Anybody who thought that keeping fish was an armchair passtime should think again. I appear to have spent most of the week either testing or changing water or moving fish from one tank to another!!!
Immediately after the Red and Gold Severum spawned in tank number 2, my real problems started.
Firstly, the eggs were all eaten, then my Gold Severum acquired a bad bout of 'pop-eye'. This was followed by the Red Severum cowering in the corner and looking very ill indeed. As I didn't have a spare tank to use as a hospital tank, I had to evacuate 5 molly fry from their tank. This meant setting up a new 15l tank on the worktop in the kitchen, until they are large enough not to be eaten in the livebearer tank (number 10). We then had to transfer 60l of water from tank 2 into tank 5 to be able to use this as the hospital tank. This having been done, the 2 Severums were transferred to the Rekord 60 (tank 5) and given the first dose of a course of Myxazin.
Some very out-of-focus photos of the Gold Severum with 'pop-eye' - no jokes about treating it with Olive Oyle please - this is serious!
My biggest problem has been trying to figure out what happened to cause the pop-eye in the first place. The water in tank 2 was tested and found to be NH3 - 0ppm, NO2 - 0ppm, NO3 - <5ppm, pH 6.2, so I can't see any problem here. There have been no fish introduced to the tank for several weeks, in fact, the Red and Gold Severums were the last ones in, and this was about 6 weeks ago, or more. I have a UV sterilizer on the tank, so any bacteria should have been eradicated over the 6 weeks. This leads me to believe that there must have been some nasty fighting between the Severums and the Oscars while the former were guarding their eggs. (This is a good postscript to my article about Oscars being 'Gentle Giants'!!)
This meant that I had to think about rehousing the Severums to somewhere a little less crowded. I have therefore decided to sell the 3 large Oscars in tank 3, and to move them into that tank once they are well.
Having taken the 3 Oscars to my local Aquarist Club to sell, I discovered that the 'oddball' Jaguar that I had left in this tank had taken the opportunity to take over as lord and master and was bullying the remaining two smaller Oscars. Given that this Jaguar was left over from my pairing up of the three that I bought, I have decided that it is now time for him to go too, along with the baby convicts that are gradually disappearing from within this tank.
This means that tank 3, the 5 foot tank, will then house 2 Oscars about 4" and 5" and a Plec, about 4". The plan is to move in the 5 Geos, 3 Parrots and the 2 Severums, which will give me a couple of empty tanks for my Carpinte fry. I will then be able to grow some of them out before putting them up for sale.
With a bit of luck, I might even get another spawning from the Red and Gold Severums, or even the Greens that have been left behind in tank 2 with Peterson and Claude (the two larger Oscars).
