The Stress of the Fest

I finally unloaded the last of my angel juveniles, 29 for this last batch, and the 37-gallon was free to receive the festivus pair from the 150. Typically, these fish are curious and relatively fearless, and it seemed I'd be able to net them out at feeding time. They are not as cautious and nervous as the wild angels.

This further proves my theory that animals sense energy, even the lowly aquarium fish. I have noticed over many years that when I attempt to net out a specific fish from a group, such as an ailing fish, or perhaps a gravid female that I want to move to her own setup, the fish I want is the one that hides, and the others swim about, minding their own business, oblivious to the dangers of The Net. When I kept many tanks of Endler's livebearers, I'd frequently redistribute the fish according to gender, or if I had a buyer for a quantity of males I'd be hunting all of the males, and the females would be unconcerned. If it was females I was after, the males would poke around in the open without a care. I know dogs perceive and respond to human energy, much more than we could possibly realize, and we hardly need to even vocalize to them our wants and desires. Cats likely perceive this as well but since they have absolutely no interest in pleasing humans or doing our bidding, we do not see their response to our telegraphed thoughts and emotions.

Anyway, the festivus pair knew I wanted them, no matter how much I tried to block the thoughts of moving them upstairs. I used mosquito larvae in a large net and the other angels and the spare festivus spent quite a bit of time inside the net eating, but the pair in question kept to the periphery. My husband, with infinite patience, managed to catch one, and later on I did a water change and took advantage of the lowered water level to remove decor and catch the other fish.

That done, I acclimated them to their new tank over a period of almost 2 hours, and things have not gone too well since. It has been almost 24 hours and they are wedged behind objects, full stress coloration, and fins completely clamped. Not happy. They were not looking good last night and I was prepared to find them expired this morning, but at 4:30 a.m. when I got up the both of them were out and swimming. I thought they had just been indulging in a little bit of a pout and would be fine, but an hour later they were cowering and gasping. I did a PWC like I do in the tank where they used to reside, but 5 hours later they are still cowering in corners with fins clamped and full zebra stress pattern. Ugh.

Well, it had to be done. Things could not continue like they were in the 150, and though the tank looks much more empty and way understocked, the mood is peaceful. I will obtain another dozen or so cardinal tetras and try to get perhaps as many cory cats, of the julii or sterbai species, perhaps. Most of the ones I have now are C. trilineatus but I do have one single C. sterbai, and he is adorable, so I'd like to have more of them. I have a large store credit from the sale of my last batch of babies, and I'll need it for sterbai cories, since they are expensive compared to your average cory cat.

Meanwhile, I hope the festivus pair recover from the move and spawn for me. If not, if they give up the ghost as a result of being moved, I am not sure what I will do with that tank. I want to preserve the cycle, so maybe I can find a breeding pair of bristlenose cats to live there, which could remain even if I put angel fry in there some day.

I will try to get pics one day soon when my schedule permits. I generally have to take about a zillion pictures, with four zillion changes of settings, in order to get one good shot. :-/