Yes, Phyllis George, the blue damsel fish has passed away. This actually happened last month. Hmmm. That's just over a year since we got her. We let the tank get seriously out of balance, I think, or way too salty. The boy had broken the hydrometer, and we were winging it until it got replaced, but we were too slow. At the time, the red algae was also seriously out of control. After Phyllis got fished out, I turned off the lights. We decided to think about what to do next.
A few days later, DH says, "have you seen what Spike's been up to?" Spike the snail had cleaned the entire surface of the glass. The majority of the algae was also gone from the live rocks. It was spooky how clean the tank was without any interference from us humans. I suppose the lack of light had some effect as well, but it seemed like Spike was just a happy camper.
We talked about switching the aquarium over to fresh water, but ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lyda222's fishy adventures in fresh water had me feeling very leery of that experiment. I thought it might be too hard to convert a saltwater tank to fresh. We talked about getting more than one fish - a small selection that could live together peacefully. Phyllis George was a loner in the extreme. She'd killed everything that had ever been in her tank except snails.
So a couple of weeks ago, I came home from Joliet, and the family showed me the new fish. Each person had picked out and named one. We have a velvet damsel, named Moonshine by the boy. This fish is black with horizontal bright blue stripes and one vertical yellow and white stripe. There is also a bright yellow fish with a violet stripe on it's back named Stardust by the girl, and a bottom-feeding brownish, frilly fish that blends into rocks, named Clarence by DH. Clarence tends to keep Spike clean too. They all seem to be getting along quite well.
So far, the tank is staying cleaner than when it only had Spike and Phyllis in it. DH thinks it's the combination of the bottom feeder and the extra filter he's put over the light to make it a little dimmer. What ever it is, I like it. In the process of setting up the tank, DH also modified one of the live rocks with a hammer, which resulted in a nice arch shape, so the fishies have a fun place to play too. Clarence likes to hide in holes and under the rocks, so it's quite a challenge to find him. The whole family enjoys staring at the aquarium again :)
