Book Commercials & Misanthropic Observations

Oh, the horror!

I added 9 neon tetras to the Donnas today. I had read that if you complete cycle a tank with ammonia you must stock heavily right away or your bacteria will die back. Not that that’s a huge deal, you just add fish slowly then, but I wanted to take advantage of the happy condition my tank was in within the first 48 hours. It would still have been a really under stocked tank, with 15 small schooling fish in 29 gallons.

I went through the drip acclimation, which took a few hours, and then added the neons to the tank. Craziness ensued that included me actually banging the tank glass to get Orson and another of the Donnas to drop the neons from their mouths. What??!!! Now-where does it say in any of my fish books anything about black skirt tetras eating neon tetras. These two fish are listed together in all kinds of happy compatibility charts.

The survivors huddled in the cave while I fished out the Donnas into a bucket and then tore apart the tank looking for all 9 neons. I found 8 who are now living in the nano tank. I would never choose to put 8 fish in that little tank, but well, it’s better than certain death; it’s only possible death. I’ll hafta do a lot of water changes, especially since this tank was nowhere near cycled yet. augh.

PS. Found # 9 this morning, hiding from the school of Donnas. How in the world he hid from me last night I will never know. He’s now safely in the nano tank.