I Was Almost a Fish Murderer

I guess it's not murder when it's an accident. But what do you call yourself if you're guilty of manfishslaughter? A FishSlaughterer? That doesn't quite roll off the tongue like "murderer."

My aquarium sports 10 fish and 3 snails. The snails are there on purpose, have pretty shells, and eat algae like it's made out of chocolate. They don't make nasty snail-love and populate my tank with thousands of snail babies.



I have one betta,

Named Eric. Eric the Fish.

Seven harlequin rasboras,

Named Eric, Eric, Eric, Eric, Eric, Eric, and Eric.

And two otocinclus catfish.

Named Eric and Eric.

The snails are Bill, Ted, and Francisco.

I keep live plants in my aquarium because I enjoy plants (both terrestrial and aquatic). Once you keep live plants in an aquarium, you'll never be able to go back to using the plastic ones.

My tank is an Asian biotope (with the exception of the oto cats, because I love oto cats and refuse to use any other algae-eating fish), so all of my plants are Asian. And since it's a swamp habitat, they're all swampy plants. A couple of the perks of swampy plants are that a lot of them require low light and virtually no care.

This is my tank.

Starting on the left: in the front are crypts. Behind those (and behind the wood) is the hygro. To the right of the hygro (in the middle of the tank) is the rotala. The grass-lookin' plants on the far right are dwarf hairgrass and have been removed as of my pruning yesterday because they kept getting in my way.

So yeah, yesterday... I pruned the hygro waaaaay back. It's like 2 inches tall now. Don't worry, it will be back to taking over the entire tank in no time. When it gets too big, the rasboras won't swim around the whole tank and cram all into one corner. Eric the betta uses the hygro as a tree fort.

A lot of tanks that have plastic plants will also employ a bubbler, and here's why: when fish breathe, they exhale carbon dioxide, which dissolves into the water. After a while, the CO2 will build up, and then the fish will suffocate and die (imagine yourself in an airtight room). To prevent this death by suffocation, the responsible fish owner will install a bubbler or ensure their filter outflow is high enough to churn the water. This way, there is enough surface agitation, and oxygen is dissolved into the water to offset the CO2. And the fish live and are happy.

In planted tanks, the CO2 that the fish exhale is then inhaled by the plants, which exhale oxygen, which the fish inhale, and so on and so forth. Just like people and trees: we need each other.

Plants don't respire when it's dark, because they need the sun to fuel their respiration. OK, correction: most plants don't respire when it's dark. There are some that do, but these are freaky plants. All you need to know is my plants don't respire when it's dark. If they're not respiring, they're not producing oxygen. This is usually not an issue, because there is enough residual oxygen left over from daytime respiration, and my fish have enough to last the night.

When I pruned back the hygro, I didn't think about the effect that the diminished plant would have on the tank's oxygen levels. I left the tank partially drained overnight (not on purpose; I got interrupted in the middle of refilling the tank and didn't get around to filling it until much, much later). This allowed the filter outflow to cause a lot of surface agitation, which oxygenated the tank overnight, thus supplying my fish with the precious oxygen they so desperately need to carry on life.

My tank's light is on a timer that goes on at 9am and off at 4pm. It went off at 4pm today, and at 6pm I noticed my rasboras crowding the surface, sucking air.

Kinda like this.

I recognized at once what the problem was, and I sprang into action!

Ummm I was looking for a picture of a ninja springing into action, but I found this one of ninja childrens and it was too cute to not post here.

I have an air pump and hose that I keep on hand for just such an emergency. I twiddled the filter outflow to cause more agitation, and I dropped the air hose into the tank. Twenty minutes later, the fish were swimming around, happy as can be, and probably scared of the bubbling air hose.

The oto cats are never phased by anything, and had no reaction to the dangerously low oxygen levels. I think it's because they have the breathing frequency of a Buddhist monk, and spend most of their time in quiet meditation whilst perched on the leaves of my crypts.

Ohm.

The betta is never phased by anything because he's crazy. Also because he's an anabantoid and can breathe air. He's half fish, half ninja, half grizzly bear.

So yeah, the moral of the story is, I almost inadvertently killed my fish. Which would not make me a murderer, but would make me a manslaughterer. Fishslaughterer. Whatever.