tales from a tail community

Baby on the TanKs

2006-01-18T18:09:00.000Z

Hello!!!

I’ve been a busy mother lately & had neglected the blog for a while… Please forgive me! I guess the news is indeed that we have babies!!!
On the 22nd December transferred Rainbow to the “Maternity wing” & when I came back to check on her on the 26th I saw lots of little babies.
On the 5th January I did the same again, only this time I transferred Paty who gave birth to more little things.
I’m posting some (not so good) pix, but hope you enjoy. I have so many little babies now that it’s impossible to count. If anyone wants some new guppies or swardtails leave me a message!

See you soon!

pix at last!

2005-10-30T22:01:00.000Z

Hello all, after disappearing for a while here I am with some nice pix of our little community.
Though I read that it's easy to breed guppies, my pregnant ladies are proving it wrong... there are no signs of delivery yet, but I'm still confident & waiting... who knows, maybe one day!

We're still alive!!!

2005-10-13T17:05:00.000+01:00

Apologies for having disappeared without a note…
I guess not much has been happening lately.
We noticed some changes of behaviour in some fishes which could mean that we have little babies on the way soon.
Tatty was hiding for some time & I thought she was about to pop, but we see no little ones and she’s still as big as 2 days ago!
I need to bring the camera to work again and try taking some more pix soon.

2005-10-03T20:45:00.000+01:00

Hello all,

Apparently the fishes have visitors from Brazil, New Zeeland, UK, USA, France, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Chile and Canada. Welcome to all and thank you for your visits! The fishes are looking well and healthy, each day we see their personality developing and it’s cool to feel I know them well. No signs of delivery yet, but according to my research we must be nearer the time! I haven’t taken pictures for a while, so I thought I’d finish this post with a pix from my personal database.

This is my husband & I on our honeymoon by the way!

Baci,

Ann

Farewell Fishies!!

2005-09-27T09:56:00.000+01:00

Hello

Just a quick note to say all fish are healthy and well!
I am finishing up at the school on Friday so all responsibility will now fall to Andrea to look after the fish!! Good luck honey, you'll be fine!

Thanks for checking the blog everyone, I will still be posting, just not as often.

Bye

Erin

Welcome to Orange George

2005-09-20T21:42:00.000+01:00

Wow, just realised I’ve neglected this blog for a while… We have news & we have good news!
Almost a week ago – I guess – we paid another visit to the pet shop & we got a new algae eater, this time we got the Orange George!
Since then Sushi scared me a little… I think he run out of energy after having chased Tatty, Patty & Batty & getting at least 2 of them pregnant (that’s what we think!!!). He was quiet for a short while last week but he seems to be doing rather well now & he’s even started chasing Batty (the non pregnant one) so maybe we’ll soon have lots of little sword tails swimming around!
Talking about pregnancy, Rainbow & Shannon are doing well. They don’t seem ready to pop just yet but we’re keeping a close eye!
Hey, thank you all for visiting, though stats have dropped we’ve had almost 300 hits in 1 month. I guess this is rather cool for a fish blog!!! I hope the Kiwi guys are still visiting. I hear Erin’s mother has visited, hey mom (sorry, I hope you don’t mind, I don’t know your name), thanks for passing by! By the way, Erin loves the birthday prezzies you sent her!
Shifting subjects means it’s time to go… thank you all again & I hope I’ll be back soon with more exciting news!

Baci,
Ann

Lady's gone...

2005-09-13T22:01:00.000+01:00

Some time since our last post & I’m afraid we haven’t been having good news lately. Yesterday I have decided to quarantine Lady (again) & Batty, the sward tail, as they’re both looking unwell but not showing signs of diseases. I thought that at least they’d have a rest on their own.
They where both doing well, until Lady decided to leave us & go to fish heaven in the middle of the afternoon.
Batty is looking ok, though she’s a little under weigh, but we’ve been feeding her 3 times a day & tomorrow we might go to the fish shop to test the water & get a new algae eater, so we might get some live food to keep her happy!
All the other fishes are looking well & happy. And we hope that Rainbow & Shannon will be popping soon!
I guess that’s it for now. Thank you for visiting always!

Baci,
Ann

the third good bye...

2005-09-08T21:45:00.000+01:00

Hi everybody,

Thank you very much for visiting us. I am afraid we have bad news today. George, Erin’s favourite fish, has gone to fish heaven this afternoon. Erin was very upset this afternoon & so was I. I have a feeling one of the other fishes might have killed him… Erin & I are not bad mothers!!!
I hope that saying that “things happen in three” is true, that means George was the last one to go.
On the other hand I fear the worse… we might have mentioned that Lady was behaving funny from the start… Well today she spent the all day quiet & on her own… Though she does not have the pregnant spot, she was swollen and she might be ready to pop. I have transferred her to the hospital wing and I ask you all to pray for the best. We don’t want to see Lady go just yet.
I will finish this post with some pictures of the little ones.

Pele

Silent Bob

Baci,
Ann

A fighter called Pele...

2005-09-06T12:59:00.000+01:00

The community wouldn’t be complete without the presence of a Siamese Fighter fish, also known as Betta. The King of the aquarium has been named Pele, after the Brazilian King of football… a star, a striker, a fighter!

A grand total of 19 fishes & the community is now complete!
Took some pix today, hoping to upload them tonight at home.

Ciao,
Ann

Another George!

2005-09-06T12:38:00.000+01:00

This is one for the Rialto folk! We have just brought an algae eater and following a long tradition of algae eaters before him, he has been named George!!!

E

Photo shoot

2005-09-03T18:24:00.000+01:00

I must confess that I though it was a weird idea to set up a fish blog, but then it gets more hits then my personal blog! Thank you, my dear readers, for visiting! It seems as I am not as insane as I thought I was!

I realise that the web cam I set up is not working outside work. This is to do with the server firewall but I am looking for a way to have it set up in a different way so soon all readers worldwide will be able to see it.

I am behind on photographing & uploading plus the photos aren’t great, but I am learning about fish photography & maybe one day we’ll have some good shots! I didn’t take the cam to work this week, which means I haven’t got pix of the new fishes, but for today I’ll introduce you to…

Chiara,

Dr Campbell's daughter and a great help on settign up the tank

Me, Andrea (nick: Ann), holding my own diving pix

which is to be used as the tank background

Flame

Batty

Lady

Rainbown (possibly pregnant)

Tommy Gup (in memorium)

Valentino

Shannon (possibly pregnant)

The tank is starting to look cool (I like to think so!!!) and after a long conversation with my cousin who has kept aquariums for maybe longer than 20 years we came to the conclusion that maybe the losses where due to our first supplier and not due to my bad motherhood. He gave me some tips to “what’s next” and he suggested I should get some shrimps as they help the ecosystem. I want the Betta first!!!

That's it for now. Hope you enjoy it & thanks for visiting!

Ann

The See-through Six!

2005-09-01T16:50:00.000+01:00

Webcam is hopefully up and running for you all! We have added more fish over the last 2 days, yesterday we got a new male swordtail to replace Squarepants, he is called Sushi. We also got 2 catfish called Jay and Silent Bob. Today we got 6 albino x-ray tetra's, we were struggling to name them as they all look the same, so they will be know as the See-through Six!

See you!

Erin

live cam

2005-09-01T10:04:00.000+01:00

Hi guys,

Still working on a better sourse of a live cam, but for now I got a free trial on a chat somewhere... well. at least it works!!! ckeck it out if you can!

http://194.80.231.135:8080/

Have a great day!

Cheers,
Ann

Tommy R.I.P

2005-08-31T12:16:00.000+01:00

I am sad to report there is more bad news from the tank, Tommy Gup passed away over night. I had one of those awful moments this morning when you turn the fish tank light on and find a floating fish. I'm not good with dead fish so Andrea fished him out and sent him to his final resting place. He was quite a few people's favourite fish, so he will be missed.

Fingers crossed for no more fatalities!

Erin

Bad news...

2005-08-29T20:45:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

Just got back from a weekend away & on my e-maik inbox there was a message from my colleague explaining that Square Pants didn't make it...

So sorry. We will miss him...

Will try to upload pix of the goopies sometime this week.

Cheers,

Ann

Quarantine

2005-08-26T23:47:00.000+01:00

Hi all,

Thanks again for visiting!
Have not so good news… Our little Square Pants is a bit unwell… Remember I mentioned that he was always a little quiet & scared??? He went trough the stage when he was shy then he was interacting & then he started hiding again, but it got to the point where he wasn’t eating, so today we decided to hospitalize him by placing him on his own on a 9 litre tank. He can’t swim to the top to eat so we gave him live brine shrimp and some medicine. He was looking a lot better at the end of the day, but still not swimming around much. Monday is public holiday in England, but Matthias, a work colleague will be going in over the weekend so he has kindly agreed to look after Square Pants. Matthias will be feeding him brine shrimps & giving him more medicine and we hope he’ll recover by Tuesday!
The other fishes seem well and happy! Patty is bullying a little less and the others are great too!
I have taken a few pictures but I will upload another time, as I am about to fall asleep here & I am going away for the weekend.

New Additions!

2005-08-25T16:27:00.000+01:00

Hello,

Today we added more fish to our little tank! We have one new female sword tail and six new guppies (2 males, 4 females). The guppies are a little hyper-active and very colourful! Lauren, Andrea, Chiara and I went when and picked them up today from the local fish store.

All the new additions have been officially named, the names are:

- Batty, she's the new sword tail (to match Patty and Tatty)

- My fish is called Valentino, he's a very stylish black male guppie!
- The other male is called Tommy Gup (named by Chiara)

The females guppies are:

- Shannon, named by Chiara
- Rainbow, named by Andrea
- Flame, named by Oona
- Lady, named by Lauren

Hopefully they all get along swimmingly well!

Erin :-)

take 2

2005-08-24T22:32:00.000+01:00

Erin presenting the Tank

Meet Taty

(she's got a little orange line on the top of her tail)

Meet Paty (she's got the darker tail)
Meet Square Pants

(not a great photo but it's the best I could get)

Paty chasing Taty

And again

Hope you like my mates! Tomorrow we'll go to the pet shop to get some more little ones.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers,

Andrea

getting to know them...

2005-08-23T21:24:00.000+01:00

I’m surprised to see such a hit on this site! Thank you very much for visiting. I hope you enjoy the site & continue to come here all the time!
Feel free to make comments too, I say that because I know that some of Erin’s friends have been visiting it & sending her comments, which is cool too!
Before I started the tank some people came to me & said “Why fishes? They’re so boring.” Little do they know…
In less then a week I can tell you that the male, Square Pants, is a little bit of a freak. Honestly, he’s always hiding. He’s a cool bloke though & comes to play with the visitors but likes to take it easier then his 2 fellow mates.
As for the ladies… Tatty is a sweet little babe, I adore her but Patty is a bit of a bully. Serious… she likes to keep the aquarium for herself & she wants the others to stay in the bottom of a corner. I've been thinking of re-naming her "Beach". She thinks she’s the star of the Aquarium Show!
I wonder what will be like on Thursday when we’ll have some new little fellows arriving???
I haven’t taken any more pictures yet but will do so soon, maybe tomorrow…
The back screen of the tank you see on the pix of the previous post is a pix I took while scuba diving in the Bahamas last October. I printed it in three A4 sheets & blue tack it in the back, but today I worked on those screens. I have sent the images to the printer and will collect the prints tomorrow & laminate it.
I’ve been thinking (& researching) about setting up a live cam too… anyone knows how to do it let me know so if you feel stressed you can log on to the fish cam & check on our little mates!
I guess that’s all for now, chat soon!

Andrea
X

Tank's 1st Photo

2005-08-19T21:30:00.001+01:00

This morning I woke up with a text message from Erin reminding me to bring my digital camera in, which I did. I forgot to bring the software to download the pix @ work & I also forgot I could've taken a pix of her, but hey, wait till Monday!
For now, Friday Eve & I'm @ home with nothing better to do... missing the fishes already so I thought I'd better publish our very first pix!
Enjoy it & have a nice weekend!

Andrea

2005-08-19T10:27:00.000+01:00

Hello

Its day 2 and all 3 fish have successfully survived the night! The tank is proving to be a big distraction from work!

Erin

and this is how it begins...

2005-08-18T20:26:00.000+01:00

For a long time I wanted a pet & out of a sudden the brilliant idea of keeping a fish tank @ work came to live. I asked H&S, my boss, my colleagues & in a week, more precisely on the 6th of August I had the tank live. My colleagues Erin & Lauren where so keen on it that they decided to get involved in keeping it, so, this morning, we went to the pet shop, got the ok from the water test & we bought 3 new little Red Velvet Sword Tail, 1 male called Square Pant & 2 female, called Tatty & Patty, after 2 friends of mine.

Andrea