess because of all the movement that was needed to get the
vacuum running. I returned the crappy vacuum to the pet store the
following day and I got a battery-powered vacuum instead. The new
vacuum seemed to work very well, but after a thorough cleaning, there
was quite a bit of debris that was still floating in the tank. I
am now of the opinion that this was the cause of the demise of Frank,
who passed away about one day after I had finished cleaning the tank.
The following evening, we took
Chloe II out of the tank and put her into a separate bowl and we
completely drained and cleaned the tank. We thoroughly cleaned
the gravel and plastic plants and returned Chloe II to her home.
A day or so later, I brought a new Marble Mollie home to join Chloe
II. This time, it was Chloe II's turn to play the part of the
"tank bully" and for the rest of the evening, she chased and
badgered Frank II. Frank II died about 24 hours later.
Chloe II is alone again and the
water in the tank is now very murky despite our best efforts.
Tonight, I vacuumed out some sludge off the bottom of the tank and I
switched out the filter. She is hanging in there for now, but the
odds seem to be stacked against her. We're going to keep at this
until it works. Who knew it could be this tough to take care of
some little fish?
