The Menagerie of Bees!

the rainbow fish tank today.

Went down a rabbit hole reading about rainbowfish and piscine mycobacterium infection [fish TB] the other week and it made me really sad.

The long skinny of it is that the mycobacterium that causes fish TB is found in most aquariums [like most things, tbh], and fish in good conditions are able to naturally fend against infection via robust immune systems. EXCEPT raimbowfish!! Who are very likely to get chronic versions of the disease where they appear somewhat unwell physically but can live out a decent lifespan so long as conditions remain favorable in the aquarium. But also will keel over the minute thinga are uncomfy. There's no way to diagnose fish TB as a cause or contributor to illness/fatality without necropsy.

My rainbowfish tank today.

I actually was expecting this one to fall into complete disrepair. Specifically because these guys need some care spent to ensure stable oxygen and cooler temperatures than what my house's ambient temperature usually allows for during the hot season days. On top of that, their food needs to be finely crushed for the threadfins, because their mouths are so small. Our housekeeper is not an aquarium person, and so she only had my instructions to work with [on top of maintaining everything else in the house] and honestly...she did the best I could have asked for.

There was definately a tempurature issue (or something) at some point, and I lost a few guys to that. We're down to 6 threadfins [from 7] and 3 blue eyes [from 6], and 3 ottos [from 4]. But everyone who's still here is looking and eating well. Though some of my threadfins are looking very lean, everyone here is gonna be just fine.

Something totally out of my housekeeper's hands is the state of my anubias plants...Before I left, an anubias in the bottom right corner had a strage issue where it dropped all of its verdant, healthy green leaves as the rhizomes melted away. I figured it was just a problem with that one plant, but upon coming home last night, I saw that I had lost a few more to this same problem. And this is how I learn that "anubias rot" is a thing. Apparently it's not known if it's a fungus or bacteria, but it's not responsive to chemical treatments and there's not really a way to cure it. I suspect that these plants, like all plants, have a healthy biome of microflora/fauna that livea on their root structures, and I wonder if I fucked that up for them when I treated the tank with kanaplex and metroplex a few months back--and what ever causes the rot was allowed to slowly over take the rhizomes as a result...I don't know.

Regardless, I'm gonna have to replace those plants...maybe with something that doesn't have rhizomes for now haha.

Lastly, the water's looking a bit milky, suggesting a bacterial bloom--so I was initially worried that my cycle had crashed. But--

the parametres actually look beautiful, the tank's robust! So prolly an autotrophic bloom from the plant and fish dieoffs. Regardless, house keeper definately stayed on top of the water changes, but u really just need one lost fish corpse to kick a bloom off.

Back home from my 5 week long vacation to mexico and I am so happy. All the animals fared well and I am so happy to see them again Q vQ

I was most worried about Milly, but her she hasn't chewed up any new feathers while I was away and she seems to be in a great mood this morning♡

I was worried the budgies would have forgotten me, or become more wary at the very least--and for a moment they were pretty freaked out when I walked into the room. But as soon as I sat down into my chair, I guess that was enough for Quimby to be like "oh wait, I remember this. Okay, cool". And as soon as she recalled the old routine, everyone else chilled out too. So now it's like I never left ☺️

Even the fish tanks are doing well. There is a bit of work to do in the rainbow tank [more on that later] but everything is stable and there are no fires to put out--which is amazing. I really didn't know what I'd be coming home to wrt to the fish, so I am very pleased.

just in time for us to visit my mom for 5 weeks on the other side of the world.

Rivals

my guy with the long fins had fallen ill the past week, and I had been taking special care to target feed him, since he wouldn't swim towards food, but was willing to snap it up if it happened to waft in front of him. Yesterday, he wouldn't eat at all, and so I resigned myself to potentially finding his corpse today or tomorrow.

But today, I find him colored up, shoaling, and sparring! He has eaten well, and though his swimming pattern is still a little loose and languid (indicating that he's still not feeling 100%), he is mingling well. He's the prettiest boy at the ball, so I really hope to see him make a full recovery and show the shoal what's what.

(he held his ground pretty well here!)

When several fish fall ill (and especially the illness is identifiable), treat the tank. But when it's just one like this, there's a bit of a tough call to make. Removing it from the tank causes a lot of stress, and unless I can identify the illness and weigh the risk/benefit in a more informed manner [I've yet to have a run-in with something obvious such as ich, columnaris, or flukes], a change of environment does seem to run a higher risk of worsening the animal's condition. I've, so far, found better success in maintaining stable perametres, doing very small water changes every other day, target feeding the ill fish, and otherwise meddling as little as possible. Once a fish stops eating, there's little else you can do for them. But there has been a number of times now where fish in this condition have bounced back for me. Whereas, I've not had the same luck with actively isolating and treating an ill fish. idk. Extremely passive, unassertive tone in all of this because it's all personal anecdote, but sometimes you just gotta roll with what your experiences teach you. ime, less stress and tampering seems to just be better for overall health.