Fishy Update

WoW - it's been along time since I got a few moments to sit down and blog. Life has been hectic with painting, Christmas holidays, a cat with a life threatening illness (that picked two different public holidays to fall sick) which caused a weeks worth of precious little sleep for her and me, my birthday, my youngest son's 16th birthday and now getting things organised for back to school, which will be here before we know it. There hasn't been much time to chat/hang out with friends, blog or even scratch :P so apologies to everyone. I did manage to talk to my friend Hasitha on msn for a little while this morning while he was eating breakfast, who basically told me to blog and blog today, no excuses! hehehe Meanwhile I have noticed he has been blogging HEAPS lately! You can check out his blogs here -

http://keeping-freshwater-aquariums.blogspot.com/ and

http://my-discus-fish.blogspot.com/

He is a very knowledgeable guy - especially when it comes to fish and all things fishy so take time to check his blogs out, he has alot of interesting fish and loads of experience.

Okay onto my fishies and how they are all doing...

My albino bristlenose babies are doing great! They are getting bigger and healthier everyday. Their vivacious appetites make it easy to feed them - they are munching their way through broccoli, zucchini, spinach & lettuce leaves, prawns, algae wavers and of course blood worms. (LOL writing that reminded me about the children's book called The Hungry Caterpillar :P) I have a couple of friends who have been promised some of the babies and they should be able to pick them up real soon now.

The kribensis babies are also happy, healthy and growing. I couldn't help but be amazed at the size of the first batch when I had a good look at them yesterday. Considering how tiny they were when they were born they are now huge. hmm okay reality check... when I say huge I mean they are now around the 1cm mark, (not the taking-over-the-world- size- huge) with a few of them a little bigger than that - compared to the 2mm they were when they were born LOL

The livebearer babies (guppies, mollies and platties) have also grown considerably and some of them have even advanced to my community tank now. Go them!

Sadly I lost one of my Princess Cichlids yesterday, he was always a little on the small side... when I brought them the girl at the aquarium shop gave me an extra one in case the little guy didn't make it. He did pretty well to have lasted so long. The other 4 are growing fast. I notice one of them in particular, the biggest one, is rather dominant. It won't be long now till they are breeding size. I am really looking forward to seeing their breeding behaviour and fry raising as they raise their fry as a community which is very different from other fish I have.

The convicts are all still alive and eating well. When I was talking to Hasitha this morning I commented to him that they are still very skittish when anyone goes near their tank. He assures me this is normal for them and they usually take about 6 months to settle down. I have to remember to ask my friend Mick how the convicts I gave him are doing... I should be seeing him soon as he always turns up around my birthday to give me a birthday kiss, (I did get a call from him though! :D) ooo and he promised to give me some more common bristles next time he was over :D

My community tank is still thriving happily at the end of the hallway. The night after exchanging their tank for one slightly shorter I sadly woke to find one of my bigger Pakistani Loaches dead on the hallway floor in front of the tank. I still have absolutely no idea how he managed to jump out (and really surprised that neither of my cats alerted me to it!) - it must have been one of those fluke jumps too close to the cut away glass corner above the undergravel filter uprights. :(

LOL I just reread my blog and realised I talked about the baby bristles and baby kribensis without ever mentioning that both lots of parents are all doing great as well ;)

hmm.. I think that just about covers all the fishes... ooops forgot Josh's goldfish! Bro and Brah are both doing great - I forgot just how fast goldfish grow! One of Josh's birthday presents was a new tank for the goldfish so now they have lots more room to keep growing. Most people know that fish only grow to the size of the tank they live in... which unfortunately for some fish means their growth is stunted :( but amazingly with goldfish even though their bodies stop growing apparently their internal organs don't! They just keep growing and growing until there is no more room to grow and then the poor goldfish dies. So please be kind to your goldfish and plan ahead before they actually need it. Oh and another random fact about goldfish... studies show that goldfish that live by themselves actually get lonely. So always keep two or more - we don't want any goldfish out there suffering from depression or anxiety issues. I know how stressful it is giving cats tablets every night - imagine having to give them to goldfish!! lmao - just joking! Random fact number three about goldfish.... a group of goldfish is called a Troubling.

If you made it all the way to the end of this mammoth post - Congratulations!!! I am so proud of you - consider yourself Fishy Obsessed too! ;)

remember - fish are friends NOT food!!

Night night everyone - time to go make my dinner :)

edit - OMG how could I have possibly forgotten about my favourite polka-dot-loaches!!! They are happy, playful as always and growing a little bigger... okay, that was a little short and sweet but hey! I'm hungry. LOL Give me a break :P

later dudes!