Tropical Fish
TEN YEARS OF FISHKEEPING

The story so far: April 2001 I decided to buy an aquarium. Some people thought I was bonkers, some people didn't. Opinion is still divided on the subject, about 4:1 in favour of the "not bonkers" camp.

So on 28 April I went out and bought an aquarium (24" x 18" x 12"), 3 rocks and a bag of gravel. It occurred to me that buying rocks at a pound each when there's bits of rock lying around on the ground you can just pick up for free might be a bit extravagant but you have to look at the craftsmanship involved. So I got it all home, cleaned the tank, washed the gravel, set it all up and poured 8 buckets of water in. So for a week I had a glass tank with nothing it except 3 rocks and about 20kg of gravel. And 16 gallons of warm water.

5 May: Bought my first fish. Very exciting! 2 Platies (one male and one female, pictured above), 2 Neon Tetras and 2 Bronze Corydoras. Also bought some plants and one of those treasure chests that opens and closes. A bit tacky, yes but it had to be done.

12 May: Water tests OK so more fish. Four more neons and 2 Glowlights, a larger but very peaceful Tetra. I had also observed the male Platy had been "hassling" the female quite a lot (do I have to spell it out?), so I also bought 2 more female Platies.

19 May: Algae has begun to appear after the first water change so this week I added a Sailfin Plec (algae eater), as well as two diamond neons, two gold neons and two cherry barbs. Twentyone fish so far. Also added a "sunken wreck" for the fish to hide in. The plec has since been named 'Oscar'. (The picture taken in February 2002, he was a *lot* smaller when I bought him back in May 2001).

23 May: Tragedy! One of the diamond neons died! I guess he couldn't stand the stress of being moved from tank to tank.

26 May: Replaced the diamond neon and also added some Danios, 2 Zebra Danios and 2 Leopard Danios. Sadly the male Leopard Danio died during the night, again presumably due to stress. Probably didn't like my driving back from the Aquatic Centre. Replaced on Sunday 27 May.

30 May: One of the Neon Tretra looking a bit "off colour". I'm getting worried at this point.

8 June: We are delighted to announce the birth of a new Platy. Was going to call it Brian but turned out to be a female.

9 June: Female Leopard Danio Died. What a shock. One minute swimming along, minding your own business, next minute, dead. Which just goes to show something. Anyway there's no blaming it on stress this time.

21 June: Male Zebra Danio looking sick - two horrible looking spots, one on each side appeared. When you consider the size of the fish, they were absolutely huge! I thought "that's another death on my hands". However after treating the water with an "anti-internal infection" treatment, the fish seemed to perk up.

2 July: Second Platy born. I'm only mentioning births after the fish survives for a couple of weeks. My policy is "survival of the fittest" and any fish stupid enough to get eaten doesn't deserve a mention.

8-17 July: Another 3 platies born between 8 and 11 July. Sadly the first platy to be born died on 17 July of some sort of parasitic infection.

29 July: Four platies born during the first 2 weeks of July still doing OK. My rule is they have to survive for two weeks to "count" as many of the fry will get eaten during this period.

August-September: Platies breed so much its hard to keep track. One of the adult females died on 12 August. Noticed a drop in pH a week later and all the platies are looking a bit peeky. Used coral gravel and a general tonic which fixed the pH problem but failed to prevent another death on 11 September. But at least the aquarium was free from terrorist attacks. The fry are all looking OK but the two remaining adults (top picture) still looking a bit weak. The female was looking the fittest of the two but died suddenly on 22 September. Have tried large water changes and tonic salt (end September). Can't help feeling that tonic salt is a bad idea but didn't seem to harm any of the other fish.

18-26 October: I went away for a week leaving "holiday food" for the fish. Water tests had been OK for about a month and weekly 10% water changes had been done. I still half-expected to find disaster on my return.

27 October 2001: Water tests OK. All fish present and correct. Except the male Zebra Danio which had been sick since July. Although he had seemed OK the spots had never really gone away and he hadn't really recovered. My guess is he would have died anyway.

The adult male platy is still alive, though still looking a bit thin and weak. Ten fry have survived to date: Two born around 10 July, Five born between 22 July and 5 August and three born around 1 September. No more births since then as I had no adult females left.

2 December 2001: No more deaths since October, but the adult male platy is still not a well fish. And the remaining Zebra Danio looks like going the same way as the male. The slightly bendy neon tetra has been named Timmy. As in "TIMMAY!".

5 December 2001: After a long battle against illness, the last of my original platies finally died yesterday. The Danger List is still two, the Zebra Danio and one of the platies born around 1 September. The platy is a lot smaller than his siblings and doesn't seem to be developing properly.

26 January 2002: Bought two Leopard Danios to keep the other danios company, and a male Cherry Barb to replace the one which was inexplicably lost at Christmas. Five out of the ten Platy fry that were born last summer are still alive, though one, maybe two not expected to survive much longer. My platies seem to be OK until they breed so have decided that if I should lose them all I will replace them with something different. Perhaps another small tetra species.

9 February 2002: My Zebra Danio finally went head down today, after a long illness. One of the 5 remaining Platies has also died this weekend. 16 February 2002: All water tests continue to be OK. Had a scare this week with the water temperature dropping a bit low (due to incompetence on my part), but the fish all seem to be all right. Sat 23 March 2002: Female Cherry Barb missing, presumed dead. Very strange, the fish seems to have disappeared, just like the male barb at Christmas.
24-26 April 2002: Sadly, Timmay lost his fight for life on Thursday 25 April. He looked very weak on Wednesday and on Thursday morning I could see that he had clearly been attacked by other fish overnight, having lost most of his caudal (tail) fin and part of the dorsal fin as well. I decided that I had to end his suffering at that point. The funeral took place on Friday 26 April. The short service was conducted by me and was followed by Gin and Tonics on the patio. I think its what he would have wanted.
During May three of the remaining platies died, leaving one lone male. Also one of the gold neons died suddenly. I don't believe that fish can eat themselves to death and they're certainly not overfed, but both the remaining gold neon and the one that died look a bit on the portly side, compared to the other neons.
24 May 2002: Bought a new aquarium. This is to accommodate the plec, who has by now grown to over 4 inches in length (plus tail) and is too big for the 2 foot tank. So this one is 4' long by 15 inches by 21 inches (deep). Fish transferred between 2 June and 26 June, pretty much without incident.
6 July 2002: Two giant danios, 2 black neon tetras and two female platies added to the new tank. Also a bronze corydoras to replace one which sadly died two weeks after being moved. The platies were chosen in the hope that the (previously lone) male will stop annoying the catfish. I think he's been trying to mate! After previous platy deaths I was a bit reluctant to add more, but the alternative was to return him to the shop.
13 July 2002: Added some more black neon tetras and two more bronze corydoras.
12 August 2002: No more fish added at the moment. Still intend to add a couple more barbs at some point. Have calculated that the tank will hold approx. 60 fish inches so there's plenty of room.
12 October 2002: Having returned from a week away to no disasters, have added three more black neon tetras (one replacement + 2 extra), 2 Blue Tetras and 2 small Rainbow Fish.
January 2003: Fish diary is a bit dull, isn't it? Will keep the Fish List up to date and add any new photos I take though.
There are currently tropical fish in the aquarium. Water temperature °C Fish Videos Video clips of the fish! And yes, they mostly just swim about. Tropical Fish Swimming (20 secs. 257k) Neon Tetras (18 secs. 236k) Glowlight (15 secs. 197k) Sailfin Plec - Oscar's Teatime (34 secs. 437k) All files are WMV format (Windows Media)
June 2003: lost one Black Neon (MIA) in May. The good news is that two Diamond Tetras were born at the end of May and are now about a month old. 2003/04: Blue Tetras and Rainbowfish died off over the winter, which was a shame, but the Diamond Tetras have continued to breed successfully, I now have a shoal of about 18. Feb 2004: Bought an external filter system, a Fluval 204 to provide additional mechanical and biological filtration. Seems to work well, easy maintenance and well designed. April 2004: Lost three Black Neons, apparently from some sort of bacterial infection.
May 2004: New picture of my Sailfin Plec, Oscar, aged about 3½ years. Photo: Greg Cooke
June 2004: the fish are getting fed up with all the junk e-mail we've been getting. We do not need sunglasses, holiday insurance, viagra or cheap car loans. So our email address has been removed. You can email the webmaster from the homepage. He doesn't need sunglasses either, having recently been to Specsavers.
Feb 2006: added the Fishcam at thefishcam.co.uk
Aug 2007: finally got round to adding live feed to the Fishcam
Fish supplied by Torbay Aquatic Centre Page Last Updated 15 November 2011 Go back to Simon's Home Page ©2001-2011 SimonWeb™	The Fish List - November 2011 1 Sailfin Plec (called Oscar) 2 Bronze Corydoras (Catfish) 1 Silver Shark (Neil) 3 Opaline Gouramis 3 Gold Gouramis 5 Kissing Gouramis 4 Clown Loaches