Angelfish!

Oh dear, I've done it now - I stopped by the LCS (local chain store) and saw that they had a tank full of juvie angelfish for sale, and there was this one extremely cute black-and-white marbled fish in there... so I bought it! I can think of several reasons why I probably shouldn't have (I have a lot of fish already, I have neon tetras, angelfish get bigger than I was going to limit my fish in this tank to, adult-size-wise) but the cuteness swayed me. This is why it's a bad idea to apply the retail therapy urge to pet stores. I should go buy shoes instead, but they're always more expensive and I can never find any good ones. So it's a new fish! I'm already suffering a bit of designer regret, as the black on this fish will assuredly make it blend in to the background in my tank, but I'm hoping the white marbling will give it enough pop to really make a statement. I should have gone for one of the white ones instead, but they just didn't look as adorable as this one. I have him in quarantine for the next month in anticipation of whatever outbreak of hideous disease this fish is no doubt carrying (actually the tanks there looked pretty good; the store is on a "good" side of town). He seems to be taking everything in stride and doesn't look stressed at all, which is an excellent sign. I might let him off after three weeks if he doesn't start showing any symptoms of parasites or ich.

His body (minus finnage) is about the size of a quarter - way too small to eat any of my precious neons and otos. Hopefully by the time he's grown big enough, he'll be so used to eating pellet food with the rest of the fish that it won't ever occur to him that a neon tetra is a nice snack!

In cichlid news, I have one of the cherry red zebras also in quarantine to recover from excessive fin damage. I'm hoping to bulk her up as well - only the dominant one has put on enough weight after the transfer. I'm hoping to find some more saulosi, so this fish will stay out for a while in anticipation of going back in with a larger group.

I'm afraid I'm too tired/lazy to post pics tonight, and in any case the QT isn't a pretty tank.

Puddles

Last night I got bit by the meddling bug again after reading through a thread discussion on flow, and decided to switch my 75g XP3's position back to paired intake/output. Unfortunately the hoses now sport a Hydor ETH heater, and getting them to play nicely under the tank was difficult. So difficult, it turns out, that I woke up this morning to a moderately-sized puddle on my living room floor. Let's hear it for polyurethane-sealed floors! So after towel-mopping and a quick check of the canister (leak mysteriously not apparent), I went off to work, and came home to another moderately sized puddle on the floor. Now I had time to really investigate, and found that I must not have gotten the quick-release seated correctly, because water was leaking slowly out the power cord hole. Two hours and a major canister cleaning and hose adjusting later, I think I've solved that problem, but now one of the joins on my Hydor is slowly dripping. That should be a lot easier to fix, at least! I'm sure it got a little loose while I was twisting things about. The hose barbs are not very secure, unfortunately.

On the planted side, various stems have come loose after the last trimming and need to be replanted, and the crypts are doing their best to fill in as a carpet - I'm pleased about that, since they were looking terribly sparse for so long. But they seem to have grown their root systems to the point where they're happy now! I ought to give them a Flourish tab or two next time I'm armpit-deep in that tank. I think the crypt spiralis heartily approves of being moved from "under" the Amazon sword to its own spot on the back wall - I haven't seen any more leaves shed from that plant at all since the move. I need to do another drastic H. pinnatifida pruning - I hate having to cut down the large stem that Tex Gal shipped me, but I suspect it's necessary for the plant to recover from the neglect I subjected it to. I'm planning to move some things around a bit to give it its own "patch" to grow in! The ozelot sword is responding well to the harsh pruning I've been giving it - the leaves are coming in thick and fast, and it even appears to be starting a new flower spike. I harvested a baby plant off the end of the first one, although there are still three baby plants on it, those haven't grown any roots yet that I can see. They may need to be touching water before they grow roots, but I don't want to cut them from the parent plant before they've rooted - catch 22.