Thank you all for the well wishes and sorry I haven't been around much, just felt a complete drain of energy after we put Rama down last Saturday. He was a real king of cats and we all miss him so much, our pets really are part of our families, my whole family is in a depression together at it. On Sunday I did a really fun thing though which was a good distraction, I went to Scaped Nature with
@Courtneybst and
@Siddy and we scaped a tank together. It was really interesting to do it together, I would love to do more tanks like this since I can't fit more tanks in the house to do it for myself!! There are lots of more photos on the guy's Instagrams too
🙂 Honestly too drained to share pics of things atm tbh.
On the downside, I am suspicious that there is something nefarious going on in the tank, like some fish Tb or something. I've had to put down several pencilfish and cardinal tetras (adult ones) over the past few weeks, each with different symptoms. They are big adult fish, but it is still hmmmmmm. I also think that my populations of tetra and pygmy cories have gone down a lot, although it's hard to tell exactly as the tank is lush enough for them to hide easily. Since I have a huge pile of leaves in the back I suspect that fish are hiding in there when sick and dying so I don't see it. And now 3 of the dicrossus have something that looks a little like hole in the head. Yesterday I set up a quarantine tank for the dicrossus, but found one dead this morning anyway. I'm feeling.... very suspicious. Fish are otherwise active and feeding and even breeding, but it definitely seems odd. Apistos seem in good health so far, so do the otos.
3 Pencilfish with different symptoms: one extremely bloated and then dropsy, one with a "graze" of white/pale discolouration (not at 3D wound) on it's side for a few days found dying upside down on the soil, one that was really weirdly skinny and a bit bent that I'd never noticed before until I saw it suffering and put it down.
2 Cardinal symptoms: slightly bent, white white grazes and staying at the top of the water or in one spot all day breathing heavy.
So far I've done an extra big waterchange, cleaned the filters and pipes (which is good I think I have more surface disruption for oxygen), lowered the CO2. Today will get some Esha 2000 and try that too. TBH not sure what to do other than wait and see if everything drops dead or not. I guess at the weekend will do another waterchange and take out all the leaves and mulm out of the back and vac it all heavily in case that helps. IDK I already feel drained and this is quite upsetting but I haven't recovered the emotional energy to worry about it, just trying to be objective and do what I can. This tank and me are so dramatic ffs there's always something going on.
Incidentally in my 45L, I had 12 chili rasboras added in Autumn and now I have about 5, they seemed to last a few months all together and then over the past 2 months disappear quite quickly. My betta seems totally fine though (he is in the only other fish in that tank). Originally in the 45L tank I had 15 pygmy cories, and after a few months there was only 6, I'm not sure if it's a comment on me and my care of the fish or if this is normal or a disease. The pygmies in my big tank are much more outgoing than the ones in the 45L were though. I always do my waterchanges, feed a variety of good food including live, etc but idk. In the big tank I am guilty of overstocking due to the kuhli loaches, maybe it is all because of that, but with the numbers of fish I have now I'm pretty sure it's not overstocked at all any more, I think tetras & pygmies are down by at least 1/3. I should have 16 kuhlis, but I've only seen a max of 4 in the middle of the night, honestly not sure how many I have and I wouldn't be surprised that when I one day rescape to find all of them thriving in the lava stone caves I made for them.
I read online with fish tb basically you're f***ed and have to let the fish die, and 100% rescape chucking everything in the tank which is the grimmest thing I've ever heard, but I'm heavily rambling now so will stop. Or maybe it is my rainwater???? No idea tbh.