Fish Fight In The Parking Lot!!!

The story of my life is I'm always trying to do the right thing, and it backfires on me.  Here's the latest incident.  I was browsing Craigslist (no, not that section.)  I was looking at the free section.  I saw an ad giving away a pair of mated angelfish.  I looked at the included photo, and saw they were pretty good size.  It seems they had outgrown their tank, and needed to be rehomed.

I thought, "perfect!"  Since I had two angelfish pass away a few months ago I could use two angelfish to restock the tank.  Long story short, I brought them home.

As you can probably guess, that's when the trouble began.  The big male (the marble colored one) and the male that was already in my tank decided to have a fish fight.

I mean, they really went at it.  I'd never seen anything like it.  They would actually bite each other's lips and hold on.  Then there was posturing and maneuvering.  Despite my attempts to break up the fight they went at it for a couple hours until they were both worn out.

Since it was near the beginning of the month I decided to so something I had heard about.  Generally fish like their own territory, so if I were to rearrange the tank with natural breaks in it, I believed they would leave each other alone.

So I gave the tank a great scrubbing, and performed my first of the month cleaning/water change.  Next, I moved my rocks and plants around to create natural barriers.  It ended up looking like this.

It seems to have worked.  They are somewhat passive aggressive and engaged in what I would call a "fin measuring" contest.  But at least they aren't attacking each other.  The two males have claimed their own parts of the tank.  However, the loaches have no idea what's going on.  But in all honesty, they don't care.  Neither do the giant danios.

The new fish (the male and female pair) hang out together.

While the three fish (one male and two females) I originally had hang out together.

But every now and then the two males give each other dirty glances.

So my plan has somewhat worked out.  It's strange because I never had any problems with angelfish before this.  They had always gotten along.  But now that I think about it, they tended to be very young when I brought them home.  Hopefully after a week they'll figure out some sort of rhythm to the fish tank.

Overhauling the Fish Tank: New Light, New Fish, New Look

In an earlier post I showed the pictures of the new fake plants I had bought.  It gave the fish tank a great look.  Here's the link:

http://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2017/02/time-to-spruce-fish-tank-up-new-fake.html

In the past week I have really spruced up the tank.  First up was a new light.  It's amazing what technology can do these days.  Check out the Current's website for what this light can do:

http://current-usa.com/aquarium-led-lights/satellite-led-fixtures/satellite-freshwater-led-plus/

I won't go into everything it can do since I would just be repeating what the website link would say.  But here is the view of my fish tank with the full spectrum setting on the light-strip. 

Here is the moonlight setting.  I use it at nighttime when the fish "go to bed."

There are a lot of other settings, but my camera is not nuanced enough to display the difference in colors. 

I was able to make a few additions to the tank.  Two new angel fish followed me home.  When I saw them in the pet store they caught my eye.  They were no bigger than black tetras. 

What's neat is that, when I had them in the bag from the pet store, when I would hold them up to the light they were incandescent.  I could actually see through parts of them.  I could also see the heart and insides of the gills.  As they get older I'm sure some of their color will come in.

It's hard to get a good picture with my camera.  It doesn't have a fast shutter speed, and the fish don't like to hold still.  Anyway, you can get a glimpse of how small the little angelfish is next to my oldest one. 

I have to say the lighting from the new light really makes the fish look awesome.  It really highlights the plants and rocks as well.

In addition to the two new angelfish I brought home some giant danios.  They move really fast so it was hard to get a decent picture of them, but I think I did okay with these shots.

So I feel really great about the fish tank at the moment.  I really needed to update it, and I think I did a great job.  I like having it right by my chair.  I can stare off into it, and feel a nice calming sense flow over me. 

I should really invite some hippies to sit by the fish tank.  That way, they could just stare into it for a few hours.  Of course, I risk a drum circle breaking out.  But that's okay.  Nothing can get me down.  I have a pretty awesome fish tank, and that makes me feel pretty good.