Holiday

Over the last few weeks L and I have been away on holiday, which has led to a lack of blog posts. One of the dilemmas we had was how the baby Mollies were going to be fed as the automatic feeder would either not give them any food or empty all the food into the breeding trap. Luckily I was able to get a friend of mine to come in once a day and give them all their daily feed. It worked well and all the babies are much bigger now. We only lost a Danio, which was looking old before we went away. I was surprised to see how much algae had grown on the glass, so will be doing a bit of cleaning up this weekend.

Another Guest Departs

One of the last two remaining female Guppies was found on the gravel last night. We will miss her. Seems every time I get new fish, one of the old ones decides to leave the hotel. Though I must say that she was looking thin and old.

New Arrivals

Yesterday we decided to pop into our local fish shop to get more fish, even though we have 8 busy growing. We wanted a bit more colour and variety, so decided to get some Platies (Xiphophorus maculatus). We got 2 males and 3 females, all of different colours (photos to follow when I get a chance). We also got a male Sailfin Molly to keep the girls occupied. All seem to be settling in OK and the mixture of colours has brightened up the tank.

Babies Update

The 5 baby Mollies I caught last night all survived in my temporary safe haven I created with the the jug. I was able to transfer them successfully to the Marina Floating Fish Hatchery (breeding trap) I bought. I was able to catch another 3 babies and noticed that there is still one more swimming in the tank. So it was a total of 9. The last one is hiding amongst the plants and after several attempts I decided to leave it as I was worried that I might knock the breeding trap and let the rest of the babies out. So unless it happens to swim over to the other side of the tank, I will leave it alone.

Box the breeding trap came in

Breeding trap floating in the corner of the tank

with 4 visible babies

Exciting News

As I started cleaning the tank tonight, I noticed something small dart away from my hand. Curious, I looked around the tank and found a baby Molly. I called L to come have a look. Together we found another. I decided to catch them to prevent them from getting eaten. As I was trying to catch them L was finding more and more. In total we found 8 of them. I was able to catch 5 of them and put them in a white plastic jug, which I am floating in the water to keep the jug's water temperature as close as possible to that of the tank. I have added a Java fern leaf to give them somewhere to hide under. Tomorrow I am going to buy a breeding trap to put the 5 babies in. Hopefully a few will survive.

3 of the 5 Mollies

Strange thing is that the male Molly has been dead now for a month. An interesting fact about female Mollies is that they can store sperm for a few months, allowing them to breed without the help of a male.

One Fixed Pump

At lunch time today I popped out quickly to my local fish shop and bought a replacement pump. I was surprised at how expensive it was. Took a quick few seconds to install it, so the filter is back up and running. In the one day that passed without the filter working, we noticed that the tank was starting to get a bit cloudy. Just goes to show how essential the filter is.

Disaster

Disaster! After being away for a week, we came back to a healthy working tank, no deaths and the automatic feeder working well. Tonight I noticed the Kuhli Loaches swimming around the tank which was a bit unusual, when I suddenly realised that I could not hear the pump running in the tank. After a quick investigation, I discovered that the pump has packed up. So I am off to the pet shop tomorrow to see if I can get a replacement. Luckily it did not happen while we were away!