andysworld!

Earlier this evening I was going to post an entry about bad things coming in threes, when only two Fish House issues had occured since Sunday 2nd December, I was going to post, what’s the third, well it happened! So let me wind back to Sunday 2nd December

1. Early evening there was an initial mains power cut of a few minutes (approx 5 mins), too short for me to find a torch, and start-up the generator to power the fish house, after the main outage, the power flickered on and off for a few minutes and then it went off for good. The only problem this time, street lights were on, and the neighbours house lights, so the problem was localised, I found the 32A ring main for the sockets downstairs had tripped, on switching back-on, the main earth breaker tripped! After running around the house, unplugging all sockets, the fault was isolated to the fish house, my concern that the “brownout” had caused some equipment failure!

   At the back of the fish house, I noticed a pool of water, and realised, I’d overfilled one of my tanks, which had back-syphoned into the sump, when the power was off for those few minutes, which had then shorted out a “chocolate block” (terminal block for the layman!) which connects the heater in the sump! This is the only electrical wire on the fish house floor, so if any water gets on the floor, electrics are not affected! You’ll be glad to know, this has now been fixed, no “chocolate block” anymore!

2. Went todo some washing this evening and found water all over the floor again near my water treatment works at the rear of the fish house, started to move everything out, thinking a water pipe/valve/seal had failed, and noticed the water had blood it in! I then noticed that the freezer, I keep my fish food in, hadn’t been turned back on since Sunday 2nd December! The fozen bloodworm was defrosting, and the freezer had already defrosted all over the floor!
3. On Monday 3rd December, I noticed two home bred albino Ancistrus (bristlenose catfish), almost in a trance, not moving, I thought they were dead, in my 6ftx2ftx2ft display tank. They weren’t in a very good state, it was strange because all the Angelfish, Corydoras, L number plecos, Clown Loaches were showing no signs of distress, I fished them out and dropped them in a tank full of algae. 24 hours later, they are fit as a fiddle again, and the algae on the tank has gone, so although I cannot see them, I know they are alive and well. (did spot them this eve!).

   Late this evening, I found another Ancistrus (bristlenose catfish) dead in my display tank, this raised the alarm, to check all the water paramaters, still surprised that no other fish are showing signs of distress. The ammonia in the water, was slightly elevated, slightly higher than I’d like, this could have been caused by the dead fish, or another factor, no time to waste, 50% water change with water at same temperature and chemistry, and I’ve added two large sheets of Polyfilter just as “belt’s and braces”, I’ll re-check ammonia/ph tomorrow evening!

So there we have it, Bad things come in threes! No need to worry about the third!