Meanwhile, in the 55

I put the large pieces of Mopani wood in the middle around the big Amazon sword and cut off the new plants. I've gotten four baby plants so far from it and there's four more growing on it now. I got a "crispus" plant with crinkly leaves that seems to be doing alright in the tank, though the water may be a bit warm for it. The wood has turned the water a reddish color with tannins; the fish really don't seem to mind.

Two of the tiger barbs and both angelfish had a bad case of fin rot on their tails and a green barb was missing a few scales on his side, so I got some PimaFix and dosed the tank every day for a week, did a water change, then dosed every other day, did a water change, and now I'm dosing every few days. I noticed the healthy barbs had been picking at all the fish with tail rot and figured that they must be what caused it.

I got rid of nine of them. Dumped them all into a bag and took them over to the Aquarium Store. I kept the two with fin rot and the one with the missing scales. I decided I wanted to try a South American river theme and traded the barbs for two more Bolivian rams. The only exceptions to the theme will be the African butterflies, since I didn't pay for them.

I moved my betta into a jar and the green barb into her net so the other fish wouldn't pick at his fleshy nasty. I'll move the betta back into the net once I ditch the rest of the barbs, but that won;t be until they're looking healthy again. She doesn't really seem to mind the jar anyway.

I also got two German Blue rams, both of which are female, from the Aviarium. I went back to get a couple males today, but they only had females left so I got six Von Rio Flame tetras instead. I'll probably check the Aquarium Store sometime for some male GBRs.