On the wonderful FishProfiles.com, I've had the good fortune of meeting a lot of very experienced aquarists with an acute interest in helping fellow hobbyists with everything from aquascaping to fish selection. Forum contributors and moderators there have been of enormous help as I combat little Honegger's illness, which I now believe to be false NTD. If you have any interest in our conversations about NTD and fish hospitalization, you can read them here and here.

Well, Honegger is in his fourth day of hospitalization. On the second day, he developed extremely small white fungal growths on his dorsal and caudal fins, which caused me to instantly up the dose of Maracyn. On the third day, yesterday, the growth was gone. I noticed also that Honegger was moving about the small tank, showing curiosity once again. Even better, he's started eating again and the discoloration that initially alarmed me has receded dramatically. His little teal neon stripe is even beginning to seal. I'm simply amazed that you can actually quarantine and medicate a 1.5" fish and nurse it back to health. When I was a kid, we would have just flushed it.

Since he's healing -- or appears to be healing -- supportive aquarists over at FishProfiles.com believe it's not NTD, but another ailment simply called false NTD. The latter can be arrested and treated with certainty, unlike plain old NTD.

The hospitalization isn't quite over yet. I'm going to give Honegger two full weeks in quarantine before even thinking about reintroducing him to the main tank (which I'll also have to medicate once I'm sure Honegger is fully on the mend).

Yesterday, I learned that at least one of Les Six (Honegger, specifically) has a dreadful and mostly incurable illness called NTD, or Neon Tetra Disease. NTD, despite its name, can wreak havoc among most aquarium fish. In Neons, it causes the loss of its "neon bits," as one online acquaintance calls the teal blue stripe that runs the length of its body. It also causes internal discoloration, and later cysts, spinal deformities, and death. What's worse is that once introduced to a tank, it usually means complete contamination.

In other words, it's possible and probable that I could loose Les Six and the Justice League, plus my beautiful driftwood, about fifty dollars worth of plants and substrate, and my biofilter. That is, of course, the worst case.

Someone advised me to set up a hospital tank, put Honegger in it, and dose it up with medication. This means I had to use my new 2g tank, which I'd set aside for my Betta nano-environment. Today, I bought an expensive bottle of Maracyn Plus, an antibacterial used for combatting mouth fungus, popeye, dropsy, and ulcers. It's a cloudy white liquid that disperses its antibiotics as microscopic spheres that cling to the fish, penetrating and subsequently combatting infection. The survival rate for NTD is statistically insignificant, but apparently some fish recover.

My expectations are low. A friend wondered why I would go to so much trouble to salvage a $1.79 fish. Well, if I can't take care of a $1.79 fish, how am I ever going to feel confident when I graduate down the road to more exotic, expensive fish? I'd rather try my hand at this now rather than later, when the cost of losing an entire habitat could be disastrous.

I spent some time at Nippon Goldfish today. I bought a thermometer for the new tank, forgot to buy some Flora Base or Flourite substrate, and am mildly annoyed that I can't readily find the three live plants I want to design into the new aquascape (two are rare, one is popular and therefore always out of stock). Patience, patience.

On the plus side, I bought two new Neon Tetras, to honor the deaths of Durey and Taileferre. Their names are Satie and Cocteau, and they're bright, sprightly chaps (chapettes?). This brings the population in my original tank to 12, and that's it. Any more fish and I risk bioload management problems.

I noticed the other day that the 4 Neons and the 6 Cardinals were schooling separately, and that the Neons seemed to be shier than the Cards. I've always heard that Tetras should be schooled in minimum groups of 6, so with Satie and Cocteau, perhaps they'll be a little happier all around.

I'm going to go back to 10-15% water changes every day for about five days, to account for the pH fluctuations that have occured as a result of the recent addition of the driftwood (which, combined with my buffering, wants to bring the pH down to 5.0, lower than I want). My water going in to the tank will be well-controlled at 6.5. This should result in a final stable pH of 6.0, where I was about a week ago.

It's interesting to note that driftwood "naturally" lowers pH, which means I may be able to get out of the chemistry business. It's too early to tell. I'm going to have to monitor the water quite heavily for about a week, until I solve the problem.

Yesterday, my new aquarium arrived. Yay! At only 2 gallons, it's quite small, but it uses Marineland's extraordinary 3-stage filtration, including the Bio-wheel. Tomorrow, I'm off to Nippon Goldfish to pick up a substrate of Flourite, onyx, or other designed to encourage live-plant growth;

Yesterday, I called Nippon to see if they carried Vesicularia, Java Fern, or Riccia fluitans. As I feared, they don't normally carry Riccia (although they told me they do sometimes grow their own beds of it for sale), they had only one or two Java Ferns left, and had no clue what I meant by Mini Moss. So, I'm going to poke around special order sites before going with alternative specimens.

I've yet to find a definitive source that talks in plain English about organic-nutrient supplementation, but I'll find something, I'm sure.

On Saturday, in my "Aquascape" post, I talked about how I planned to improve the artificial plant environment for my 10g tank. Here is a picture of what it looked like.


Since then, I've been soaking a piece of African-lake driftwood. Today, it was pretty clear that all the tannins are out (unlike the Malaysian chunk I'm preparing for my new 2g tank -- it just keeps on leaking and leaking and leaking...).

Since the makeover was going to be pretty dramatic, I decided to remove Les Six and the Justice League. I siphoned 1 gallon of tank water into a bucket and put them in it, knowing I'd have roughly twenty minutes to work before the temperature in the bucket lowered too much.

I removed all of the plants, vacuumed the substrate, and recreated the bank. I then placed the driftwood centrally and diagonally. Around it I "planted" the fake specimens to which I refered on Saturday.

I'm really pleased with the final result, and will now stop fussing over this tank. It's the visually pleasing environment I originally wanted, informed a bit by the way Takashi Amano designs aquaria.


The little archway in the driftwood is my favorite touch, and the Tetras love swimming through it.

Today, I ordered Marineland's Explorer tank, which, at a mini 2 gallons, is the smallest bio-wheel aquarium on the market (for now). Two gallons of bio-filtered water is very attractive, especially if you're as big of a Takashi Amano fan as I've become (see posts below). So, here's the plan...

2-gallon tank

1 small piece of Malaysian driftwood

Fine gravel substrate

1 small stone

Riccia Fluitans, Riccia, as foreground flora

Vesicularia, Mini Moss, across the driftwood's upper face

I'm thinking of Microsorum pteropus, Java Fern, for the background, but the jury's still out: I want something soft-looking and unusual. Only one thing is for sure: all plant specimens in this nano-tat will be live. Check out how others have successfully used the plants I mentioned.

Vesicularia, Mini Moss from Jason's My Nature Aquarium

Microsorum pteropus, Java Fern from Soren Petersen's Disky Design

Riccia Fluitans, Riccia from Jason's My Nature Aquarium

But what of the fish? Betta, baby. Betta Splendens, or Siamese Fighting Fish, are sold in cups and then usually "stored" in bowls containing only water. Yuk, not much of a life.

Betta Splendens from LiveAquaria.com

The revolutionary addition of a bio-wheel to the nano-habitat increases opportunities for a controlled and healthy environment for the Betta. And a planted 2g tank is way preferable to a globe with tap water in it.

I'll keep you updated when the new tank arrives and I start planting specimens. It'll be a few weeks (perhaps even months) before the Betta comes home.

I've found a nice mixture of foods that excite the fishies and provide a wide array of stuff that's good for them. In combination with the lower pH, Les Six and the Justice League are showing much brighter colors than only a week ago. Their diet includes:

TetraMin Pro Tropical Crisps

San Francisco Bay Brand Freeze-dried Bloodworms (red mosquito larvae)

Hikari Tropical Micro Pellets for Tetras

Marineland's Bio-Blend Tropical, which drives the little nutters bananas!

I use one of the foods for two feedings per day, cycling through four days of variation. The kids love it!

I've been thinking a lot about the aesthetics of my aquarium, particularly now that it is graced with fishie lives. And I'm starting to think that I need to replan the artificial plants.

I now understand how Tetras move about the tank, what they dart behind when they're hiding, where they like to laze when they're not schooling, and which corridors they shoal in. They clearly like variety in the landscape. In the following photo, you can see Les Six and the Justice League -- all ten Tetras -- although the Martian Manhunter is trying to pull his translucence act.

Although I recently rescaped by creating a bank and rearranging the plants, the net effect still feels hollow. My fakes include:

1: Eleocharis acicularis, Hairgrass (short)

2: Eleocharis acicularis, Hairgrass (long)

3: Vallisneria americana, Jungle Vallisneria

4: Cabomba caroliniana, Fanwort

5: unknown

I've spent a lot of time reading planted aquarium books, surfing the rich array of aquarist sites, and examining, up close, plant life in aquaria at the fish store. It's too late (destructive at this point) to try to add live plants to my first aquarium. That's fine. But I can do an awful lot with the 'scaping. To wit:

Today, over at Nippon Goldfish, I bought a piece of African-lake driftwood (environmentalists on the apocalyptic end of the spectrum can talk to the hand). Its twists, like crazy freeways of bark, are quite lovely. I'll now be soaking it, with regular water changes, for about two weeks, to remove the tannins that darken water and toy with pH. It's several inches across and high, and looks like a chunk of wood you'd expect to find jammed, wallowing in moss, between rocks at the bottom of a freshwater stream. That's as close to organic matter as I'll be adding to this first tank.

I also bought several new artificial plants. Takashi Amano, a noted photographer of tank life, and a proponent of the nano-environment (very small tanks reproducing -- with care -- much larger environments), was my inspiration in this.

Many of the "prize" aquaria you can view in gorgeous detail at Marcos A. Avila's The Age of Aquariums are nothing if not mouth-dropping milestones. What you want to be when you grow up, aiight?

To the right is Alex Kawazaki's sublime aquarium, all in a 7-gallon tank. His tank, unlike mine, has real plant life in it, which no combination of fakes can truly emulate. What's more impressive is that he's working with 3 gallons fewer than I am. So, I have lots of opportunities for aesthetic improvements in the landscape. Note that Kawazaki's tank was clearly inspired by Takashi Amano's photography.

The plants. I'm going to wait until the driftwood has finished cooking before I add the new fake flora, but, for the record, here's what I got:

2 long Hairgrass clusters

a bed of Echinodorus, Chain Amazon

Myriophyllum Demersum, Foxtail, for red-leaf contrast

2 small cloth plants, reddish in hue, I don't know their species

The object is to create density and depth. The fun never stops. I see why and how newbie aquarists become quickly addicted. Conservation coupled with education. Nice.

Auric, Honegger, Poulenc, Milhaud, Bruce, Diana, Clark, Hal, Barry, and Jon are all doing well. No more mysterious deaths or disappearances.

I'm really getting this water pH thing down to a fine art. In the first week, the kids acclimated to an acidic 5.0 and showed their colors brightly. With some of the water changes, the pH went up to 6.5, which, although I've heard it's ideal for Cardinal Tetras, caused their colors to fade somewhat: a faded Cardinal Tetra is like a 20-watt O.R. bulb...what's the point?

I've brought the pH back down to just over 5, which -- voila! -- has caused them to appear a little more bright. I worry about pH shock, since the changes in digits is logarithmic, like Richter-scale results. Six-point-five is an order of magnitude more alkaline than 5.0. Now that I've seen them thrive in 5.0, I think that's where I'm going to keep it.

I also rearranged the substrate and faux-plants as part of a gravel vacuuming. The substrate now has a slight incline toward the back of the tank, which creates the illusion of greater depth of field. And the plants are now positioned so that wherever Les Six (or is that Les Quatre, now that Durey and Tailleferre are [sniff] dead) and the Justice League swim, you can clearly see them.

Best news is that my GH, which was a ghastly, Tetra-terminating 13, is now holding steady at 8. That's harder than ideal, but it's close enough to Tetra comfort levels that I don't have to worry about anybody dropping dead.

I'm happy, happy, happy. Not only has Jon mysteriously returned, but the water change I did yesterday has cleared up the mineral foginess. The fishies clearly enjoy the change: they're livelier and more curious than they've been over the last couple of days.

I also put in the brighter bulbs that originally came with the tank. They do a better job of emulating daylight and bringing out the Tetras' neon qualities.

I misplaced 2 Cardinal Tetras (see below), but Diana has magically reappeared. I had to use a flash light in the tank to flush her out (although I'm not sure from where I flushed her). Now, only Jon is missing. Clearly, I'm going to have to re-landscape the tank, down the road, after the tank is really well established.

As soon as I've found the Martian Manhunter, I'll let you know.

I'm verklempt, simply verklempt. As a result of the catastrophic GH in my tank, I lost one of my Neon Tetras. This time, it was Tailleferre. You'll remember that Durey died in the transport bag within an hour of my floating it in the tank. That's two males down. The two females and remaining two males seem to be doing ok, but I have the sneaking suspicion that Milhaud or Auric -- if my chemistry problems persist -- may succumb.

The tank is highly unstable, right now, for a variety of reasons: It's not yet four weeks old; it now supports livestock; pH -- while under control -- still requires tweaking; my emergency water changes to minimize the damage from the Petco rock create pH and temperature changes; none of the fish has had more than 72 hours to adjust.

Stress city. On the upside, I've added 6 Cardinal Tetras: Diana, Bruce, Clark, Barry, Hal, and Jon, the secret-identity names of Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter, core members of the Justice League. Hopefully, they won't be as vulnerable as Les Six, but I don't know. I'm still learning, but I'm not much enjoying learning at the cost of little fishy lives.

And get this. I bought 6 Neon Tetras, right? And then I bought 6 Cardinal Tetras, right? I lost two of the Neons -- Durey and Tailleferre -- right? That should mean there are 10 fish in the tank, right? Four Neons and 6 Cardinals, right?

Wrong.

I now have 8 fish in my tank. Can someone either help me with my math or shoot me in the head. Is this what new-tank ownership is all about?

This morning, I tested the GH of my tank and it was 13. Thirteen! That's horrid, particularly when it's 4 coming out of the tap.

Emergency measures ensued. I removed the two rocks I had bought from Petco, put them in a plastic bag and raced off to Nippon Goldfish. I asked the chemistry geeks upstairs what they thought. One rock, apparently made of lava, they approved. The other rock -- much to my horror -- is not only porous, but made for marine aquariums. In other words, not for freshwater tanks.

I told one of the guys that when I poured in acid buffer into the tank the porous rock foamed like an alka-seltzer tablet. They looked at each other and told me to throw it away.

I came home (with a new, freshwater-safe rock) and did an immediate water change with conditioned water. I'm going to have to do water changes for two or three days in a row to remove all the awful minerals from that satanic Petco rock.

Below, I asked "Do people name their fish?" Apparently, they do. Whoa.

I've spent some time looking at online photos of quite advanced aquaria. Many of them are beautiful, some of them even border on otherworldly. My humble little tank can't compete with some of these, but they give me something to aspire to...one day.

Seachem, maker of tank products, specifically acid and alkaline buffers, has galleries of impressive planted and reef tanks.

Well, Durey died. He died in the plastic bag, before he even got to experience his new paradise. The remaining five members of Les Six seem to be OK. They hid out in the front right corner for about 45 minutes. When I fed them, they started exploring the tank and are now wandering freely. There appears to be a bully and a bullee in the mix. Typically, the bullee is the smallest and the bully is the biggest. Feeding time brough out their mild aggression. Hopefully, it stays mild. I don't want to have to fillet one of my new kids.

Oh! They've just discovered that they can swim through the arch-like holes in the two big rocks at the bottom of the tank.

I just got back from Nippon Goldfish with my new fishies, Auric, Durey, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc, and Tailleferre. They right small chaps, and have this massive aquarium all to themselves...for now.

I also bought more acid buffer since I appear to have successfully gotten my tank pH down to 6.5. Maintaining that acidity is another matter, but one thing at a time, eh?

The boys will start with a diet consisting of either Tetramin Pro tropical crisps or Hikari Tropical Micro Pellets, which the adorable staff guy recommended for Tetras. It's apparently good stuff. We'll see what Les Six think. Eventually, I'll treat them to freeze-dried bloodworms and insect larvae.

Stay tuned for more posts and photos as Les Six get adjusted to their new home.