Battles with Algae

I kept the fish tank in the dark from June 18-24 and the algae seems to have abated a little in my 55 gallon. (Luckily there are no plants in there!) Since then, I have switched the light timer to an eight hour on cycle, so that the tank is now lit from 1:00PM - 9:00PM. There's definitely still algae in the tank, but it seems to be a little less rampant anyway. We'll see how it goes.

Water Change on June24

I forgot to write this up at the time, but I did change 18 gallons of the 55 gallon tank on June 24. All the fish seem healthy thus far.

Water Change

I did a water change the night before last -- changed 24 gallons. I still haven't had a chance to test the water, but everything seems fine. Algae is still a problem, so I might try to focus on eliminating that. Maybe since there are no plants I will try a prolonged blackout. Otherwise the aquarium seems to be chugging along.

Water Change

I have been busy with work stuff lately, but I did manage to squeeze in a water change last night on the 55 gallon. I'd say I changed about 20% of the water this time. I'll try to test the water by the end of the week.

All of the fish seem to be doing fine, though. My main problem these days is algae. I'm wondering if it is the blue-green variety.

Back to work! More later...

One Daffodil Dead

I found the daffodil yesterday. Unfortunately, it was no longer in the tank! I guess it jumped out when I was cleaning the tank. I was disappointed, because I had only had the fish for a week or so.

The hardest part was telling my three-year old son, who had really taken a liking to what he calls the "wide tails." I considered trying to hide the death from him, but decided that this would be a good learning experience for him -- a way to introduce him on a small scale to one of the facts of life. He took it pretty well, cried a little bit saying he was sad and that the fish must be sad too. He seems to have moved on and now seems focused on the remaining fish and the possibility of providing a new friend for the other "wide tail."

I think I would like to see some baby daffodils in the tank at some point, so I may get some more in the near future. I don't want to disturb the balance in the tank, though. I'll probably wait a bit on that one.