Subj : Tank Maintenance At Last
To   : All
From : Jeff Snyder
Date : Tue Nov 16 2010 10:10 pm

Well, hey...I am getting a little better!  :)

Last time I went a full twelve weeks between tank maintenance. This time it
has been just under five weeks...but those filters were still very dirty.

Yesterday I conducted a 22-gallon water change, removed the algae from the
glass panes, and cleaned out the two Penguin 330 Bio-Wheel filters, along
with the two Marineland 1140 powerheads that are connected to them.

With so many inhabitants in the tank now -- quite a number of them being
female -- by fish have turned into quite a violent lot. Most of the new
fry no longer stand a chance. I frequently see them getting chomped on by
the other fish.

With so many grown fish in the tank now, we are going to have a serious
problem if we have an extended power outage, which is always quite possible.

A few days ago,to my surprise, I discovered one of the younger males laying
on one of the rocks. He had some serious bite marks on his tail, gills,
and around his pectoral fins. It was so bad that even his scales had been
removed, and his raw flesh was showing through. I imagine that he got into
a foolish fight with one of the larger males, and seriously lost.

When fish are injured that seriously, they normally don't survive, and I
expected him to be dead by the next morning. But, to my surprise again, he
has somehow managed to survive. He is swimming around again, and slowly
healing. The danger now is from possible fungal infection. He is quite
perky again, and I think that he may just survive, just as long as he gets
enough to eat, and stays clear of the more aggressive, and larger, males.

There are a number of holding females in the tank right now, including
Mama Mbuna herself, the mother of them all, so I am sure that the cycle
will continue.

That's all for now, until next time.


Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS  Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23
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