My last Cory died last weekend. We were away in Vancouver and when I got home it was floating belly up amongst the weeds. Bummer.

I still have 2 Danio’s, a Guppy, and a Platy. After we move I will likely get a couple more Cory’s.

Unfortunately the snails are still exploding. Tonight I counted 18 snails moving around the tank. Yikes. I might have to look into the Firemouths.

One of my Cory’s died recently. I was bummed since they had been around for quite a while, and I thought they were happy and well fed. Not sure what happened.

In general the tank is doing very well. I haven’t made any changes in a while, but I think the last plant I bought came with some travellers. I am having a bit of a snail explosion right now. The other day I counted 10 different snails, some tiny (approx 2mm wide), and a couple quite large (1-2 cm long).

I like snails, but I can’t say I like them proliferating on their own. Not sure what to do about a snail explosion.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t posted about my snail. Well, it was a good run for that snail, but he died not too long ago. It was quite odd since one day it was zipping around the tank eating algae, and the next it was floating.

Ever seen a floating snail? It is a sight to behold. I glanced at the tank, and I saw something weird, and when I got close I realized it was my snail. A gas bubble had formed in its body causing buoyancy. It then got caught in an eddy and followed a circular track through part of the tank.

The up side is that just the other day I discovered a new snail in the tank. A tiny, tiny little black snail was cruising up the glass. I have no idea where it came from, but Sox’s theory is that it arrived with some of the plants I bought recently. That is certainly plausible.

I also got a PetSmart gift card as a prize for a work contest. I think I will use it to get a new fish, and another snail. I am also going to look into a better filtration system, though I think that aquariums the size of mine don’t have real filtration systems, just something to keep big chunks out of the water.

The aquarium is complete. On the weekend I got 2 new fish, a couple of Leopard Danios. They are very neat fish to watch. A basic silver fish, with very large fins. What is cool about the way they swim is that while they coast through the water the fins collapse so the fish look very sleek. When they flick their fins to get moving the fins seem to grow. These fish are very interesting to watch.

My tank now consists of 1 Tequila Sunrise Guppy, 1 Neon Tetra, 3 Leopard Danios, 2 Orange Platys, and 1 Yellow Apple Snail. I also have a couple live plants in the water, and occasionally I give the animals some fresh food, usually Zucchini.

One of the side effect of getting a snail for the aquarium is that I have to feed it fresh vegetables. The lady at Petsmart told me that they really like zucchini. I scoffed at that, but followed her advice.

What I learned is that the fish love the zucchini, and I have seen the snail on it once in the past week. Who knew?