It has been however long it has been, and the festivus still hide.
Friday 1/8/10 we lost our dear bullmastiff, Stella, to apparent metastatic cancer, which invaded her lungs in a very acute and dramatic way, ending her life in a matter of hours. We had no idea, as she had no symptoms, and the biopsy of a mass on her side was negative. The vet said she thought the mass was indeed cancer, and the small biopsy missed it months ago. She would have had her 4th birthday this week!
Anyway, Saturday the family decided we needed to get away, and we took a short road trip to Virginia Beach and visit the awesome pet store, Animal Jungle. If you have the opportunity to go there sometime, don't miss it. They have a very impressive stock of aquarium fish - not like anything you typically see - as well as reptiles, parrots and small animals, plus all of the supplies and gear you might ever need.
I was in the market for C. sterbai or trilineatus/julii, as well as cardinal tetras, all of which they typically have in stock, and needed to round out the 150. I had the guy catch me a net full of cardinals, but on close inspection most of them were actually jumbo neons, and the rest were not so great looking. Cardinals are tricky to keep healthy in dealer's tanks, and that's why you don't often see them at the LFS. I don't judge a pet store by a tank of bad-looking cardinals. I was disappointed, though, and set my sights on a female ancistrus, since they have a TON of bristlenose types, and I thought perhaps a mate for my boisterous and pesky male in the 150 might help distract him. Turns out I ought to have thought to get two or three females, as that would likely be better for this fellow, but I was so distracted by the many, many tanks of every fish you've ever heard of that I chose only one. I need to bring a list and stick to it next time I go in there - I get scatterbrained!
In the tank with the BNs was a small school of H. rhodostomus or H. bleheri, not sure which these are (!), AKA rummy-nose tetra. I have never kept these delightful little things as I have often thought them to have a somewhat odd appearance, with the greyish body, striking red nose, and white and black tail, but I knew they'd work well in the 150, with the soft, slightly acidic conditions and the plants, a complement to the cardinal school that currently resides there. They had about 10 and I took all of them.
Also, I knew I wanted to put a school of dithers in the 37-gallon with the festivus to hopefully calm them out of hiding. I was planning on doing this with cardinals but thought the rummy-noses would do just as good a job. Once the festivus either came out and got over their distress, or died, I would move the rummy-nose to the 150 and either let the festivus to their spawning duties or keep the tank in a holding pattern for (hopefully) another batch of angel babies that have been such a boon to me in financing various aspects of the hobby for me. Agnes & Frank have been good to me!
I got home with my finds and settled the rummy-noses in with the festivus, and the female BN in the 150. All seemed well, though the dithers did not seem to be having the desired effect in the 37-gallon. The festivus were still in full stress bars, with clamped fins, and cowering under the lip of the HOB outflow. Weird! The water is obviously in good condition, based not only on test kits but also the markedly red noses of the tetras, since poor water conditions are readily evident in these fish, as they lose their red noses when stressed or in unhealthy water.
This was just boggling my mind and I was getting impatient. I tried some delectable foods, and this did bring out the festivus briefly, but they'd scurry back under cover with the slightest movement from me. Obviously they feel very vulnerable and skittish in this tank, though it is not exactly bare - there is a huge piece of driftwood that reaches from bottom to the top of the tank, as well as a few Anubias plants.
I had an idea today, and fortunately was off work and had the time to implement it. I scooped some sand from the 150 (it has excess) and added it to the bottom of the 37, and planted a smallish Amazon sword plant that I robbed from the 40-gallon (you don't notice its absence in that tank - it is very heavily planted). I stacked the rocks attractively in the 37 and planted the plant.
Well, do you believe the festivus are now out and about? I also switched lighting on this tank, which had very, very dim lighting, since it had been a fry growout tank and I did not really plan on making it any kind of display tank, and did not need plants in it, either, but it seems these fish need the whole shebang to feel comfortable. They are acting almost normally, just with the addition of a single plant and slightly brighter lighting. Deborah said as much, that it was the decor that was throwing them off, and she was quite right.
I am so relieved!
Now I need to see if I can find another female ancistrus locally to add to my bullying male's harem in the 150, and I will continue to search for healthy cardinals. There is a local PetsMart that often carries them, and I'll check in with them. I will also soon add the rummy-noses to the 150 as well, and consider more of them. I cleaned out the Fluval FX5 on the 150, which is a HUGE job, and is physically taxing, in fact.
I am switching up filtration in the 10-gallon and 40-gallon. I'm happy with the small Eheim Ecco canister plus an AquaClear 30 on the 10-gallon (this seems SO ridiculous when I type it out, but honestly it is great for the messy little F8 puffer who makes such a mess - I still need to do PWCs about every 3rd day as well!) but I am not happy with the filtration on the 40-gallon. It has only an Eheim Classic 2213, and that is not enough. It is cheaper to put a monster HOB on the 10 gallon (AquaClear 70) and put the Ecco back on the 40 with the Classic than it is to buy another canister for the 40. I tried putting the Emperor 400 on the 40-gallon with the Eheim Classic, but the thing makes so much NOISE that I can't tolerate it. The grinding is just too much. I replaced the impeller but that did not solve the problem.
So, I've ordered an AC 70 for the 10-gallon (this too seems ridiculous!), and will again have two canisters back on the 40-gallon for Agnes & Frank. Hopefully they will spawn again for me.
This week I need to do staggered filter maintenance, since I still have the Rena XP4 on the 150 to clean (I did not want to do that one at the same time as the Fluval shop vac) and the 3 canisters running on the 10, the 37 and the 40, plus 2 HOBs (10 and 37).
I have made a lot of progress at my new job, revamping the solo practice of a doctor, which was slowly going downhill from lack of staff and neglect, and my spare time at home is more my own, so hopefully I can still devote a decent amount of time to my aquarium hobby. It took a while - I was putting in extra hours at the office in order to get some systems in place - but much of this work is done after two full months, plus the end of the year being behind me, and I am able to be more productive on the days that I do go in.
I was very concerned that I'd have to take down some of my tanks due to being too busy at the office and not having enough time at home, but hopefully that won't be the case. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! My tanks have been running on autopilot up until recently, and fortunately they are set up so that works out okay, but there were still things I want to do - always....
I also have a great dane at home, Sirius, who is getting much more attention now that Stella is gone, *snif*, and I hope to be able to devote extra time to him in his training. He's actually turning out to be much better as the only dog, since now he does not have to worry about "getting in trouble" with Stella, who was just as much a boss of him as his human owners are. Now he does not have to worry that obeying a command from us would mean stepping on Stella's toes, or causing her to lash out at him, so he's more relaxed. This is a blessing.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
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. :-/
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. :-/
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Minor Update
It has been a while since I have updated, but I've started a new job and time has gotten the better of me.
The festivus in the 150 continue to spawn regularly, but the fry do not survive for very long after the free swimming stage. The parents are extremely stressed when they have babies, and I wonder if they don't just eat the babies at some point to relieve their anxiety over the huge job of constant surveillance of so many fry with so many predators. They do a pretty good job of keeping the other fish over to the opposite side of the tank, but I plan to move the pair out as soon as I move the last of Frank and Agnes' juvies out of the 37-gallon.
The angel juvies are ready to go and I have a buyer (about 30-35 remaining) but I have not had time to bag them up and tote them over to the LFS. What I plan to do at this point is to empty the 37 of juvies and place the festivus pair in that tank, and leave Frank and Agnes to do their thing in the 40. If I get babies, I get babies. If I don't, I don't. F&A have a good track record of rearing their own, so I don't have to worry about them, but the festivus pair are not proven and I have to see what happens when they are alone in their own tank.
I don't have the time or inclination at this point to hand-rear fry, so they will have to do it on their own. They do need to be removed from the 150, though, because it is a stress to have them in there. That said, I have to admit it is not as bad as I thought. The other fish have grown accustomed to the cyclical spawning aggression of the pair, and I am sure I could keep things status quo for a while without too much trouble, but it is upsetting the dynamic, and it is not ideal.
I must get photos of everything and post them soon. The fry of Agnes and Frank are just stunning - they truly look wild, save the occasional solid gold morph - and I'd be proud to keep them, but no space. I am enjoying watching the single juvie of theirs grow in the 150, however, and admire this fish a lot. He gets along just great with the wild leopoldi and he resembles them slightly, aside from his nose being upturned, and theirs "downgoing," as Heiko Bleher describes them.
Otis, the figure-8 puffer, is fabulous as ever. He's just the best and I'm so glad to have him set up in the 10-gallon. All of the Anubias sp. plants I have in there have circular holes in them, but no matter - he can do what he wants. He has grown and has a steady diet of snails of all description, plus the very small cocktail shrimps - raw and thawed from frozen. You can hear the noise of his teeth on shells when he eats, so I feel good that his teeth are being kept ground down.
One reason I am posting today is that I learned someone is actually reading this blog! I had no idea anyone was still following this, and it prompted me to post an update. Thanks for the poke!
The festivus in the 150 continue to spawn regularly, but the fry do not survive for very long after the free swimming stage. The parents are extremely stressed when they have babies, and I wonder if they don't just eat the babies at some point to relieve their anxiety over the huge job of constant surveillance of so many fry with so many predators. They do a pretty good job of keeping the other fish over to the opposite side of the tank, but I plan to move the pair out as soon as I move the last of Frank and Agnes' juvies out of the 37-gallon.
The angel juvies are ready to go and I have a buyer (about 30-35 remaining) but I have not had time to bag them up and tote them over to the LFS. What I plan to do at this point is to empty the 37 of juvies and place the festivus pair in that tank, and leave Frank and Agnes to do their thing in the 40. If I get babies, I get babies. If I don't, I don't. F&A have a good track record of rearing their own, so I don't have to worry about them, but the festivus pair are not proven and I have to see what happens when they are alone in their own tank.
I don't have the time or inclination at this point to hand-rear fry, so they will have to do it on their own. They do need to be removed from the 150, though, because it is a stress to have them in there. That said, I have to admit it is not as bad as I thought. The other fish have grown accustomed to the cyclical spawning aggression of the pair, and I am sure I could keep things status quo for a while without too much trouble, but it is upsetting the dynamic, and it is not ideal.
I must get photos of everything and post them soon. The fry of Agnes and Frank are just stunning - they truly look wild, save the occasional solid gold morph - and I'd be proud to keep them, but no space. I am enjoying watching the single juvie of theirs grow in the 150, however, and admire this fish a lot. He gets along just great with the wild leopoldi and he resembles them slightly, aside from his nose being upturned, and theirs "downgoing," as Heiko Bleher describes them.
Otis, the figure-8 puffer, is fabulous as ever. He's just the best and I'm so glad to have him set up in the 10-gallon. All of the Anubias sp. plants I have in there have circular holes in them, but no matter - he can do what he wants. He has grown and has a steady diet of snails of all description, plus the very small cocktail shrimps - raw and thawed from frozen. You can hear the noise of his teeth on shells when he eats, so I feel good that his teeth are being kept ground down.
One reason I am posting today is that I learned someone is actually reading this blog! I had no idea anyone was still following this, and it prompted me to post an update. Thanks for the poke!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Fly! Be Free!
Free swimmers today, quite a cloud of the little buggers. The other occupants of this 150-gallon aquarium are jammed over to the far, far right, in an area about 1' wide by 2' high.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Spawn of the Nasties!
So mean, but so true. The M. festivus that I added most recently paired off and are being more and more aggressive to the other fish. I had decided to net out the pair and leave the singleton that was in there originally, since that one seems like a nice enough chap and never caused trouble.
Today I had a little time and netted out 30 juvenile angels to sell to the LFS (I thought I had about 40 but after netting out 30 I still have what appears to be about 30 babies) and thought this would be a good time to net out the pair of festivus in the big tank and take along with me to sell as a pair. They are not afraid of the net and are always close to the top, greedy for a feeding.
I went in there to net them, and what do I see? Wigglers. This explains why they were keeping the angels from eating, and showing stress bars constantly. The area where they spawned is where I typically put the feeding cone. In the pic you can see the dirty pile of babies near the stem of the Anubias leaf, and there are more babies resting on the leaf above the fish's head in the pic. I did not notice them because of the increased algae growth on some of the Anubias leaves recently. The wigglers blend right in. They are close to free swimming stage. (Click on the pic for a closeup view of the babies)
I decided to leave the parents in there, and feed on the other side of the tank. The worst piscivores in the tank are the festivus, so if they are the ones doing the guarding we may get some babies that get to juvie stage, at which point I could net them out and put them in the 37-gallon to grow out. We'll see. I don't particularly want the 150 to be a breeding tank, since it is a display and breeding cichlids can cause chaos in any size tank, but we'll see how it goes. These fish are capable of injuring my wild angels, and I don't want that to happen. I'll wait until these babies are independent and fending for themselves, and then I'll try to net the parents out, and either give them a dedicated setup of their own or sell them as a breeding pair. They are chunky, brightly colored Mesonauta species, with very bright yellow breeding colors, so I think they are great specimens, but perhaps not the best fit for my 150 display tank. I will leave the third festivus, who has never bothered anyone and continues to glide around with the angels, avoiding the strikes of the Mesonauta pair.
Today I had a little time and netted out 30 juvenile angels to sell to the LFS (I thought I had about 40 but after netting out 30 I still have what appears to be about 30 babies) and thought this would be a good time to net out the pair of festivus in the big tank and take along with me to sell as a pair. They are not afraid of the net and are always close to the top, greedy for a feeding.
I went in there to net them, and what do I see? Wigglers. This explains why they were keeping the angels from eating, and showing stress bars constantly. The area where they spawned is where I typically put the feeding cone. In the pic you can see the dirty pile of babies near the stem of the Anubias leaf, and there are more babies resting on the leaf above the fish's head in the pic. I did not notice them because of the increased algae growth on some of the Anubias leaves recently. The wigglers blend right in. They are close to free swimming stage. (Click on the pic for a closeup view of the babies)
I decided to leave the parents in there, and feed on the other side of the tank. The worst piscivores in the tank are the festivus, so if they are the ones doing the guarding we may get some babies that get to juvie stage, at which point I could net them out and put them in the 37-gallon to grow out. We'll see. I don't particularly want the 150 to be a breeding tank, since it is a display and breeding cichlids can cause chaos in any size tank, but we'll see how it goes. These fish are capable of injuring my wild angels, and I don't want that to happen. I'll wait until these babies are independent and fending for themselves, and then I'll try to net the parents out, and either give them a dedicated setup of their own or sell them as a breeding pair. They are chunky, brightly colored Mesonauta species, with very bright yellow breeding colors, so I think they are great specimens, but perhaps not the best fit for my 150 display tank. I will leave the third festivus, who has never bothered anyone and continues to glide around with the angels, avoiding the strikes of the Mesonauta pair.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Gotcha!
I used a larger trap last night and was rewarded with a female bristlenose waiting for me this morning. I used a 2-liter plastic soda bottle instead of the 20-ounce, and this larger size means the fish can enter and swim around and have trouble finding the exit, whereas before the fish did not have room to move around much, so the exit was right in front of them.
I set the trap with zucchini before lights out, but managed to trap two festivus and the juvenile domestic angel! Why they were so very interested in zucchini I do not know, but I realized I needed to wait until lights out, and that was met with success.
I slowly acclimated her to the 37-gallon, since the pH is much higher and the temperature is about 5 degrees lower. Hopefully this will not bother her. I will attempt to trap the male now, and construct some simple caves for the fry growout tank, and perhaps the pair will spawn for me. Once I sell of the remaining babies (40+) then they will have no competition for whatever food I put in there, and they will have a spell on their own before the next batch of angel fry is introduced. Hopefully. If the planets align. I don't want to get ahead of myself (yes, yes I do!) so I will concentrate on trapping the wiley male bristlenose tonight.
I set the trap with zucchini before lights out, but managed to trap two festivus and the juvenile domestic angel! Why they were so very interested in zucchini I do not know, but I realized I needed to wait until lights out, and that was met with success.
I slowly acclimated her to the 37-gallon, since the pH is much higher and the temperature is about 5 degrees lower. Hopefully this will not bother her. I will attempt to trap the male now, and construct some simple caves for the fry growout tank, and perhaps the pair will spawn for me. Once I sell of the remaining babies (40+) then they will have no competition for whatever food I put in there, and they will have a spell on their own before the next batch of angel fry is introduced. Hopefully. If the planets align. I don't want to get ahead of myself (yes, yes I do!) so I will concentrate on trapping the wiley male bristlenose tonight.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Updates
No luck trapping the Ancistrus so far, but as my daughter saw one of them go in the trap, and zip right back out, this is not much of a trap.
I believe that the bottle is too small, so once inside, the fish turns around and finds its nose right in the inverted bottle opening, and can go right back out. I will plan on making another trap with a larger bottle, so the fish will go inside and have to swim around to find the opening, hopefully foiling its efforts. These fish may be too smart for this type of trap, but I would like to give it another try.
Also, I have decided to hold off on moving the M. festivus out of the 150, since they are really not hurting anyone, and I believe a pair bond is forming. It may be that the best course of action will be to remove the extra third fish, rather than removing two and leaving one. I will have to monitor their behavior and make sure they are not stressing the tank or injuring other fish in their efforts to defend territory.
The domestic angel babies continue to grow and I am slowly selling them off. If I cannot get the Ancistrus pair from the 150 to move into the 37-gallon growout tank, I will find another bristlenose for that tank, as I think that is a very appropriate fish to keep the tank cycled until the next batch of eggs.
Agnes & Frank still have not spawned again, and they continue to gaze at the fry tank, so I am anxious to move the babies out and inspire the pair to spawn again.
Otis continues to be his awesome self. He enjoys his snails and the single thawed frozen krill I give him every other day or so. Those are a relatively large meal for him but he relishes tearing it apart, and I can easily hear his teeth crunching up the exoskeleton, as is the case when he eats snails, so I am comfortable his teeth are getting the maintenance they require. I do hate the idea of trimming them myself. Ugh.
I believe that the bottle is too small, so once inside, the fish turns around and finds its nose right in the inverted bottle opening, and can go right back out. I will plan on making another trap with a larger bottle, so the fish will go inside and have to swim around to find the opening, hopefully foiling its efforts. These fish may be too smart for this type of trap, but I would like to give it another try.
Also, I have decided to hold off on moving the M. festivus out of the 150, since they are really not hurting anyone, and I believe a pair bond is forming. It may be that the best course of action will be to remove the extra third fish, rather than removing two and leaving one. I will have to monitor their behavior and make sure they are not stressing the tank or injuring other fish in their efforts to defend territory.
The domestic angel babies continue to grow and I am slowly selling them off. If I cannot get the Ancistrus pair from the 150 to move into the 37-gallon growout tank, I will find another bristlenose for that tank, as I think that is a very appropriate fish to keep the tank cycled until the next batch of eggs.
Agnes & Frank still have not spawned again, and they continue to gaze at the fry tank, so I am anxious to move the babies out and inspire the pair to spawn again.
Otis continues to be his awesome self. He enjoys his snails and the single thawed frozen krill I give him every other day or so. Those are a relatively large meal for him but he relishes tearing it apart, and I can easily hear his teeth crunching up the exoskeleton, as is the case when he eats snails, so I am comfortable his teeth are getting the maintenance they require. I do hate the idea of trimming them myself. Ugh.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Bristlenose say whaaaa????
The bristlenoses are not having anything to do with my clever little fish trap that has worked so well for me over the years. They have not had their customary slice of zucchini for two whole days now, but they are not entering the trap, nor have they seemed to even approach it.
What now? I'm not willing to tear the tank apart to get them. We'll keep trying. I was careful to make the opening of the trap the right size for them, but maybe it is just too weird looking. I'll leave it in place a while longer and allow them to get used to it being there.
I'd sure like to get them moved, and once I make a decision like this I tend to obsess on it, but I need to be prepared in case I am unable to trap them and resign myself to leaving them where they are, and consider the cory cats the unfortunate ones in this scenario.
What now? I'm not willing to tear the tank apart to get them. We'll keep trying. I was careful to make the opening of the trap the right size for them, but maybe it is just too weird looking. I'll leave it in place a while longer and allow them to get used to it being there.
I'd sure like to get them moved, and once I make a decision like this I tend to obsess on it, but I need to be prepared in case I am unable to trap them and resign myself to leaving them where they are, and consider the cory cats the unfortunate ones in this scenario.
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