dwarfgourami
Fish Connoisseur
It's a nerve-racking thing going on holiday... Got back late last night, after leaving my babies for 2 weeks with neighbour and a month with husband. From today's investigation, situation is not too bad (certainly nothing like the scenarios I had been picturing to myself). This seems to be the sum total:
lost 3 peacock gobies. Probably early on in the holiday. They were quite new and suspect they were not well fed enough from the shop to cope with holiday rations. One goby still doing well.
bristlenoses have spawned, but only a couple of fry surviving. Still, once they've got the idea...
thick layer of algae covering two tanks (husband claims he didn't know where I kept "the thing". Feeble!)
porthole livebearers doing extremely well. Fry born just before the holidays about half the length of parents, should be sexable if they ever kept still enough. Also various later batches, but no population explosion, apparently they practise superfetation.
male bristlenose whom husband found stuck in filter pipe now fully recovered and more handsome than ever.
THICK layer of guck in bristlenose tank (husband claims he has been gravel vacuuming)
female platy found suffering from dropsy
guppy fry doing well and having grown- though nowhere near at the rate those portholes grow
So have spent the day on fishy things. Haven't actually had time to unpack yet (wet swimsuit still in the rucksack)- but I HAVE managed to:
isolate sick fish- this necessitated purchase of small hospital tank, which I hope husband will be too unobservant to notice. Of course, I did have a hospital tank before, but that was full of fry- seemed a shame to upset them.
clean algae off tank walls
stock up on fish foods
thoroughly gravel vac and do water changes on 3 tanks
go to greengrocer's to buy courgette (for bristlenose)
Perhaps I might get round to unpacking this evening, but I think you'll all agree that it's a case of first things first.
lost 3 peacock gobies. Probably early on in the holiday. They were quite new and suspect they were not well fed enough from the shop to cope with holiday rations. One goby still doing well.
bristlenoses have spawned, but only a couple of fry surviving. Still, once they've got the idea...
thick layer of algae covering two tanks (husband claims he didn't know where I kept "the thing". Feeble!)
porthole livebearers doing extremely well. Fry born just before the holidays about half the length of parents, should be sexable if they ever kept still enough. Also various later batches, but no population explosion, apparently they practise superfetation.
male bristlenose whom husband found stuck in filter pipe now fully recovered and more handsome than ever.
THICK layer of guck in bristlenose tank (husband claims he has been gravel vacuuming)
female platy found suffering from dropsy
guppy fry doing well and having grown- though nowhere near at the rate those portholes grow
So have spent the day on fishy things. Haven't actually had time to unpack yet (wet swimsuit still in the rucksack)- but I HAVE managed to:
isolate sick fish- this necessitated purchase of small hospital tank, which I hope husband will be too unobservant to notice. Of course, I did have a hospital tank before, but that was full of fry- seemed a shame to upset them.
clean algae off tank walls
stock up on fish foods
thoroughly gravel vac and do water changes on 3 tanks
go to greengrocer's to buy courgette (for bristlenose)
Perhaps I might get round to unpacking this evening, but I think you'll all agree that it's a case of first things first.
...bet the fish were seriously happy when you walked through the door (with courgette in hand for the BN, and the "thing" to clean the tank 
).
