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S. Costai or Red Beware the white glass film

Hi Folks,

I figure I would relay a sad tale for everyones benefit.

At my last local club meeting I tripped across a pair of young S. costai,
Red at auction which I purchases at a good price. They were plain gray,
small colorless and stressed out. I had no idea what they would color up to
look like.

In preparation for receiving some new fish I set up three old 5 gal tanks.
They were actually interesting in that they were custom made metal frame
tanks with glass bottoms. The previous owner does not believe in keeping his
fish tanks covered. Instead he keeps all of his tanks about half full. This
caused a great deal of white build up on the sides of the glass from the
midpoint up. I scraped off much of it and washed some more with CLR and or
vinegar then I rebuilt the tanks with silicone.

I set up the tanks and as I noticed that after I got the fish I was
expecting that I would have one extra tank. And as I hate empty tanks I put
the S. Costai in one of the 5 gal tanks after dripping them into my water
very carefully. They appeared to be doing fine. A day later the fish are
gasping at the surface in deep shock. I checked for ammonia and nitrate, no
problem. But the pH was about 8. My tap water is 7.3! The remaining white
scale on the glass had been dissolving while the tanks sat there without
fish and when the ph hit about 8 the fish were shocked. I removed the fish
and put them into my tap water as quickly as possible. I would have dripped
them but time was of the essence. I lost the female and after 2 days the
male, which I have in a shoe box is still stressed out to the max, just
barely hanging in there. Odds are that I will lose him too. The most
regrettable thing is that he colored up for a day and wow what a fish,
velvet black with a red tail. He was something rather special. So to make an
sad story short. Although I lost the S. Costai I have all 3 tanks soaking in
vinegar and CLR and they will hopefully be ready and safe when the new fish
I am expecting get here. They sacrificed their lives for the greater good of
saving a lot more fish which I was going to put into these tanks.

So the moral of the story, if you ever get it into your mind to restore an
old tank, watch out for the water scale, if it dissolves too fast it will
raise the pH and kill your fish. I just learned it the hard way. So better
it happened to me than to you. And as some very fine fish were sacrificed
for this lesson I thought it best to share it.

Now to make matters worse I got to like the S. Costai during the days I had
them! Does anybody have any S. Costai "Red" fish or eggs out there that they
would be willing to sell or trade for? I currently need a female, but I am
reasonably sure that I will soon be needing a pair or trio.


Peace,

~RJ~



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