Importance of Monitoring Your Aquarium

I've been neglecting this blog, and I'm ashamed to admit I haven't been as attentive to some of my tanks either.

And I and my fish have paid the price.

This blog entry will detail the importance of a regular maintenance schedule, but more importantly, I'll also talk about how key simple observation is for long-term tank health.

My ten gallon reef system is doing quite well. I'll dedicate a future entry to that as well as take a high quality video as the pictures I've snapped leave a lot to be desired. There's just so much going on in that tank only a video will do it justice... there are more things going in my nano reef than a George Lucas digital retcon.

Let's start with the 180, the home of the two oscars.

First, the red oscar's lateral line erosion is still present. Good news is it's not worsening, but I don't think it's getting any better. The Vitamin C did not work. The special diet did not work. And the metronidazole did not work. I think I'm seeing results with daily earthworms, but only time will tell.
Now my oldest fish, a bala or silver shark, which I bought in the late summer of 2004, is now in the 180 gallon. After a couple days of acclimating he's doing well. I moved him because he was simply outgrowing my 55 gallon and more importantly bullying the ghost knife during feedings. The bala is not an aggressive fish -- I think it was more of a domination thing as he was vying for the ghost knife as the biggest fish in the tank.

Yeah, yeah, I know... I ruined the whole cichlid biotope I had going on. Now all my tanks have fish representing at least two or three continents.

I lost one of the two blue acaras. I think it got whatever the firemouth had... it stopped eating and in a matter of days was a floater.

To the 55 gallon.

Sad news. I lost my angelfish, which was a month older than the bala. She'd had bloat for months and there was really nothing I could do. I also had to euthanize my discus as the erosion and fin rot returned... due to poor quality bloodworms as I cannot get the good San Francisco bay stuff in my area.

It was a blow losing the angel. Other than a bloated abdomen, she was fine. Swimming well and hungry.

Of course I'd fallen behind in water changes in both the tanks upstairs and that was a major contributing factor.

The 29 gallon is in the same room as the 55 gallon. It too has its shares of problems.

I was losing tetras at about one every two weeks. Tumors were appearing on them, warped body shapes, swollen abdomens. I was also losing rainbowfish. The only fish which seemed immune to the epidemic was the clown loach.
I emptied out 70% of the water and took off the hood to try to find out what was causing all this.

Turns out the hair clip I was using to hold up a silk plant stalk was rusting on the top of the tank, and a trail of rust was going into the water!

Currently I have one black neon tetra that's not looking too good. It's swollen horribly and I think its spine may be twisting too. I don't want to euthanize the fish because it very well could be pregnant, and it is eating and swimming with the rest, so I'll give it time.

I ended up moving my surviving two rainbowfish to the 55 gallon. I bought 4 juvenile angelfish, two golds and two marbles, for the 55 g. They also joined a powder blue dwarf gourami who was living with the angels in the store tank.

It's really nice having small angels again. Looking back on everything, I should have gone with angels instead of discus. Even when I was doing 20% water changes twice a week, feeding only the best foods, I never had luck with discus. They're expensive and frankly not that interesting, at least the common blues and browns that did the best for me.

I may have averted some of these deaths if I had been more observant. If I'd written down the dates of water changes, notes on fish behaviors and appearances, test results, introduction of new items like wood and rocks and fake plants, etc.

Keeping a fish log is simple. Just have a little notebook next or under your tank with a pen handy, and just write down everything you do for maintenance and jot down anything out of the ordinary you may see with your fish.

Josh
joshday.com