Fish-ie update

Alright, so I'm addicted to fish. Anyways, lots of things have happened since the last update for anybody who cares--which is mostly just me, I imagine--but unfortunately no pictures.

Let's see... bad news first. I bought 4 small-ish angelfish from the LFS (Local Fish Store), but 2 of them died within the week, and for some reason 2 of my bigger ones (that I've had for almost a year now) passed away as well. That and giving away the deformed angelfish left me with 5 angelfish. I was very upset, and did about 3 water changes in as many days, and sometime in the process, managed to temporarily break my fluorescent light (which is necessary for my plants, and the general health of the fish tank).

So, I went out and bought a new light. It's beautifully inexpensive for all of its 260W PC. Only $110 plus tax. It sort of comes with moonlights (there's the wiring for it, and a switch, but no actual lights...) and two fans. I got in black to match my tank but only use half of the light because I'm not ready to do all the dosing and CO2 injection yet. That will take another 400 or so dollars... but I'll get there eventually.

And then yesterday, I went out and bought 10 baby angelfish. They're nickel sized and simply adorable. They're in my tank, and all acting well and eating well this morning. So I'm satisfied that they'll hopefully all be healthy and alive, at least by the time I come back next weekend.

I changed the water on the goldfish tank, but to my chagrin, it's still cycling for some reason. 0 ammonia, which is good, but 1.6mg/l of nirite, which is horrible. I did change the water, but only 15% and I'm wondering if it will be alright. But I'm depending on my goldfish, which have been hardy throughout the last year. (I have not been taking care of their environment as fastidiously as I should have.) And they seem healthy and eating so far. Nitrate was sort of okay. Existent, but not much of a concern. The lucky bamboos in there are fine, finally sprouting about 1 mm of roots... but hey, it's there.

My marine tank is doing well, too. And I'm very happy about that, partly because it's my first marine tank, partly because it's a nano, and partly because the livestock (and everything else, really) are all just so much more expensive than freshwater things. In either case, the tank has definitely finished cycling (didn't test for nitrates, though), and the diatoms are dying down, leaving room for the beautiful purple coralline algae to spread out more. The tank isn't that nasty orange color anymore. The colony of mushroom corals have far surpassed my (admittedly low) expectations are still alive, and possibly even thriving. The shrimp and scarlet hermit crabs (2) are doing well, active and feeding. At least, I assume that the hermit crabs have been feeding. I haven't been feeding them anything, though. I will probably add another cleaner shrimp to the tank tonight, and wait until Thanksgiving (which isn't all THAT far away) to add that Nemo-fish that I want.

Lastly, I setup a 10 gallon tank at my dorm. Currently, I only have one lazy dwarf gourami in there, which both my mom and my roommate find extremely boring. That, and there are no decorations in the tank (besides gravel). I will probably bring some fake plants and stuff and some algae and set it all up and then buy some cherry shrimps for the tank. If they are big enough, maybe they won't get eaten. Ah, well, we'll see what happens.

Anyways, tanks are mostly doing well. I still need to buy that goldfish for the goldfish tank, but not before it finishes cycling.