Saturday 7 July 2007

Butterfly (or Skipper)

A slightly out-of-focus lepidopteran that posed for a picture at church (Floyd says it's probably a skipper)

Friday 6 July 2007

Picky eaters

My angels, which started out as tiny little things, have grown into quite large fish - probably over 4" long counting the main part of the tail. I have these sinking pellets for the corys which the angels have taken a liking to - they swallow them whole if then intercept them on the way down. So, thinking that they could use some larger food, I bought them some floating "cichlid pellets". And the angels are totally uninterested in them. When I throw the pellets in, the platies go for them (but can't do much with them) and once they soak a bit the "baby" Macropodus will eat them...but the angels seem uninterested.

Tuesday 3 July 2007

Still there

It would appear that I still have fish!

I finally cleaned the tank for the first time in far too long and it appears that I still have most of my fish. There's only one Otocinclus left, but I hadn't seen any for weeks. And I think one of the baby Macropodus didn't make it.

Cleaning and a water change (and more importantly, addition of new water) has brought the tank to life. The platies are going crazy. Amazingly, in a tank full of semi-aggressive fish (seven Macropodus in there right now) it's the platies that are doing the most fighting. One of the "younger" males seems to be challenging the largest of the "older" males for dominance. Fresh water always brings platies to life - not that the males don't harass the females all the time anyway.

I'm really not sure what the deal is with the female platies. I have yet to see any more babies, but in the current set-up, I doubt they would survive (the Macropodus and the angels are good hunters, and there are just too many of them). While I was convinced that I had never seen any of the females get any slimmer, I am no longer able to say that definitively. I just didn't pay enough attention to them for a length of time - and some of them don't seem as fat as they used to be. One of them has gotten huge.