The summer was not good to my aquarium. The heat from the sun failed to escape the house for the duration of June and July. This meant that the average temperature of my tank was 32 degrees Celsius. My house was a steady 34 degrees most of the time!!!
I live in a new build property and the insulation seems to be very good at retaining the heat. I talked to my LFS about cooling solutions, but these were expensive and not common on aquariums the size of mine!!!!
It did take it’s toll on my fish. The water quality was perfect all through the summer. The UV steriliser doing it’s job at keeping the algae at bay, but:
I lost both Killifish (Nothobranchius rachovii), all but two of the Endlers livebearer (Poecilia wingei), one Leopard Danio (Danio frankei) and three Cardinal tetra (Paracheirodon axelrodi).
Thankfully the heat wave ended in late July, and the tank has stabilised.
The Killifish failed to respond to treatment in the treatment tank. There were no signs of infection, they simply became lethargic and hung near the outlet of the filter. Heat must have been a factor since they generally live in waters well below 30 degrees Celcius.
The Leopard Danio looked to have a tumour, the Endlers livebearers died without leaving any clues, they simply got sick and when transferred to the treatment tank didn’t get any better. I tried a standard internal infection medication, but it had no effect.
Figure 1 – Endlers livebearer (Poecilia wingei) in the treatment tank, very sick
I’m not so sure these Endlers livebearers are very hardy at all, they seem to be very prone to sickness, but the two remaining seem to be fine at the moment.
The Cardinal tetra died without leaving many clues, one seemed to develop dropsy. There’s not much point treating dropsy when it is noticeable, since the infection has already done too much damage to the internal organs. I took the fish out and let it die in peace in the treatment tank.
Figure 2 – Picture of tank in mid June 2010
I didn’t panic too much, however with such a great number of losses in such a short time it would have been very easy to throw lots of chemicals at it to try to resolve the situation.
The plants continued to thrive, apart from the Aponogetum (Aponogenton) Crispus which got eaten by snails (source of the snails appears to be from a new plant added at the start of June). The Rotala Indica seemed to be growing well, but I had to trim it back quite a bit due to hair algae growth. The Elodea Densa was also growing well, despite my continued attempts to stop it taking over the foreground! The Eleocharis Parvulus (dwarf hairgrass) died a while back due to an increase in algae that staved it of light and nutrients. I won’t be getting any more of it because it seems to not like the PH of the local water anyway. Still, all these plants is not a bad return on a £5.45 bargain from plantsalive.co.uk.
Figure 3 – Through the hard summer, the aquarium still looked beautiful to me
The Epalzeorhynchos kalopterus (flying fox) continues to grow to full adult size. He/She is fast becoming one of my favourites since he exhibits various character traits. He/She knows it is the top dog of the aquarium so is frequently picking a fight with fishes who venture near his ‘stonehenge’ like rock.
Figure 4 – Flying fox defending his rock
Other events worth mentioning are the spawning of the Apistogramma cacatuoides, which I will write about in another posting.
Martin
