I have done a lot with my tanks over the last few days. I was away for a month, my husband fed the fish and did basic water changes, which I am grateful for, but without the regular maintenance all the tanks looked a mess when I got back home. Also for some unknown reason he threw away all the floating plants, a lot of moss and a big Java fern. He said they were blocking all the light. Ok, so I do get rid of some every week, but not all of them. A few remnant pieces of
water lettuce will grow back fairly quickly and I have various offsprings of the fern, but sadly the frogbit is all gone. Another sad thing, the remaining Uaru died while I was away. I don’t blame my husband for that, it had been having
swim bladder trouble for some time, apparently recovering then relapsing again. I blame all the power cuts we had last year, I couldn’t keep the water warm enough.
Another problem was that I had a load of baby Guianacaras in a 180l (47 gallons?) tank, that developed a leak just before I left and I had no time to do anything about it. So there have been buckets under the tank ever since and my husband was keen for me to take it down.
For ages I have kept the pair of dwarf pike cichlids in the 240l tank, I was trying to get them to breed, feeding them up, trying to reduce the
pH, using only rain water etc. For a while they were going around together, the female looking fat and the male displaying, but nothing happened (or I don’t think so, it’s possible they spawned but I never saw them defending anything and no babies appeared). Then the male turned against the female and for a long time now she has been in hiding coming out only to feed. So I emptied the tank, had to remove all the wood and most of the plants, caught them, put them back in the big tank (the female is out and about and happier now), and re-setup the tank.. Caught the Copellas and other tiny fish from the 10 gallon tank I had moved them to when I separated the pikes, and put them back in the 240l (need some more fish for in there now). Found the Poecilocharax that I almost washed down the sink when I moved the fish last time - explanation here:
What are you doing to your tank today? | General Discussion Forum. I have only ever seen it when I strip a tank down and move the fish.
Then I stripped down the leaking tank and caught all the baby Guaianacaras (29) and put them temporarily in the 10 gallon along with an extra
sponge filter from the leaking tank and some moss and twigs from there too. They are big enough to move on now, I just need to find out who wants them. This doesn’t sound very much written down, but along with regular water changes and thorough cleaning of all tanks it all took me the best part of 3 days.