got fishes

Brought home the adopted fishes today.

I took as much care as I could with their transport to minimize stress. The prior owner had them in a gallon ziplock. I opened the bag set it in a small cardboard box inside my cooler, clipped the sides up so it would stay open, and put in a generous handful of spirodela polyrhiza floaters from home. So it stayed nice and dark, even temperature no lack of oxygen and maybe the plants helped absorb some ammonia. Once home I floated the bag in the aquarium to equalize temperature, then siphoned out some of the bag water that had waste, and started adding portions of tank water in ten-minute intervals. The fish were pretty calm through this.

There are three serpae tetras aka red minors (one has a missing eye). Two silvery red eye tetras, and two fancy swordtails I think they are hi-fin lyretails. One has a black body with long, flowing orange fins I swear it's like watching a pretty girl with long hair blowing in the wind. The other is red with black fins.

My husband came over to see the fish and he remarked on how the fish stuck with their own kind- the serpaes shoaling together, the silver red-eyes cruising as a pair. Even momentarily in the bucket you can see this (just before I started netting them to put in the tank).

I have the tank covered sides and top to keep dark for the first day- another stress-reducing measure. At first the fish cowered on the bottom. The flow of the filter is pretty strong, so I put plastic baffle on and almost immediately the tetras and the "golden-haired" swordtail started swimming around. The serpae tetras were even sparring a bit, displaying their fins and buffeting each other with sideways tail strokes. I think two are males- I can see white edging starting to show on the anal fins and I read somewhere they develop white edges when mature? I have never been really interested in tetras, but once they were in the tank I am really taken by these. Their color is striking and they look very good among the green hornwort stems.

Blurry image of one swordtail

The red swordfish does not look good. It has a very fat belly and lies on the bottom quivering its pectoral fins. I don't know if it is bloated with food or an egg-bound female. If I loose a fish to shock it will probably be this one. I am going to be testing the water and doing daily partial wc for several days at least- even though I did the fishless cycle to build up as much beneficial bacteria as possible, the fish load is probably too much all at once. Plan is to put the tetras in my largest tank, but I first want to observe them for a week or two and make sure they don't come down with some illness from the stress of moving. Easier to treat them in here if I have to.