I Saved Christmas!

Well, no, actually I didn't. But I did save my fishtank from being dismantled, which was about to be my last ditch recourse to solve my water chemistry problem. I was all set to net out my one remaining tetra (we'll call him "Mr. T") and the catfish, put them in a holding tank, and take the whole thing to bits, when lo and behold--the lord spoke to me. He spoke, and he said, "Try checking your CO2 levels. Dumbass."

I won't bore you all with the details, as Jane's the only other aquarist I know and we already comiserated on this topic. (We're each other's fish confidants--strictly monoichthyous, of course.) But the upshot is, ripped out half my plants, and *gasp* added some new fish to try to raise the CO2. Mr. T was stunned to have company, after all these months; but the two new serpae tetras are now totally his groupies, they're following him deferentially around the tank and apologising for living, and occasionally he'll smack up one of them to remind them who's in charge. I added 4 miscellaneous danios as well... but when I got back from dinner, one of them was missing. He turned up in the filter box; I gave him FPR (fishiopulmonary recessutation) and he came back for a bit, but I think he's really checked out for good now. Sigh. Stupid danios. I've never had any fish go up the filter but them, and it's happened twice now. Anyway, we'll see if I've really saved Christmas or not. I ordered the parts to put together a CO2 generator from a science supply company, which turned out on examination to also be a supplier of creationist science materials for homeschoolers. I'm really hoping they don't share their mailing list--I'm happy to buy some 30¢ rubber stoppers from them, they shipped fast and get aces for customer service so far. But I'd just as soon not get emails advertising books with titles like "Fossils: Fact or Fiction?" or quality dinosaur books such as this one, which came highly recommended on their website....