Friday evening when Andrew and I got back from the movies, I found my much beloved, if a little bloodthirsty, blue female ,betta dead. She’d been with us for about two years, which is a pretty good span for a fish, especially since a good bit of that time involved me learning the hobby. I was rather sad. She had an interesting personality, and seemed pretty attached to me. She used to rub up against my hand (not unlike a cat on someone’s leg) while I’d be in the tank with the gravel vac. That was cool.

In any case, while I was sad to see her go, her passing greatly increased the community options for the tank, as:

1. she sometimes liked to kill things…remember the guppy story last year?
2. she was a big fish; she leaves a big hole for some smaller fish

In anticipation of going shopping (being a little gun shy since I had a pair of platies die three days after purchase the other week), on Saturday, I did a big teardown/cleaning/redecoration on the tank while the population was small, tested the water quality (pristine, at least in the areas I can test), and came back home with a pretty trio of guppies.

Well, with the power vacuum created by the death of the betta, the zebra danio decided he, in all his inch-long, thinner-than-a-chopstick glory, wanted to be top dog, and began picking mercilessly at the guppies, particularly the male. Given that danios are a schooling species (at one point I had five), on their own, they can sometimes be rather nippy without some of their own kind. To try to spread out the agression, on Sunday we picked up two more danios, a zebra and a gold (same species, just different color forms).

I also removed the old grecian column bubbler decoration. I’d heard of the whole toxic baby bottles leaching Bispheol A when cleaned with hot water. A couple of months ago, I cleaned this decoration by dunking it into near-boiling water. I’ve had a few unexplained deaths since. I’ve no proof, but I know that BPA can harm fish, and these resin decorations can contain the chemical, so it seemed a good idea to remove it. Rearranging some plants and adding a cheap “bubble wand” airstone to the back actually created a nice pleasing environment, which should only be get better if the plants fill in a bit more.

Adding the new danios worked to keep the original one from picking (the new school coalesced within seconds), but we weren’t fast enough; the male guppy was picked into such a tattered state that I had to euthanize him when we got home Sunday afternoon. Again, sad. Still, both females were clearly pregnant when I brought them home, and I’m pretty sure, based on observations, that one or both dropped litters this weekend. So, assuming at least a few find the good hiding places, I’ll have a few cute little baby guppies to raise.

So, we’re up to a net plus four fish (plus any surviving guppy fry) for the weekend. And, it looked like the danios were spawning this morning….