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.