Today was the big day -- a day earlier than expected, actually.

This morning I removed 28 gallons of water from the main aquarium, so that
only about three inches of water remained in the tank. It was my hope that
by doing this, I wouldn't have to remove all of the rocks -- and thus mess
up my nicely-organized caves and tunnels -- in order to catch my holding female. So after removing the water, I waited for about an hour for the
males to chase her out into the open where I could easily catch her...and I waited.

In the mean time, Junior was cruising around in three inches of water as if
the adult fish weren't even there, and as if he didn't have a care in the world. Surprisingly, even though some of them surely saw him, they didn't
make any attempt to make him their morning snack. Neverthless, with each passing day, I have worried that after making it this far -- just over one month now -- he would one day meet his unexpected doom, and leave me bummed out. So, when an opportunity presented itself, I quickly snatched up Junior, and placed him in one of the twenty-gallon tanks that I had previously
prepared for this occasion.

Having done that, I returned to the main task of waiting for the males to
chase out my female so that I could catch her. I tried to get her a few
times, but failed, which only stressed her out even more. Finally, after realizing the futility of the situation, I broke down and removed about half
of the rocks. I had built up the sand in certain places in order to limit
her mobility, so that when I finally removed the large rock where she had
been hiding, she was an easy catch. I quickly placed her in the second twenty-gallon tank which I had prepared previously.

In all, I probably changed about 32 gallons of water in the main tank, which was easily about 90% of the total water volume. Being as I had removed so
many rocks from the main aquarium, I ended up redesigning the tank again, although all of the base rocks are still in the same place.

In addition, I also changed about 60% of the water that is in each of the twenty-gallon tanks. I also changed the filter pads on the twenty-gallon
tanks as well. It is now late night, and the water has pretty much cleared
up in all three tanks.

Once my female releases her fry -- which will probably be in about another
week -- I will be placing her in the same tank as Junior. Considering her
small size, and the fact that Junior is now about an inch in length, I
believe that it will probably be okay to keep them together in the same tank while she recuperates. This way the new fry will have a tank all to
themselves. I am confident that there will be more survivors with this
second batch of fry.




Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Your Download Center 4 Mac BBS Software & Christian Files. We Use Hermes II


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