The Fishes

About this time last year I started "keeping" tropical fish in the tank on the left. Or rather I started buying fish, bringing them home and watching them die. There are lots of things that kill fish. They don't like it if the NO2 is too high, or the NO3 or the NH3 or NH4 and lets not forget the pH. If it's too cold or too hot they'll expire. Some of them don't like company and some of them don't like to be alone. Most of them will attempt to eat anything smaller than themselves and their attitude towards their young would raise an eyebrow in even the most laid back small town. Anyway, after many many weeks of interesting chemistry set type experiments I discovered that the pH of my water was too high and was directed towards Mopani wood which naturally lowered the pH. Hurrah! My fish lived!

I was doing so well with this whole fish keeping lark that about 3 months ago I decided to upgrade to a bigger tank for The Fishes (they now number 4 Zebra Danios, 6 Neon Tetras, 5 Glowlight Tetras, 2 Swordtails, 6 Guppies, 3 Mollies and a Plattie I think) so I ordered this rather nice hexagonal tank and waited with barely contained glee for it to arrive. 'Yay', thought I, 'A shiny new tank for mines beloved Fishes'. Then it arrived. So I brought it home and started to set it up. And then it hit me - what if I had problems with this tank too? What if my Fishes started to die again? I've gotten very fond of them now, we've come a long way together and I'd rather they didn't all die (I'm sure they'd be fully in support of this plan too if asked). What a dilemma, whatever shall I do?

So the new tank is set up beside the old one. It's cycling away happily and should be ready for the first fish to move by next week. Of course now I'm absolutely petrified of moving them in case they all expire from the shock or the pH levels or some other weird wonderful fish keeping secret that I haven't yet been exposed to.

Hmmm. This could be a problem.