And not a day too soon! The nitrifying bacteria has been in the tank for a few days now – so we’ve been waiting for the fish to start the whole system going. Our fish arrived today by courier, in a Styrofoam box, having shipped out 24 hours ago. As we requested from the good folks at livefish.com.au we received 11 silver perch, and they threw in some Thin Val (a type of long growing water plant) and a bit of fish food for free!
Opening up the box they came in tentatively I was very happy to find that the fish were all alive and exceptionally healthy. Can I just say that I’m not really a fish person but these little baby perch, only 40 mm long, are quite personable, exciting little things. They zip around like darts of silver - cool little beasties!
Then we laid the bag, still tied, in our tank. We noticed that the fish had traveled from Bundaberg, famous for its sugar cane and rum production, which is much further north than where we live (and therefore much warmer!). By placing the bag of fish in the tank we allowed the water in the bag to slowly match the tank water temperature.
After a while, we opened the bag and poured in a cup of tank water. We did this every ten or fifteen minutes, acclimating the fish to the water of their soon to be new home. Pretty standard aquarium maintenance stuff.
Meanwhile we created a little house for them to hide in. Joel Malcolm has wide-diameter pipes in his fresh water tanks for his fish to hide in – we used a big unused half pot plant and threaded some Thin Val through its drainage holes.
After about an hour, we released the fish into their new tank. Naturally, they swam straight to the darkest bits and tried to hide from the monsters who were ogling them from above. As evening wore on they seemed to loosen up and they darted up to the surface to check out the new neighborhood. All the environmental features were studied closely by the new fishies – the three streams of water flowing in from the grow bed, the pump, the hose and the new place to hide. Some adventurous fish even tried to nibble random things on the surface. We figured that was a good sign – hungry fish have more on their minds than dying, which is what we really don’t want.
Since the arrival of the fish (all named “Steve” after my eldest brother) we must have looked at them about ten times! Go fishies go!