70 litre update

yesterday i decided to move the siamese fighter from the big tank to the smaller one. i originally bought this fish to occupy the top zone in the large tank but after putting him in it became apparent that the current in this tank was too much for him. so i altered the angle of the return in the tank to reduce the circular flow of water. well, this was not a good idea, although the siamese fighter was much happier, the rest of the fish were not. in parrallel to this i had planted quite a few new plants and the fish had started ripping them apart. pretty they were, sturdy they were not.

these two factors compounded and the result was that the filter was getting blocked up daily and subsequently due to the reduced volue of water going through the filter, toxins started to build up and i had to start doing more frequent water changes. on top of this, the smallest clown loach got ich (white spot) for which he is now being treated (not to worry, i've cured the other three clowns of ich before now when they were smaller as well... small clown loaches are quite prone to ich with the slightest stress so i'm not suprised or worried)

the solution. get rid of the delicate plants and the siamese fighter is now in the 70 litre tank. the 180 litre tank is back to how it was with a fairly strong current which has increased the activity of (cheered up) the other fish. :-)

other than that i did some maintenance on the 70 litre tank and found the missing red crab, dead in the filter compartment. i'm a bit baffled as to how he scaled the filter box as there is only one hole big enough for it to have gone through and thats on the top. once he fell in, there was no way out..... :-/