Fishy Fun!

Yes, lots of you guessed correctly, we got fishies! Look! We got the tank about a month ago, and have had it all set up and running with no fishies in it for a few weeks so that the water levels were all correct. Finally it was ready for the first residents last week so dad bought some neon tetras and some zebra danios to begin with.

When you have a new tank it can take a little while for the water to settle down, so you don't want to put too many fish in to start with as you will be buying more when they all die!

This weekend we bought a few more as the others were doing OK and dad had re-tested the water and it was perfect. Next we got some guppies, and a common plec. In a few weeks we will get a few more, then that should be enough for now. It is a 60 litre tank, so we don't want to overstock it. The wood is called bogwood, and there are also some marbles in the in case any of the fish do lay any eggs. It might stop a few of them from being eaten if they nestle among the stones!

Can you see the bubbles? That is to make sure that there is lots of oxygen in the water for the fishies. Can you see what a fish expert I have become? And I thought they were only good for eating, tsk!

Do you know how hard it is to take photos of fish? Very hard! Here are the zebra danios. They swim in a shoal and are quite fast. They mostly like to be in the top section of the tank and they are the greediest. One of them is a bit of a bully at mealtimes. Can't say I blame it, that's pretty much the most important part of my day too!

This is the plec. I feel a bit sorry for him as he's pretty ugly. He's a bottom feeder which sounds a bit gross, but means that he likes to eat algae from the sides of the tank and bits of food and algae in the sand or on the log.

He's mostly to be found doing this...

...Or this! Scooting around the glass looking for slime. He likes hiding in the bogwood and sometimes he's quite hard to spot.

Here's one of the guppies to the top left. The males are very pretty colours, the females are duller. They are good breeders usually, and give birth to teeny babies rather than eggs, so we may have some mini guppies at some point!

That's another female in the centre, along with a zebra to the far right.

This is my favourite one, a pretty blue boy guppy with a female behind him. Dad keeps saying he's a randy boy, whatever that means.

Can you spot a couple of the neon tetras here? They are the smallest fish in the tank but they're very attractive with reddy-orange tails and an almost ultra-violet stripe.

Here they are again. They mostly stay in the bottom section of the tank. Can you see mum's legs in the photo, hehehe?!

So there you go! My new pets are pretty cool I think. It's very relaxing to watch them and to hear the water bubbling away. I was thinking maybe I should give up eating fish out of respect to my new buddies but then I decided it's just too tasty. Sorry little guys, but I won't eat you I promise! I know some of you have fishy friends to, so if you have any hints, tips or recommendations for other fish, then let us know!

Licks

Oscar x