Oh gawd .. I'm getting really rather fond of my sucky-fish

[Twiglett]

he swims up to me when I swivel the gravel

he keeps trying to knock the air bubble Spongebob thing over by tunnelling under it

he wiggles up the glass and slips off then goes and hides behind a plant in a sort of mortified way

he a funny fish .. I'm really rather enamoured

If you will I will.

So, let me get this right. This sucky-fish (Gary for short) goes up and down the tank and then hides and Pixel worries he may be dead or something

I'm going to bed after I've checked you've still ignored me on my "I'm being bullied at work by a raving menopausal maniac" thread. Cheers mate for the support.

Well I keep trying to ring you, but your phone's knackered!! I did support, in rl. I rang you at 9.45 on the first morning back at work.

I still recall with some considerable sadness the passing of Ugly. He worked so hard at keeping the tank clean.

So farewell then Ugly
You ate the crap
We are eternally grateful.

it is a plec in that pic linked.
I've got one, mine is about 16 inches long, they do grow bloody big. I have no idea f they are suppsoed to lvie with goldfish, I've got a tropical tank.

by the way they are very difficult to kill, so your sucky fish should be around for a long while.

Our fish is actually a sucking loach if you want to know what you ask for in the shop. And yes, he does worry me when he hides because we've had a lot of unexplained fishy deaths and lots of corpses found sucked up against the filter . Whatever the problem was seems to have sorted itself out though and current fish have been ok for ages so I might risk getting some more soon.

Gary is Spongebob's pet snail. I know this due to ds's current obsession with all things Bikini Bottom related.

Oops, that's Spongebob's home, ds isn't some kind of junior peeping tom .

am thinking sucky-fish might be a loach now

Awww are they all ok then Twig?

Plecs are fab fish.

they are all very healthy

I'm changing 10 - 15% water most days and 50% every 5 days or so .. how long do you think till its cycled if I'm doing that? Is there a test I can use?

don't get too attached

oh cripes! A loach!

A mnetter told me all aboiut her loach once and t'was grim. Cannot remember who

Hey, who doesn't have lots of unexplained fishy deaths, pix

I love the fish threads

twig if you go to the pet shop you can get water testing kits, or if you take a sample in they sometimes will test for you, if you want to add new fish.

oh yes we've had some deaths too - our neon tetras. but something to do with bacteria/algi bloom which made the water very merky and dh invested in some fancy UV thing that miraculously cleared the water within 24 hours - fab. (well so I'm told anyway lol).

twig the tank will take about 6 weeks to be fully mature, you need to buy test kits for amonia, nitrite and nitrate. Once the amonia level starts falling the nitrite level will be very high, as the bi-product of the amonia eating bacteria is nitrite. the nitrite level will take about twice as long to drop as the amonia level as the nitrite eating bacteria growth is much slower apparently. once the nitrite level drops you need to keep an eye on the nitrate level as anything above .. 40 I think it is is bad and can be harmful to the fish.

What kind of fish do you have?

My mum used to own a "sucky-fish" and he too grew very big. They passed him onto a pet shop in the end as he outgrew their tank. She called him "Gary" as well after Gary Glitter D'ya wanna be in my gang?" Cos he was the biggest bossiest fish in the tank.

And I love my fish tank too Twiglett so know where you are coming from. They are fun!

I told her it was a bloody loach

My friend has one called Mr Plecostomus.
I really want an aquarium.
She also has mollies which she says are pretty much constantly pregnant and bear live young
And are cheap and replaceable

We love our sucky-fish too. He is called sluggy and is about 15cm long

Our first sucky fish was a sailfin plec - we inherited it with the tank - when he was about 4ins long - and 18 months later he had to go cos he as about a foot long and way to big for the tank. We were really sad to see him go - we called him Rod - after Rod Stewart cos he looked like he was clad in leopardskin.....but we still visit him in the display tank at the local fish shop.
Rod was like this

Twiglett - if it is a sucking loach rather than a plec type then this is the sort of thing that happened to one of our fish (see other fish thread) - done by what I have now remembered is called a Golden sucking loach.
loach damage

My favourite atm is our Butterly loaches (also called Chinese Hillstream loach) - they are very cute. About an inch long and very delicate patterns - they eat the algea off just about everything too. Generally sold as coldwater fish, but are doing fine in our tropical tanks.

i had a plec called Oscar. I cried when he died