Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Fishy Tales

At the end of last year I had:
-3 sunset platys
-2 red wag tail platys
-1 zebra dannio
-4 male guppies

Just before Christmas, Rob and I went away for a week. When we returned... the mystery begun.

You see, when we returned from our holiday we had:
-3 sunset platys
-2 red wag tail platys
-1 zebra dannio
-3 male guppies

I searched high and low for my lost male guppy but it was too late. It was nowhere to be seen and I could only assume that it had died and then been eaten by it's fishy "friends."

A few days after, I had:

-3 sunset platys
-2 red wag tail platys
-1 zebra dannio
-2 male guppies

Though this time I found the poor guppy dead at the bottom of the tank. Very sad - it was a very pretty guppy. Not only was this guppy dead but one of my other guppies had shredded fins. I had now worked out the culprit. The pretty blue fish was the one to blame. I saw it with my own eyes - he was attacking my poor little red and black guppy.

I decided to remove the little red and black guppy in order to let it's fins heal... but to my horror, the pretty blue guppy started chasing my platys and my dannio! So I put the little red and black platy back with his friends and isolated the blue guppy.

Unfortunately, the little red and black guppy did not survive the attack. It was in too much shock from his fin damage and could not swim properly so I let him rest in the freezer. RIP.

Did I also mention that one of my red wag tail platys was found dead in the morning as well? I can only assume it was a result of stress due to the bullying (or old age) as it had no fin damage or other signs of illness.

At this point I decided to let my bully blue guppy have one last chance... being the only guppy left, maybe it wouldn't be as aggressive. However this blue guppy would not give in and attacked my dannio, leaving a big painful looking bite in his back. So I took the meany blue guppy back to the fish shop and swapped him for a peaceful red and black guppy (in memory of it's predecessor).

I was going to get some medication for my dannio this morning to help his tail heal quicker... however alas by morning almost his whole back half had disintegrated so I let him rest in the freezer. RIP.

I still went to the fish shop this morning as planned and decided to get 4 female guppies for my remaining male guppy. Guppies are supposed to breed really easily and hopefully this will mean that I wont have to keep on buying fish to replace those that don't survive. They are so far swimming happily.

But will this fish tale have a happy ending? After putting the new guppies in the tank I noticed some white spots on one of the new guppies - oh no! White spot disease! I promptly put in the required medication. Hopefully there won't be any more fatalities. I've had fish with white spot disease before and they have survived... so let's hope so.

Now I have:
-3 sunset platys
-1 red wag tail platy
-1 male guppy
-4 female guppies

From Car-O-Line

Video of my fish before they all went

1 comment:

CleR said...

Aw cazzz.... what an epic story! sadness!! hoping they will be ok!