New Tenants

I finally pulled the trigger (if unwisely) on the final occupants for the 30-gallon. I read on the Fintique website that they had salt and pepper cories for sale. I was excited, because I thought I could get a lot to shoal together, since apparently they don't get that big.

Unfortunately, there were none available when I got there. There were albino, and "green" cories, however, and the guy I was working with assured me that they stayed small as well. I should have listened to the voice of doubt inside my head, but instead I asked for eight, which I felt would be an adequate-sized shoal.

Sure enough, when I got to the front, and one of the people who actually knew what he was talking about told me that I had aeneus or bronze cories, and he confirmed my suspicion that they would get quite big. Unfortunately, they were already bagged and paid for, so I took them home and am going to hope for the best. I guess if I keep them happy and healthy enough to outgrown the tank, I'll have done pretty good, and I can figure out what to do at that point. It's still annoying though, since the website indicated they had the salt and pepper cories, and I think those would have done great to top off the bioload in my tank. Right now, I'm already over, and it's only going to get worse as stuff grows up. I'll try to monitor nitrates in the near term to see if the fish load is enough to feed the plants without ferts without increasing out of control.

Speaking of water conditions, I'm really not happy with how my plants have done this last week since my last water change. Compounding my frustration is the fact that things were going so well before the water change. I'm kind of worried it's just too hard, although there's no way for me to know what's going on exactly. I'll see if I can get away with fewer or smaller water changes without harming the fish health -- I wouldn't be super-concerned if those rasboras hadn't seem to appreciate that water change so much when I first got them. Frankly, I don't know what to think...

I also got a zodiac loach, also known as a batik loach that I thought would be a nice addition. They can be territorial with members of their own species, so I thought it would be a perfect loner additional (actually, my only loner now that I think about it). I think loaches are really neat, so I'm excited to see how he does. So far, he's alternated between reclusive and spasmodic, so I'm hoping he settles in soon and stays healthy.

When I added the cories, they were also quite spastic and attracted the attention (and ire) of both the curviceps. In fact, they did quite a bit of stalking and nipping to start out with. The cories also seemed to stress the rasbora school, and the otos were being bothered by the back-and-forth and up-and-down swimming of the cories, disturbing them wherever they settled down.

Eventually, though, I think everyone felt everyone else out sufficiently, the cories calmed down a little bit, and the curviceps dialed down the aggression, if not the intimidation. In retrospect, I may have been the most stressed out of all of us. Here's hoping I finally have some luck with cories!

I almost forgot: The bamboo shrimp has shed its exoskeleton again! I'm going to interpret this as a good thing, because he's growing so fast. That is my hope. I'm just surprised he doesn't bother to hide after shedding; he's presumably pretty vulnerable.