[alt.aquaria] I am an idiot. A complete idiot.

richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (01/18/90)

Those ``hi-fin Corydoras'' that I thought were so neat are,
according to Burgess, juvenile Brochis spendans. Terrific.
I *loathe* brochis. Damn ugly things.

I knew this was too good to be true.

All the stupid clown loaches are dead, as are all the killies
in tank with them (Epiplays dageti). Fortunately I just very
recently gethered 8 eggs from them. These are the only eggs
I've ever managed to collect off them. I don't know what killed
them. I suspect a bacterial infection brought in by the stupid
clown loaches.

My big female Aphyosemion sjoestedti Warri croaked. She just 
looked like hell one morning and died that evening. No idea why.
The remianing pair is in very good shape.

All these things are minor bad news, the real disaster occured
in the tank housing the gularis cross I made (Ed Millers big
blues X German Dwarf red). I noticed the water was a little cloudy
- unheard of in that tank and that I hadn't seen the good big male
for a while. I found him stuck in the 1" diameter airlift tube
from the under gravel filter. Not only that, I found three of them
in there all stuck together.

Sometimes I swear sjoestedti is the stupidest thing on the planet.
They'll eat plants, discover they don't taste very good and spit
them out, perhaps they know they can't digest them. Then they'll
do it again. I've lost one because it swam under a sponge filter;
this is the only species I've lost that way. I've never had any 
other fish swim down the airlift; Brian Reid had this happen to
him as well.

So I just bought some endcap thingies to cover the tubes so
the morons cant swim out.

The other fish that ate it in this accident was the only
dwarf red gularis I had, which I suppose is replacable with
some effort, a female, which was okay, I have plenty of those,
but the big male was the only male in the bunch that had
huge fins and the ``bell shaped'' tail. I'll have to start
from scratch and make the cross again.

Plus my rotten kids have passed their cold back to me for the
third time this season.

If you don't see any more posts from me it's because I've
killed myself.

atk@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Alan T. Krantz) (01/18/90)

Well - I suppose this isn't much confort - but clown loaches do some of
the stupid things you've mentioned - lets see - they like to swim down
the lift tube to the undergravel filter - then get stuck - what a pain
it is to take the bloody tank apart to get him out - had another get
stuck inside an ornamental castal - then but a 1/16 inch gash into his
side trying to squeeze back out (when the gash started getting deep - I
had to use a hammer to break the castal apart so he could get out).
Somehow one got into the external filter and then chewed up by the
propeller (an aquaclear 610 - same as the newer 300) - he didn't go up
the lift tube - but he still found his way to the propeller... and to
think you wanted 10 of them ... 

Actually, for all the hassal - I have to say that I like my loaches -
even if they are clowns...
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rosentha@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Peter A. Rosenthal) (01/18/90)

	Yeah, I used to have a tiretrack eel that kept swimming up
the outflow of my power filter.  Must have thought he was swimming upstream.  
one day he missed the outflow
and ended up on the floor for a couple of hours.  We thought he was
dead, but just before the flush he twitched.  We put him back
in the tank and he partially recovered to the point where
he would hang out in the hygrophila and move his gill covers.
Figuring he had to have severe brain damage from the experience
we named him Retardo Montalbon.  He lived for a year or so after 
that.
.

link@soup.ssl.berkeley.edu (Richard Link) (01/18/90)

In article <15785@boulder.Colorado.EDU> atk@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Alan T. Krantz) writes:
>Well - I suppose this isn't much confort - but clown loaches do some of
>the stupid things you've mentioned - lets see - they like to swim down
>the lift tube to the undergravel filter - then get stuck - what a pain

Well I lost a kuhlii loach last week. It swam into the intake tube of my 
external filter and couldn't get back out. Beats me how it got through
the screening.

Richard Link

dorner@pequod.cso.uiuc.edu (Steve Dorner) (01/18/90)

>>the stupid things you've mentioned - lets see - they like to swim down
>>the lift tube to the undergravel filter - then get stuck - what a pain
>
>Well I lost a kuhlii loach last week. It swam into the intake tube of my 
>external filter and couldn't get back out. Beats me how it got through
>the screening.

Ages ago, when I had kuhlii loaches, they were quite adept at getting under
and back out of the undergravel filter.  I still don't know how they did it;
there were no holes obviously large enough for them.  They didn't have any
trouble, though, and spent a considerable amount of time down there.

I'm starting a tank after a very long hiatus (fifteen years or so...), and
am wondering if I want kuhlii's, simply because I don't want to have to worry
about them getting stuck somewhere nasty.
-- 
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: s-dorner@uiuc.edu  UUCP: {convex,uunet}!uiucuxc!dorner
IfUMust:  (217) 244-1765

richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (01/19/90)

In article <1990Jan18.013426.7408@agate.berkeley.edu> link@soup.ssl.berkeley.edu (Richard Link) writes:
>In article <15785@boulder.Colorado.EDU> atk@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Alan T. Krantz) writes:
>>Well - I suppose this isn't much confort - but clown loaches do some of
>>the stupid things you've mentioned - lets see - they like to swim down
>>the lift tube to the undergravel filter - then get stuck - what a pain
>
>Well I lost a kuhlii loach last week. It swam into the intake tube of my 
>external filter and couldn't get back out. Beats me how it got through
>the screening.

Yes, one of the stupid clown loaches did indeed swim into the UGF
this way. He's still alive, as is one of the killies. I thought
perhaps things were looking up until I noticed water everywhere -
one of my 10 gal. tanks had a crack from end to end. We had a
minor (3.7) earthquake yesterday and I noticed all my tanks have
been shifter over 1/8" or so. No doubt had something to do with it

BRIDGE@rcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (JOHN BRIDGE) (01/19/90)

Rich,
    I sympathize with you. I am still scooping swords out of my prefilter
everytime I clean the tank.They are a lot easier to replace than gularis
however. Got about two dozen now. The rest I assume gave the other tank
residents a protein boost. I am about convinced that this is the only way
I will be able to collect swords for replacement and sale.    John

harrism@aquila.rtp.dg.com (Mike Harris) (01/20/90)

In article <467@sierra.stanford.edu>, rosentha@sierra.Stanford.EDU
(Peter A. Rosenthal) writes:
		<stuff>
> we named him Retardo Montalbon.  He lived for a year or so after 
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Alias..........Retardo Mentalblock......... 

Mike Harris - KM4UL                      harrism@dg-rtp.dg.com
Data General Corporation                 {world}!mcnc!rti!dg-rtp!harrism
Research Triangle Park, NC