Dory has been doing pretty well. A few days ago I needed to vacuum his gravel and prepared myself to scoop him into his jar. He had other ideas. After trying a few times to catch him, I decided to give up and let him stay in the tank while I cleaned the tank-which involves me on a stepladder with my whole arm in the tank swirling gravel around...you'd think that would be scarier than a jar. He did not care a bit aboutmy arm and even rubbed against me a bit. Too cute.
Unfortunately, I must have been too zealous in my gravel cleaning because I caused a bacteria bloom. This occurs when the good bacteria colonies are dislodged, be it from their substrate/gravel or from the filter media (changing the filter cartridge). The physical symptom of this is white-cloudy water. Unattractive, but it's not too big of a deal and the cloudiness is going away as the bacteria re-settles on the gravel.
I bought another tank. It is a Marina 5.5 gallon acrylic tank, and after checking prices online, I am so glad I bought it here in town. I think I paid $29 for it, and it came with a filter, water conditioner, and some silk plants. The filter worried me a bit, and when I opened it up to clean it prior to installing it I thought that it was quite dirty. I put some of my own bio-filter media in it and set it up. It is a Stingray 5 filter and it is the quietest filter so far. At first I thought it was malfunctioning, but I felt the current with my hand. It's a pretty tank, and I am very pleased with it so far. I am thinking of moving Dumbledore into this tank and getting another fish (or a few) for the 10 gallon.
I just have to figure out how to get him to swim willingly into the transfer jar. If I could teach him to target a floating object I suppose I could float the target into the jar and hope that he would follow. Hmmm that is a good idea.
I will have an update soon.
-Lulu
