Tuesday, July 28, 2009

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!

Without going into too much detail or finger pointing, tragedy struck my household on Sunday. While giving a long-overdue cleaning to my 10 gallon aquarium, the tank's 8 occupants - 3 Eastern Australian Rainbowfish, 2 Black Phantom Tetras, 2 Black Neon Tetras, and a lone Red Serpa Tetra - were placed in a medium sized wash basin. Some water from the aquarium was placed in the basin, but was mixed in with some tap water that was not properly treated; and I have reason to believe that the residue of a certain Procter and Gamble product had not been completely rinsed from the wash basin itself.

As soon as they were put in, the largest of the rainbowfish began thrashing about; within minutes it was floating on its side, still clinging to life. It thrashed about some more, and in the process it apparently caught one of the Black Neons and sent it flying through the air into the opposite side wall of the basin. Whether it was injured by the thrashing or was already feeling the ill effects of whatever had obviously contaminated the water I could not say, but when the Black Neon landed in the water it immediately went belly up. By the time the rainbowfish stopped moving shortly thereafter, the other two rainbowfish were also thrashing about on their sides. These died less than 5 minutes later. By then the second Black Neon and the lone Red Serpa were floating upside down, having died without my even noticing it. That left the two Black Phantoms; but by the time I had prepared another container for them with treated water, one of them was floating on its side, just seconds from death. The lone surviving Black Phantom - the first fish I ever bought for the tank more than fifteen months ago - still looked healthy. I immediately put it in the new container, where it seemed to be doing alright; but when I returned a few minutes later, it too was dead.

I am not the type to treat the loss of pets on the same level as the loss of friends and family, not by a long shot. Still, these were among God's creatures, and had been living in community together for well over a year. They were very hardy fish, as I only lost two others (a second Red Serpa and a third Black Phantom) during the course of the last year. Losing all eight of them was truly unfortunate.

The lesson has been learned, as far as aquarium maintenance has been concerned. We finished cleaning the aquarium, draining it of all the old water, and refilled it and treated the new water. I let the filter run for two days, and went out to buy new fish for the tank today.

I have decided not to buy tetras again. They are beautiful fish, but they tend not to be very lively and often leave a lot food behind to pollute the tank (a problem I most definitely do not have with my goldfish aquarium). I am also not buying rainbowfish. Again, they are exceptionally beautiful fish, reflecting the full spectrum of the rainbow when properly cared for and under the proper lighting (hence their name). They are also hardy, quite lively, and are healthy eaters. Unfortunately, they grew to larger lengths than I expected, and are not good fish to buy for a 10 gallon tank. Besides that, they are arguably as messy as the goldfish; and I had tremendous difficulty keeping the aquarium clean and the water clear after introducing them to the tank.

It really boiled down to four choices for me, as far as finding fish that were aesthetically pleasing, small enough to be kept in larger numbers in a 10 gallon tank, and affordable: platies, guppies, danios, and barbs.

I considered getting platies, but I've pretty much decided that if I ever buy a smaller display tank that I would put a few platies in it, so I decided not to get any yet. Besides that, some species of platy are notorious jumpers, and my 10 gallon tank has an area back by the filter that can be exploited by suicidal fish.

I love guppies. They are playful, colorful, and you can fit quite a few of them into a 10 gallon tank safely. The problem is that "safely" is a relative term. I prefer my fish to be hardy, and guppies will die if you look at them the wrong way. I have never been able to keep any alive for more than a few months. Granted, I'm no expert - and anyone who's lived with me knows that I haven't always been the most diligent person when it comes to keeping aquariums clean (you know who you are: shut up! :-) - but even the most diligent aquarium maintainers I know tell me not to grow too attached to guppies. They are extremely fragile.

Fragile is not a term you can apply to danios. There are two species of danios I've had in the past: Zebra Danios (not the GloFish variety) and Giant Danios. If I was a betting man, I would bet on these guys surviving nuclear winter. As a child, I once had a tank with three zebras and three giants. The tank was 10 gallons and was too small for such a set up; while zebras never get bigger than an inch and a half, Giant Danios can grow to as large as 6 inches and are recommended for 20+ gallon tanks. Despite this, all six fish were still alive after two years, which was more than could be said of their ever-changing tankmates (yeah, I know, we had way too many fish in the tank; we had no clue what we were doing, which makes the danios' survivability all the more impressive). Eventually, the three zebras died within a day of each other, due to some sickness that only affected their particular species. All three Giant Danios survived for at least another year, and were still in the tank when we gave it away to relatives. Danios are great fish for a starter tank. Ultimately, though, I wanted more colorful fish, and they just didn't fit the bill.

In the end, I ended up buying 3 male Cherry Barbs. The name gives a pretty good indication of their color pattern, which occurs only among the males. They grow up to 2 inches; the three I bought are still young, and nowhere near that size. In keeping with traditional start-up rules, I'll introduce the fish into the aquarium a few at a time. In a few days, I will go back and buy 3 more. I thought about getting females, but this species breeds pretty quickly and I simply don't have enough space to house all the small fry. Once I get the next batch, I'll stop for the foreseeable future. Eventually (read: when I can afford it), I'll buy a larger tank that can support various species of schools. It would be nice to have something like that to display. For now, I'll keep the 12 gallon goldfish tank and the 10 gallon barb tank and see how they do.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, pretty much describes what I've been doing these past few days. On a related note, any job leads (especially Church-related job leads) in the greater Jacksonville area would be most appreciated :-) God bless!


In Jesus and Mary,
Gerald

No comments: