A log of everything that happens to my fish tanks

A couple of casualties, not much happy news this time. Sorry.

Swirly (the puffer) isn’t looking so good. I’ve never been able to quite nail down his psychological issues with us, but he’s been looking kind of sick recently and I doubt there’s much that can be done.

Also, Herbert died a couple of days ago. My guess is that he was pretty old, and he seemed to live a long and full life, so I’m not concerned that anything is wrong in the tank, but it’s still sad that he’s gone. I’m sort of thinking about the future of that tank and how it might play in to the next tank I get, so I’m not sure when/if he’ll be replaced, but as of right now, the plan is to one day turn that 20G planted tank into a shrimp tank and move all of the fish to a larger tank (that I don’t have yet).

Anyways, that’s all for now. I thought I had a neat video of some interesting critters in the refugium in the saltwater tank, but I guess not: I’ll try to get another one or recover the original soon.

Well, nothing super-important in this update, but I have some pictures and a couple of small things. First, I have new full-tank shots of each of the tanks, including the puffer tank. I’m still not sure how I feel about the puffer tank, and I still might switch some things around since the puffer doesn’t seem quite comfortable in there…

Some of these pictures may be kind of large since I wanted to show some detail.

Next, there is some news about the puffer, he has a name! It’s Swirly. Once I’m done tweaking his setup and his food and all of that stuff, then he’ll probably get a spot on Roll Call and Tank Specs, but there are still some issues I want to iron out before then.

Next, in the freshwater tank. One of the black neon tetras is looking VERY pregnant, and I have a couple of pictures. I don’t plan on doing anything to help along the breeding process, so I’ll be very surprised if we even see any fry before they’re eaten, but it’s amusing to watch this huge fish swim around.

Everyone in the saltwater tank is doing fine and I’m having some success with the plumbing renovations I’m doing there. It’s not very interesting, though, so I won’t say anything about it other than the problems I had in the past aren’t an issue anymore.

That’s all I have for now.

Not much today, but I did promise some pictures of the Figure-8 puffer last time, and I have a few of them:

He seems to be doing OK except for the fact that he doesn’t want anything to do with anyone close to the tank. I would have thought he’d lighten up by now, but apparently these guys can be very temperamental and they can  take a few months to really warm up to a new owner.

It’s been a while since I’ve updated. Sorry about that. Not a whole lot happens when I don’t update, but I do have some pictures and some news at this point. First, the pictures:

I like the way Filet gets his snout into the crevices of that algae clip to get out the pieces of algae that nobody else can get, sometimes he actually goes upside down a little bit, and after several attempts, I managed to get a good picture of it.

At the fish store this past weekend, we came across some Figure-8 Puffers that had been converted to full marine water, and they looked really good. I figured this was a good opportunity to try again with the puffers, since I suspected that part of the reason the previous puffers didn’t last very long is because they weren’t being converted from brackish water to full saltwater, so with that work already done and the fish looking healthy, this seems good. Then I remembered how difficult it is to feed puffers. This one is especially finicky, and after four nights, he’s just starting to figure out when it’s time to eat. Hopefully he’ll be eating more consistently and I can get him to eat more of the snails that are starting to go crazy in the freshwater tank. Once I’m convinced he’s going to live, and once I can get a good picture of him (which is pretty difficult now since I think he hates me), there will be pictures and/or videos. That means there will be a reason to update again in the near future

Right now he’s staying in a 10 gallon tank, but I think it won’t be too long until he has a 20G tank to himself, and hopefully he’ll develop some personality by then as well.