Try for the "blackwater" look

Plakats seem to get stress stripes at the drop of a hat, mine is the same.

Grey's tank looks extremely dark for no apparent reason. Maybe it's time to skim off a good portion of the duckweed. His tank looks so ugly to me, I think it's about time to remove that pie pan and add something else.


Vitya is doing much better. Her aim is improving slowly and she's taken to pellet food again, but still gets her brine shrimp more often than the others. I don't know if it's just me thinking into things, but her fins are very long. The tail alone is much larger than that of the other females, her dorsal has begun to overlap with the tail, as has the anal fin. The pelvic fins are now longer than any of the other females and seem thicker too. I've yet to see a prominent egg spot, but I can't really see much of a beard nor male behavior. Either she's a late bloomer male or an extremely developed female.

Her aim is a bit off but otherwise she seems fine

Update photos
29gal with the breeder basket as an eyesore

Grey's tank after scimming off the duckweed, much lighter in person


Vitya and her loooong fins. I'm starting ro see more red in her fins. I smell a color change coming

Grey's tank looks great, Don't worry about the breeder box as fish keepers we know this is sometimes necessary. The 29 looks stunning.

Quick turn around theres a spider on your wall, ( While Demeter is not looking NickAu sneaks up and steals Vitya )

I was observing the sorority, the plakat is still being a butt and Vitya was making a bubble nest. I had a feeling that there were more bubbles than usual but they were scattered all over, then I see Vitya spitting out bubbles repeatedly under the little water sprite leaf. It's looking more and more like Vitya is a male. I'll see about tanking pictures or the nest or maybe a video of the process.

So not a picture nor a video of Vitya as I was distracted by the bottom feeders.

Nice long fin plec.

Pictures of Vitya



Now for a bit of bad news. Look at Vitya's right eye... It's bigger than the other eye. It might be hard to tell from the pictures, but I assure you it looks odd. Could be the beginning of pop-eye or perhaps it's a genetic thing. I had noticed a raised spot there when I bought him but thought nothing of it.

You are right the eye is bigger, Quarantine and treat Vitya.

I haven't a clue what to treat him for though. Bacteria? Fungus? The best thing I can do ATM is use some Tetra fungus guard that treats both. I think I'll set up the 5gal bucket again with the heater and trusty sponge filter and let the temp even out over night.

I'm just going to throw this out there, but my sister is back yet again for a few weeks and this time my niece is 2yrs old and perfectly capable of getting into trouble... I've already warned my sister to NOT unplug the filters at night. Heaven help her if she doesn't listen.

So the fungus guard didn't work and neither did epsom salt. Vitya's eye is bigger than it was before... He is still acting alright and eating but seems very skittish. Seeing as treating Vitya isn't working all that great I've decided to move him to the 3.4gal. At least this way he will have a decent place to ride out the popeye.



Last time one of my cichlids had it, the eye had to rupture before it was able to heal up. Perhaps that's what needs to happen for Vitya.

Poor fishy that eye looks bad.

This will be a longer post.

Ughhhh all the bad things are happening at once. I haven't been able to observe the sororoity like usual because of my sister being in that room so I didn't notice that Nova (VT) and taiga were getting the snot beat out of them. I took out the non-koi plakat and moved her to a divided 10gal with Taiga (HM) who looked very ragged and thin. They'll both be fine but I think the evil plakat will need to either be removed or rehomed.

Poor Nova has some minor pine-coned scales. I found out 2 days ago so she's been moved to a 1-ish gallon bucket with a mini heater, air stone, teaspoon or so of epsom salt, and a few drops of Meth. blue. She's also been getting higher doses of epsom salt baths. The scales are almost back to normal and she happily eats what I give her. During the baths she gets her water changed with fresh ES and MB.

I tested the water in the main tank before a water change and there was no ammonia, nitrites, and a very low reading of nitrates. I don't know what's happening, it must be the plakat stressing everyone out.

As a side note, the wisteria was getting all gangly and ill looking. The lower leaves were falling off and making a mess so I pulled them and planted a few healthy cuttings of Ludwiga. The little breeder box is holding the younger plakat who will hopefully be more peaceful.

Picture time.

Ah yes got to love Plakats, they have pluckiness.