New Tenants

It was only a matter of time... :)

Updates: I kinda realized the air pump supplying air to the NANO tank is way too powerful for the poor fishes. Xiuqing pointed out how the Yellow Shrimp in the tank were being swept up and spun around the tank much to their discomfort. The tank looks like its stabilizing but there are a number of worrying points.

• The ball of moss seems to be jetting around the tank bringing with it 6 scared yellow shrimps
  
• One Yellow Shrimp has already died from being spun around one time too many
• The Bumblebee goby doesn't seem to be receiving any food as the other fish are just too fast
• One of the runny nose Tetras's has a massive bruise on its dorsal area as it decided to catapult itself out of the tank.
• The water continues to remain chalky despite 12 hours passing by.
• The Pale Fighting Fish doesn't look too well either...
  

I hope to rectify all these problems soon :(

Updates #2: The Aquarium is doing really well now. The water in the aquarium has cleared up considerably. The fishes look to be stabilizing and are looking less restless now. The bruise on the Tetra which leaped out of the tank is looking really bad and I hope the fish doesn't die too soon. I have switched off the main air pump and the fish seem to be doing much better. I don't see the fish coming to the surface to take in air so I guess the oxygen content in the water is still reasonably high :) On a sad note, 6 out of 7 of the shrimp have since died and I have no idea at all how they died... Oxygen? Constant bullying by the bumblebee goby...? oh well...

Final Update for this post: One of my Harlequins just dislocated its jaw... and there wasn't much I could do for a fish that size. I think it most probably had something to do with the size of the pellets I am feeding them... I dug out a short forum article on this sort of injuries. Article as follows:

Probably the most common cause is overbite on solid objects like gravel leading to dislocation, muscular torsion jams the jaw shut, or a muscle snaps and the jaw hangs open.I guess the plan with gravel then is for it to be too fine to get jammed in the fishs gob, or way too big.

For cichlids the commonest cause is probably liplocking ending in jaw injury, though big oscars have been known to get rocks stuck or misjudge the solidity of a shrimp etc. Usually its a feeding or fighting related injury for most fish. Hexamita in cichlids often causes jaw weakness, it can eat through a fishs face generally, and if the jaw is affected its "crack" and its done.

Personally had to euthanise an oscar given to me in that condition that had that exact problem, also seen koi and goldies with broken jaws from biting down on gravels, and I managed to pull a piece of glass out of a dempsey with a jaw gone on one side that actually came off a broken tank heater. Glass is hell in fishtanks.

Lots of accidents really, nipping attempts when the victim accelerates away, impact with aquarium glass or decor when panicking, usually just damn bad luck.

Of course there are also there are numerous necrotising bacteria and fungi that may attack jaw muscle, staphylococcus is a classic, and sometimes a fish might be a little nutrient depleted thanks to protozoa or other parasites, they can affect the way bones and muscle are formed.

Sometimes its long term malnutrition, basically sufferring from the fish equivalent of a dietarily inflicted osteoporosis and making a break more likely, though perhaps this is the rarest option, unless the feeding has been with the cheapest of cheap flakes and totally monotypic feeding.Its actually more common with herbivores rather than omnivores, though carnivores given nothing more than muscle meat might not be getting enough calcium.

Fish with hexamita and mycobacterium are many times more likely to break bones than healthy fish, the jaw is just perhaps one of the structures most likely to break. Sometimes those daft cichlid owners who dont treat for hexamita and just use UV to subdue symptoms find that no matter what they feed the fish they cant stop the protozoa stripping calcium out of the bones in the head, and despite no external visible pits or lateral line erosion being visible, one day the jaw just snaps, or a portion of the head collapses.

Trouble is, once its done its done, there isnt usually a great deal you can do about it.

Anyway, there are a couple of stuff I'd like to sort out with regards to the tank before the week is up and the list is as follows:

1. Replace the missing shrimps with a sturdier, cheaper variety
2. Purchase Fish flakes instead of pellets for the fishes
3. Get a netting to cover the top of my tank to prevent the little buggers from jumping out
4. Replace the Runny-Nose Tetra and the Harlequin... I might get 2 Tetras instead... they seem to enjoy each other's company more :)
5. Get a fridge soon so I can start storing bloodworms :P

That should be it!! HAHA Alrighty back to work!!