londonbard

Something incredible has happened. I took three dead fish out of the "grandchildren tank" of Fairy Cichlids. The fry are gone.

I also removed one medium sized survivor, sex unknown; it is doing well in a rescue tank filled with water from the guppy/krib tank.

I had taken a fired and glazed pottery nest that I had made for the cichlids out of the tank when I thought I saw a movement from inside. I rinsed the nest in the rescue tank; nothing. I put it back on the shelf and again thought I saw movement, so I put it in the rescue tank and left it as a comfort-shelter for the one survivor.

I just checked the rescue-tank and there are two live fish in there! The largest Fairy Cichlid has also survived! (OK, some Apistogramma can apparently fix themselves to the inside of a shell. [Botia can do it by extending their fighting spines.]) This shelter is a glazed square nursery for fish. Hiding in there despite rinsing, etc. shouldn't be possible.

Both refugee Fairy Cichlids are doing well. There doesn't appear to be a live snail in the wipe-out tank - many shells.

So, there is now evidence that the snails died first and the pollution killed the fish? (WTF? Without there having been a water change?? WTAF??? I don't have a snail-killer.)

I must move the fish out of the 27" into the living room tank ASP. There is a very large biomass of snails in the 27". (Move fish. Change water[?] Watch tank for snail die-off.)

The angels have spawned but, unfortunately, it looks as though they just might be a two-female pair. When that happens both fish lay eggs (which are unfertilised, of course.) The eggs do look too well-spaced to be laid by two females but they are fungusing. That does sometimes happen with an inexperienced true pair, especially if they are young fish.

The fish are savagely defending their eggs and, unfortunately, they seem to have killed a clownloach. (From a purely selfish viewpoint, I would rather have had that clownloach alive and well than even angel fry, right now - let alone a slash pseudo-pair.)

The fairy cichlids are still rearing their fry (in a different tank.) All but one of the intermediate-sized fairies seem to have vanished. It looks just possible that the the tank will end up holding one large fish, one half that mass, two very small and the new fry. (Odd, and the losses not avoidable because, {A} They were unpredicable. These fish are not acting quite like standard cichlids, and more to the point, they are not acting in at all the way they did in past years; [B} the on-off relocation means no proper accomodation for them either.)