Slimmed Down Fish Room Journal

[Boundava]

I have horrible news, my albino BN male pleco of over 17 years has died. RIP Ghost, you were a great pleco, a wonderful breeder and a fantastic father to over 500 offspring. I am fortunate to have an creamy yellow albino daughter and a beautiful midnight black son from two of his breeding's.

I will be picking a spot to bury him, I don't bury many fish but he is an icon and deserves it. I will so miss his giant shnozzle.

I build the background in this tank just for him, it had lots of ledges for him as well as a built in cave near the bottom. I will miss him...

 

[Slaphppy7]

Awww, sorry to hear this, Nat...I feel privileged to have one of his progeny...RIP Ghost

 

[Boundava]

Thank you Matt, it means a lot. He was an old man, glad to have him for so many years.

 

[Boundava]

Well more wonderful news. Went downstairs to make some RODI water and looked over at the tanks. The 120 was a cloudy stew with over 80% of my stock dead. Not sure WTF happened from the day before. Lost my pekoptia, sultan, sabaj plecos. Lost my wood cats, the cichlids, my expensive black tetras, the upsidedown cat (⁸") sis's angel. What didn't die was 6 Buenos Aires tetra, 8corry, my Royal Farowella, red lizard catfish and two other lizard/whip tail catfish, my calico BN Mrs. Muir (she was Ghost's mate for a couple years) and one of my banjo cats- Robocop. He's been with us for almost a decade.

I put all survivors in the 125 and added a FX4 to the FX6 already set up on the tank. I drained as much out of the 120 as I could and refilled 1/4 of the tank because of the many crypts I have in it. I don't know what to do with the plants and I didn't have time to clean the filter on the 120.

I have Thursday off so I may just clean out the filter and fill the tank and leave it running empty.

Plans maybe to move the eels out of the 125 and put them in 120. However I need to remove the substrate and replace with sand in the 120. I would need about 200 lbs of sand for a 2.5" bed. The eels like to bury themselves and the plants also like the extra depth. I would keep the current plants and possibly add some swords. Eels don't need driftwood but I may add a piece or two in case I decide to catch some of the catfish/plecos in the 125 and move them over.

It's been an emotionally and physically draining day. Wish I had the day off tomorrow to make up for today's fun discovery and clean up.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Wow, I wonder what happened? Sorry for your losses.

 

[Boundava]

Thanks Tom.
Thinking it was the heater...

 

[Boundava]

Just to get everyone up to date...the 120 SA tank pretty much died off due to heating failure. I had one opaline gourami, the school of 6 Buenos Aires, one broken line and one diamond tetra, half a dozen Corrys, the 2 whiptails, 1 red lizard and 1 royal Farowella catfish, my BN female Mrs.Muir and two banjo catfish survived while the other 90% off the tank died.

So since I was allowed to go home early because of the snow and lack of customers I finally emptied the crypts and substrate and cleaned the FX4 (and tubes...what a SMELL) for thee 120.

Plan is to add sand to the tank and driftwood rocks and crypts and move my eels over as well as my pinstripe royal pleco Thor.
However seller never confirmed shipping for the crypt I had been hoping to receive by now. I have a bunch of anubias from my old 75 gallon that has been floating and growing for years now that I will just tie to some DW and use that instead. The eels like to wedge themselves in the anubias plants anyway.

For a couple months now I have wanted to remove the 9ish loaches (mostly YoYo) from the 125 as they are very boisterous and food aggressive and have been stealing food from the eels and intimidating the mascara barbs.

Well this morning Sis and I took apart the 125, draining it 1/2 way, removing DW and plants and catching some of the larger fish in an attempt to get the loaches. Took and hour and half but loaches were caught (buggers were so hard to get) and I rescaped the tank a little. Also had a ton of bolbitis that had been leftover from another tank and was growing like crazy in the 125.

Both the loaches and bolbitis are going to fish planet.

 

[Boundava]

Got the sand, it's 4pm though not sure how much I will get done as I still have to throw dinner together. Plus these are 50lb bags I have to get downstairs and somehow lift up into the 120...

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Got the sand, it's 4pm though not sure how much I will get done as I still have to throw dinner together. Plus these are 50lb bags I have to get downstairs and somehow lift up into the 120...

Time to start hitting the steroids, sounds like.

 

[Boundava]

Lol, Sis and I got it done... enjoying some salmon and mushroom risotto. When I get back downstairs I will get a pic. Of course one of the DW pieces is currently floating but what can you do? I am sure the eels will love the floating island.

I also bought a spay bar adapter for the FX4(/6). Hope it works out well.

Got some Turbostart and added a couple drops of ammonia to the filter yesterday for the media that I hope still has live BB. I had to buy some replacement sponges for the FX4 as the ones in there were beyond washing out and did I mention the smell....

Will test water parameters and hopefully the eels and Thor can go in the tank tomorrow.

 

[Boundava]

So ammonia test had a hint of green so everyone is staying in the 125 until the weekend. Will test again Tuesday and see what it says.

 

[Boundava]

My poor royal panaqueThor hurt himself and has developed what I believe is a fungus. We pulled him out of the 125 and he is sitting in a 20L. That we dosed with Paraguard. I think when I pulled him out with the driftwood and he sat in a black tub he got too close to the heater. We had another plecos do this years ago and when I can tonight I will so a saltwater dip. This is the same treatment that we did to the other pleco and Mrs Muir is still with us.

 

[Boundava]

Unfortunately he didn't make it...RIP Thor.

 

[Boundava]

Thanks Tom.

 

[Boundava]

So I added some fish to the 125 and 120 this weekend.
For the 125 I added 10 Venezuelan corry

I had 2 leftover from before

There's and adult with one of the new juvis.

In the 120 I got a Xinu platinum royal pleco 7" female

She has found her nook.

We also added a 5" black ghost knife and 6 small angel fish, though this morning it was 5.
I didn't get a photo of the knife, but here's one of the angels.

Sorry for the water, I added some RidX water and it made it cloudy.