Elodie Rose

The tanks were treated with a second round of ParaCleanse today. *** Dragon tank, whose water is the color of sweet tea, seems to be thriving. The dwarf water lettuce and duckweed are large, and lush, the lettuce flowers are broad and the roots are very long and elaborate. I can see fry of many sizes, a few are even coloring up. Hornwort is also doing great, and somehow there’s some guppy grass. Just a single strand, from a shipment or a store, I think. The bottom of the tank is pretty hard to see, and so is the back. Reigning male at the moment is my Tiger Endler, or Green Cobra? I’ll have to get a good picture of him. He’s definitely yellow and black. The Hasbrosus gang seem to be well, I see them glass surfing once in a while, or resting in the roots of the water lettuce. Their wiggles are super cute. *** Zoe’s tank really needs a scavenger, but I’m worried about snails with the salt. There are so many rotting dwarf water lettuce leaves and roots, though. I wonder if an Amano would like the slightly salted water, and be too big for her to eat. That will have to wait until I can find other places for the duo currently in the 5 gallon meant for her.

The newest member of the mini menagerie at Chandelle arrived this week, Washburne the half moon mustard gas betta male. He is active at times, but actually lays on the gravel at times, which is super weird to me, there are real plants, a decoration with a gently inclined top, and even smooth river rocks. Why on the gravel? He turns his nose up at frozen bloodworms (thawed and dangled with tweezers at the surface, then dropped), but does eat the hikari betta pellets recommended by the LFS lady. He’s in a 2.5 quarantine tank with salt and almond leaves, recommended by the breeder, a gentleman in Thailand. *** Zoe, the female MG betta that I received recently, is like a little prowling tiger, her fins are so like an arrow, she’s fierce when eating and there’s no doubt she’s ‘hunting’. I adore her. She’s still in the 2.5 gallon QT tank she’s been in, and I did a partial water change today. The water lettuce rotted instantly upon being removed from Dragon and placed into Mushroom, as it will now be known. That tank has the cutest little mushroom house, lol. A birthday gift that I think is cute. The hornwort is doing fine, of course the duckweed is fine. She is also in slightly salted water with old tank water from Dragon, a darkwater tank. There’s a leaf in there, but I definitely need to boil them first in the future. I’ll have to do a little research. It’s the little things that trip me up sometimes. What kind of container to boil it in, or whether to just steep them, etc. From the first hour she arrived, Zoe has been a little warrior, thus her name. She swims through the mushroom house, or lingers in it, she glides around the tank, or checks the hornwort for anything she missed while eating. *** The 20, named Galaxy, is doing fairly well, though I had to remove the shiner, because he was bullying others, and the single fancy guppy male, because he was being bullied. They are both in a 5 gal (with a divider like those used by Simply Betta). Not a permanent home for either of them, I have to figure out what to do with them. Rehoming is very likely, but not until the Paracleanse has been finished at least twice more. I can’t have them stressing others or getting so stressed they get some -other- sickness, since they’re likely already compromised. The 10 galaxy rasboras/CPDs seem to be doing well, the males have colored up quite a bit, and I see them chasing and displaying. They seem to love the grass-like seedlings growing in the back. I didn’t think they were big enough (or old enough?) to be spawning yet, but maybe they are. They’re all over the tank, from exploring the grasses to playing in the bubbles. Super cute and fun to watch. Only 3 LF White Clouds are left, but they will be getting some company soon. They seem to be doing fine. Male Endlers. Male. Endlers. *Boys* why. They chased the shiner around until he got cross enough to start chasing literally everything in the tank in an attempt to carve out some territory, and then they stressed and nipped at that poor male fancy until I had to remove -him-. That poor, poor fancy. He deserves a much better home.And now I know that I can’t mix them. *** Blue-Gold… why can’t we call them “lyretails” instead of “double sword tails”? I am baffled by that. It’s so inelegant, for such a graceful creatures. They are currently in a 5, which was meant to be a quarantine tank, but is now a temporary spawning tank. Originally it was a pair from Dansfish, gorgeous, lovely creatures. The female is yellow! All my other endler females *were* gray. Since then, I added a trio of similarly yellow females (one of whom belongs to Miska!), and there are a dozen or so fry in the tank, some tiny and some extra-tiny. They hide in the plastic Christmas garland, which is beneath a layer of hornwort and java moss tangled together. I keep trying to decide whether to put them into one of the other two 10 gallon Endler breeding tanks (one mixed and one N-Class), or whether I should put them in their own 10. I don’t know yet. Right now everyone is being medicated.I’m not sure which tanks might have infected fish, after all. The guppies that were added (I literally did not have a place to put a third Endler male at that time, the 20 wasn’t up yet, and I had makeshift tanks going everywhere while I waited for that ridiculous grass to grow… I couldn’t remove the male, he’s the one from Dansfish, a very precious boy and girl) were from House of Tropicals in Glen Bernie, and they do quarantine their fish. However, it felt like going to battle during a Black Friday sale at Walmart. I like the idea of a line, but OMG why is the line in the exact center of like 5 pathways. WHY. I cannot go there on a weekend day anymore, never again. I’ll take a long lunch. (I’m neuro-divergent, that trip required some serious recovery time.) Miska wrote a better post about that trip. Will add a link when editing…. I’m not quite sure how. ***

Here are some photos! I'm definitely planning to try breeding egg scattering fish over the summer, but the white clouds will be the first. :-)

I hadn't intended to get back into fishkeeping, in fact, I was picking up that 2 gallon used aquarium to be used as a terrarium. But somehow I just couldn't resist putting a couple of guppies into it, and then a pink snail. Now I'm trying to learn to grow live plants, create ecosystems, and breed livebearers. It's a lot of fun, but it's like an entirely new hobby! In past years I've kept cichlids, at another time fell in love with fancy goldfish, and most recently failed to keep a number of fancy guppies alive. I was going to try again when I found Endlers. I fell head over heels in love with them, and am now the happy caretaker of two breeding colonies. My very first batches of fry are starting to color up! Darkwater 10 gallon, 3 months old, 72F - misc varieties of Endlers, predominantly black bar, received from a local hobbyist. Also 6 hasbrosus corydoras, 4 green neons, and an army of snails. The water looks like iced tea when I change it, but the water lettuce, hornwort and duckweed seem to love it. N Class 10 gallon, 3 months old, 72F - N class red chest Endlers from Shenandoah Aquatics, which I dream of supplementing someday from AdrianHD, but not just yet. There are 4 corydoras paleatus in it, which were purchased by mistake when I was trying to find corydoras habrosus. They seem happy, though I have plans to move them to a bigger tank so I can add to their little group. Japan Blue-gold lyretails, less than 1 month old, 76F, this is a 5 gallon quarantine tank suddenly turned into a temporary breeding tank. My pair from Dansfish arrived, and the female promptly gave birth to half a dozen tiny golden fry. I didn't have anyplace else to put the adults, so I added a bunch of acrylic yarn for the babies to hide in, and put in a few more ladies so the original mama didn't get hassled too much. This is temporary, and I need to be figuring out a solution involving at least a 10 gallon. 20 gallon for egg-scattering fish - new, finally regathering the fish that were scattered into makeshift tank situations when their tank broke a couple weeks ago. There are 10 galaxy rasboras/CPDs, 3 white clouds (the 4th died last night), and 1 rainbow shiner (the other 2 disappeared). There are a few misc male endlers in here, who are flirting madly with the poor single shiner. Zoe's 2.5 gallon - darkwater tank for a gorgeous Betta, a little Valkyrie. She's a halfmoon mustard gas Betta that I impulsively imported from Thailand when I fell in love with Irene's Betta Sonic. I spoke with the breeder, who was super sweet, and am keeping her in water with a bit of salt and some of the almond leaves he recommended, since he uses them with his fish. I adore her. I feed her frozen bloodworms in the evenings, and a few pellets in the morning. Wash's 2.5 gallon - he hasn't arrived yet, he was ordered at the same time that Zoe was, though from a different fish farm. Hopefully he will arrive tomorrow. I will never ever import fish again. Every tank, apart from Zoe, received the first dose of Paracleanse last night. They will receive another dose in 2 days.

Great job with the photos of the rasboras! They're gorgeous. I have a group of 10 or so galaxy rasboras, and I have yet to get a single picture of them, they're so flighty and so quick. Sorry to hear about the baffling fish deaths. I've had a couple of my own this past week, and am giving everyone a round of Paraguard. I've seen some belly itching, some clear poops, and a thin fish that I had separated to feed and treat just passed away today. I hope I wasn't too late, but it's such a guessing game! How are the guppy fry?