The Windowsill

I really like my flame tetras hyphessobrycon flammeus, they have calmed down and are not breeding as much. I have given away at least 120 of them but now it's pretty relaxed, maybe should find new homes for 10-15 of them but it's fine.

Anyways, kind of want to add something else to the tank. I do love Precious (my lone surviving guppy) and part of me wants to get another one and have some guppy babies so Precious will live on but all the work of finding new homes for guppys... it is a popular fish but it's hard to even give them away (no experience but seems like it unless you have some fancy variety).

So corys, they are so cute! Looking some some of the smaller ones to add to the tank in c. hastatus, c. habrosusor c. pygmaeus. It will depend on what they have in store and if/when I get my ass off the couch. I should do some garden related things outside but it's cold and my back is a little sad, and it's NaNoWriMo and I'm trying to write. Have a feeling there won't be any new fish until spring...

Also, I brought my water lilies inside as that is how I have to store them for winter to have them survive and very tempted to add some fish to the bucket. I was going to store them in two buckets but they didn't really fit. I was forced to get a bigger bucket and I added them to it and... it's large enough to have fish in. I was playing with the idea of having an indoor pond but I wanted to make that a permanent setup. This one only had some floaters and water lilies in them, nothing on the bottom and not trying to be pretty and I will take this out in the summer. If I had fish in it I don't want to mess with it too much.

Started out really well in June, it was really hot and I was worried that my patio ponds would be boiling. Then came July and rain, rain and more rain and August was a little less rainy but still cold and grey. This happens sometimes, it sucks.

Usually when you take your houseplants inside after spending the summer outside, they look amazing but not this year, they look worse.

Been two weeks since I got the fish back inside and found some fry in the pond today, there's been some cold days and nights, maybe 13C (55F) and I pulled the heat and the air two days after I took the fish in.

I spent hours, hours… collecting all the fry and fish from my patio pond. They could probably have been outside for a while longer but I rather have it done in time than trying to find all the fish in a panic. All 10 of the original fish were found along with 60+ fry… worse than guppies, need to rehome a few.

But I bet guppies or platies are a lot easier to collect at the end of the summer.

I did see a pretty large fry so there seems to be plenty of food for the fry but I did buy some fry food anyways so we’ll see how it goes.

I got some Hikari First Bites, Sera Micron Nature fry food, and liquid one in JBL Pro Novo Bel Fluid Baby.

I probably had fry a lot earlier than I thought I did. Most of the fry are really tint but I saw one pretty big today, maybe half a centimeter. I probably have more than I think I do.

I wanted guppies in the other pond but it’s been too cold and even with a heater, all but one died so I was looking for some  variatus platy but, I couldn’t find any. 

I really wanted some “Hawaii” platies and they did show up on a list of fish you can order to one of my fish stores and I am very tempted to get some. They won’t really fit into my tank and since I have buckets of water to store my water lilies... I could just get a bigger bucket and have some fish as well. An indoor pond. What could possibly go wrong.

Haven’t fully committed to the idea but one of my patio ponds doesn’t have fish in it or cyanobacteria. I could bring it inside. I have ordered a sponge filter and a heater so I think I might end up doing it. Only issue if I bring the patio pond inside is that I don’t want the water lilies in it and I will still have buckets on the floor and I think there’s snails in the pond, I don’t like snails.

I thought I saw one yesterday but was unsure but I saw one again today, and later on I saw an even smaller one! So much fun but it will be hard to collect them later when I’m taking the fish in in a few weeks.

Can’t find any pictures of flame tetra fry but if they are similar to neon tetra fry I would say that the smallest one I saw was about a week and the little bigger one a few days older.

I started some baby brine shrimp yesterday, perfect timing. I will dot some around the floating plants where I have seen them hanging out.

Kind of sucks that this pond has started to so a lot of cyanobacteria... that’s how I saw the first fry as I was thinking of throwing some of the floaters.

So I always wanted some flame tetras and they are supposed to be able to deal with 16C so sounded good and they were the first fish I bought. They are not that common in shops anymore but I don’t know why because they were so darn cute. I bought 10 of them and let them acclimatize in my pond for awhile before putting them in. Off they went, gone. Hello? I didn’t see them and I was a little bummed. I got some flake on the second day because I wanted to know if they were alive. Nothing happened. Third day and I got some freeze dried tubifex worms and there was something there, yes, at least one of them were alive for sure. I waited a day or so before I fed again as there should be plenty of food in the pond for them. I did fed a little today and I love it, they are like piranhas and impossible to count but I think they are all there. There’s been some cold days and they’ve done well. (Last few days have been cold so I got the heater in just in case)

With the success of the flame tetras I wanted some guppies, many people have guppies in tubs over the summer and they are colorful and often at the surface (unlike the flame tetras). I did try to find some hobbyist with some fish but... one person had guppies and it was a pure strain or whatever and sounded little prices so despite MANY saying don’t go to like a chain store I went to a chain store (that were kind of expensive) and I got six guppies. Acclimatizing and into the pond they went. They looked great, love it! 

But they were so skiddish and sluggish, maybe need some time? One dead following morning, based on all the complains on guppies it was expected. I check the water, okay, check the temp, okay... and then there were only one left and I was sad because I’m a horrible person that killed fish. I had set up a fish tank in case something went wrong and I bought the poor little guppy inside and she was horrible, she looked half dead, pale, not eating, barely swimming and it was horrible, I was scared to look in the tank expecting her to be dead.

But she made a full recovery! She’s got a lovely dark color and plenty of shine. Refuses to eat flakes but tubifex worms is yummy and even better, mosquito larvae! I have named her Precious.

So what happened? Maybe a combo of things but I think that maybe the fluctuation in temps was the big deal. The stress from moving and then straight into the pond that jumped from 18C at night to 26C in the day. I know of others that have guppies outside over the summer, right now we have some cold days and people have their guppies outside without heater, “Yeah, they go a little sluggish but are fine when they sun comes out”.

Someone said it was due to the fact that I didn’t have an air stone but many people don’t have air stones and my tetras don’t have air. And when I moved Precious inside, I didn’t have a filter for a few days and she perked up regardless. The only thing I can think of is steady temperature indoor, 22C no heater.