So, some action has finally taken place. Noel has collected his pair of Kribs, group of five African butterfly cichlids and the white-tip Synodontis, which leaves the shark (Labeo frenatus) and the neon tetras to go. As a result I have set up another pair of Kribs (another pair that I bred myself - the male is the brother of the one I currently have looking after a healthy brood of free-swimming fry, both lovely 'super reds'). I've sadly forgotten the history of the two females...
Yesterday I posted a couple of spare cutteri to London. Still waiting to hear if they arrived okay - always a bit nerve wracking! Hopefully it will all be fine, as Royal Mail are surprisingly reliable.
Okay...I wrote the above on Tuesday, it's now Sunday and much has happened since then....
First of all, the cutteri arrives safe and sound, so I can add another success with Royal Mail to my untarnished record.
On Friday morning I finally met Ross Evans, of Oddball Express fame. Amazingly it has taken me nearly 2 years to work out that the Oddball Express unit is literally 6 minutes from my work office!!! I couldn't believe it when I put the postcode into Google maps.
The set up is amazing. Stunning rare cichlids galore. As usual I was like a kid in a candy shop and despite meeting Ross at 8:15am, I was still trying to work out what I was going to take home with me at 9:00! There was so much I wanted, but in the end common sense prevailed and it came down to how much space I could provide. I came away very happy with a stunning pair of exCichlasoma istlanum, who spent the whole day in the boot of my car until I got them back to Cambridge from Stafford. They went into the dining room tank, which started off a whole chain of events that have made this weekend a bit stressful!
First off, I decided that the Istlanum pair were too precious to be left alone with my horrible F2 hybrid convct/HRPs, so I promptly caught them all up and removed them from the tank. They were unceremoniously deposited in the 6' tank in the fishroom.
On Saturday morning I went in to the fishroom to find all the fish in the 6' tank gasping for breath and looking genereally miserable - too many fish sharing too little oxygen. Crap. So in I went with the net, this time to catch all but two of the big F1 convict/HRP males. Their time had come to be culled and removing them would drop the stocking levels on the tank and hence improve the situation for the rest of the tank inhabitants.
I was really undecided about the cull, as I find culling adult fish pretty traumatic, but I decided that seeing as I have no intention of spreading hybrid convicts throughout the UK, I should just get on with it. I dispatched them promptly and humanely and the bodies went back into the 6' tank as a large meal for the other fish. In retrospect this was a dumb move.
Switch to this morning, when I enter the fishroom to find it stinking of rotting fish, all four dead bodies left untouched by the other fish and all of the latter looking miserable. Big problem. Quickly I removed the offending bodies and disposed of them. I had already started down the path of culling fish and getting rid of the extras, so I put an ad in two places online offering the following fish for free if picked up today:
- Piar of Brown acaras Male 7" Female 5"
- 2 x Vieja melanurus 7"
- Paratheraps bifasciatus (unsexed) 10"
- 2 x Rotkeil severum 5"
Within an hour I had someone offer to takle the lot!
When they arrived things were going from bad to worse in the 6' tank, but all the listed fish were doing okay and the guys who came to pick them up were very happy. To be honest they got an amazing deal, I reckon they got well over £100 worth of fish for diddley squat!
Then fish started dying. I lost the loach that has been terrorising that tank since the day I got it (sad about that even though I hated his guts for abusing my other fish). Then some of the small hybrids started dying - they went straight into my Jaguar cichlid tank. But then my male Blockhead was lying on his side, followed by two of the Paratheraps synspiuls from Rusty Wessel. Oh....MY....GOD! I went into panic mode. The Blockhead went straight into a spare cube tank, as did the two synspilus (both held upright by a stone each). Then I started a huge water change and crossed my fingers.
The end result? Well, thankfully I think the 2 synspilus have pulled through, as has the Blockhead, so all in all I lost one loach and two hybrids convict/HRPs. It could have been sooooo much worse. I just hope the fish I gave away have all made it safe and sound.
What a day! Seriously, sometimes I wonder how I cope with the stress of it all...
