tetras

Characins - the famous neon, lesser known green, and South-African glowlight tetras. In a shoal, in my planted tank.

After weeks of waiting for the tank to mature, getting the nitrogen cycle established, landscaping the tank and finding out the right voltage of fluorescent bulb to use for plants to flourish, mastering the technique of conditioning pipe water, regular water changes by percentage, acclimatizing each and every scaly swimmer gradually and feeding them with diversified food types such as krill, brine shrimp, tubifex worms and the regular flakes, it almost felt like we would be housemates for a quite some time.

These mid-tank swimmers were a real delight to watch. Together with a couple of ghost shrimps, a flying fox, an otocinclus and another unidentified green algae eater, they were a hobby realized.

Then came the cardinals, bloodshot red with a fluorescent blue band across its entire body. Irresistible additions which were also the costliest; these less than an inch characins not only cost a meal each, they ushered the rest of the community of tetras to the place where all my past fishes had swam its last.

White spot disease. Fatal, deadly, unsightly. Medication did not help although it prolonged the last survivor’s battle for a week. They appear and disappear on the fish at various spots, but is never really gone until its host finds its way sucked under the filtration system, lifeless and emptied of its former glory.

For barely half a year, these tetras have been swimming in a shoal and in my planted tank. Seen above, in a shoal, in my planted tank and in my memory too.