(no subject)

[damselfish]

Since tumblr won't upload my images because of some unspecified error, I've hosted a few pictures of fish on my scrapbook which means you fine blog folks get to see my new angelfish!

You know, if you want to.

Common wisdom has long held that you shouldn't mix little angelfish with big angelfish, it will only result in tragedy.



The only tragedy I see here is my inability to get a good picture of them all hanging out amicably. I don't know if this is because I'm incompetent, my camera's not up to snuff, or because my aquarium is unusually susceptible to reflections.

Not to be too flip, because mixing involved a lot of crossing my fingers and a fair amount of fooling the bigs. Mixing sizes is not a doomed proposition, but it depends on the fish (my trio can be pretty mellow) and on setting things up carefully. It was a bit touch and go at first, with the ladies picking on the littles, but eventually they remembered that they hate each other and reconvened battle for the fickle affections of Silver. It helped that I have four littles to diffuse the aggressions.



I did make some mistakes, of course. Like spending a lot of money on a black-ish angelfish to put into a black aquarium.



The baby rams are less baby now, and in the big tank! While my fish store rams are pretty spiffy looking themselves, the new kids are... well, look at it. I don't know if I love the blue or the mohawk best.

Anywho, the overall state of my aquarium is still in flux. I did a major rescaping (as part of my "fool the bigs" project) which included new plants, and I left the old, algae-covered plastics in a bin outside to dry out. When I put them back they were colorful and new again, but the black beard algae (which is not nearly as cool and pirate-y as it sounds) is now attaching to my rotala and attempting to smother it. I'm playing with the lighting, my fertilization schedule, and I was recently put on the trail of another culprit: free organics. Say, from food that falls into the gravel (like you can see in the picture above, grooooss.)

"I'll try new food!" So I went to the store and procured new food, such as frozen blocks (so hopefully I can hand feed the fish), and pellets.



I either underestimated the size of the pellets, or overestimated the size of my fish's mouths.

That pellet floating in the darkness in the back of the tank? That's the black angel, again. Gah.