Andie
Fish Addict
Well I'm back to school again, minus two betta-babies. Elphie finally lost a month-long battle with dropsy (it seems to run in her family; it's now wiped out three-fifths of that sibling group) and two days ago little Brutus leapt gleefully into the air during a water change. He missed the sink completely and hit the laundry room floor 
He died the next morning 
I've also had two suicide attempts- Nero also jumped during the same water change (proving too terribly how much I am NOT used to the agility of plakats. I should have known better, though, since they're even friskier than the girls) but he only hit the washing machine. He was stunned, but he's still with me, albeit labouring a bit. I've lowered his water level so he doesn't have to wear himself out too much, and he seems to be, if not recovering, at least not worsening. Brill, for his part, has been consistently trying to worm his way back into Boq's side of the tank past the gravel. When I got home and set up their tank the divider must have shifted somehow, because the next morning they'd played lawn mower on each other's fins and looked evilly pleased with themselves.
So my New Year's Resolution is no more suicides! Nor, indeed, suicide attempts- Brill and Boq are in completely separate tanks now, and their old one will go to future boys much heftier than they, or some lucky bachelor who can have the whole thing to himself.
Happy New Year to everyone, from all my surviving brood!
He died the next morning I've also had two suicide attempts- Nero also jumped during the same water change (proving too terribly how much I am NOT used to the agility of plakats. I should have known better, though, since they're even friskier than the girls) but he only hit the washing machine. He was stunned, but he's still with me, albeit labouring a bit. I've lowered his water level so he doesn't have to wear himself out too much, and he seems to be, if not recovering, at least not worsening. Brill, for his part, has been consistently trying to worm his way back into Boq's side of the tank past the gravel. When I got home and set up their tank the divider must have shifted somehow, because the next morning they'd played lawn mower on each other's fins and looked evilly pleased with themselves.
So my New Year's Resolution is no more suicides! Nor, indeed, suicide attempts- Brill and Boq are in completely separate tanks now, and their old one will go to future boys much heftier than they, or some lucky bachelor who can have the whole thing to himself.
Happy New Year to everyone, from all my surviving brood!
That's too bad.
) Are you positive it's not the Hfx water? I know you treat it but pp there's some mineral in there they can't handle? Because you take such careful care of them that I can only think it must be the water or genetic . . . like my lovely little cluster of dropsied sibs. Four and a half years without a single case and bam, they go and overeducate me 
