This the very long story made almost short. My 55 when it first got set up it had a Magnum 350 with bio wheel as the filter. Never really worked correctly. I started to cycle it and all went fine for a bit. When the cycleing was over I started to put the fish in it I wanted and things went bad to worse to I'm going to push this thing over the porch. I got disease after disease after disease. I had them all and kept getting them all. You look at the tank and it got sick. Added meds to the tank it got sick. No once could figure out why. This all happend over a period of 8 months. There was never a day when I woke up and didn't have a med or dead fish going into the tank at that time. I ended up just nuking the whole tank and the filter and everything else. Dusty surprised me when he came home that night with a new filter. Haven't had a single sick day or fish in that tank since. The original filter went up in smoke. Stupid filter.
While I was nuking the tank I had put my 8 Tiger Barbs and Snack and Appetizer in my 10g that wasn't being used at the time. I figure it's only for the afternoon then they will be home again. That didn't happen. It was late at night and I forgot all about the barbs and gouramies in the 10g tank. The next morning I realized I had a problem. I went to go see how they all faired and well it wasn't a pretty site. The barbs were all good. However the gouramies didn't. I found them both laying on the bottom of the tank with no fins and no feelers. They were just bodies. I was so angry the tigers went strait into the 55. Mind you I had nothing hooked back up yet. They stayed there for a few hours while I messed with the gouramies and the other tanks.
I give the gouramies a water change and put some melafix in the tank with them. I do that for about 2 months. After about 4 days I see some fin and feelers growing back on them. I'm happy to see it but I know they aren't doing too good yet. There were a few times I thought that putting them out of their missery was the only thing I could do for them. The next day they would always prove me wrong. There were no infections or diseases during any of this, much to my surprise. After a few months of much TLC their fins grew totally back as did their feelers. I bought a new tank just for them and moved them in and eventually the original tigers died so I got to move them back to the 55. They loved it there.
That's how they got their name. I fugure keeping in the spirit of those two I would name the new ones Main Course and Beverage. Rose
