Mourning our little Panda Moor and hoping for some answers?

(I've been trying to post this message in the Newbie forum all night without success, so in case I have better luck here, please forgive me if I've not adhered to forum etiquette)

We are all dejected that after about three weeks of positively delighting us with his/her charming cartoon like characteristics and becoming the absolute favourite of our four fish of anyone who visited, sadly we came home yesterday to find our little goggle-eyed Panda Moor floating on the surface. ''

Just when I thought the four fish (6inch Veiltail goldfish, 4inch Black Moor, 1.5inch Fantail, 1,5inch Panda Moor) had settled in their new environment, sod's law bites us on the bum!!

It has been extremely hot here in London this past week, with the water warming up quite a bit, so I was concerned on Saturday when replacing 10 per cent with cooler water?

However one other matter has been troubling us. My missus put some lovely white shells that she collected over the years when we first set-up the tank and in the five weeks since these have all gradually become covered in what I can only describe as a brown speckling which is gradually growing worse, ie. covering more and more of the white shells with thes brown sticky looking spots (algae?)

I wondered what the cause of this was, whether it could be a contributing factor to the sad passing of our favourite little friend and whether I would be best off removing them from the tank

With my utmost thanks in advance (once again) for any light someone might be able to shed on our tragedy and the subject of the brown crap on the shells

Kind regards
Bernard

Thanks for the advice. I believe the oxygen situation is fairly good, as I have a pump with a splitter sending air through an air stone buried in the gravel and to the tube in the corner of the tank with the stone at the bottom (does this attachment have a name as I am always struggling to describe it to the lad at the pet shop). In addition the filter outlet bit is turned upwards and rippling the surface, with plenty of oygen bubbles generated from it.

The pet shop owner says he is also struggling in the heat, losing several fish. Apparently the small Moors are quite susceptible to just "giving up" as he put it (since our large Black Moor appears happy as Larry)

It was just that of all four fish, the little Panda Moor with its cartoon characteristics was everybodies favourite. However since there were no more in the pet shop, against my better judgement (because it would probably be safest waiting until this heatwave is over), I replaced it with the funniest looking 'Pearl Scale'. It looks like tiny goldfish which has been over inflated and has the quirkiest swimming style, so I thought at only 3 quid, it will probably be no worse off in this weather in my tank, than a much more crowded one in the shop

I did my first two thirds water change/gravel clean today, having procrastinated for a few days. I should explain that I inherited the tank when I rescued one of the large goldfish (Veiltail?) before it was dumped in the pond in the park because the owner couldn't take it with them when moving. Judging by the former owner's indifference (the boyfriend had walked over two miles with it in a bowl to put it in the pond because he thought it better than letting the owner flush it!!! - how could she?) , I don't imagine the gravel had been cleaned much previously because when I replaced more like 70 per cent of the water with the gravel cleaning gadget, the tank was murkier than would be expected after only a month.

Obviously it has settled now, but I wondered whether I should do anything more to clean the tank considering that while the water might have been changed frequently, I don't think the gravel has had a clean before (ie. should I do a gravel clean/66 per cent water change more often than every fourth week until it gets somewhat cleaner)

Also would you reccomend getting some sort of algae eating animal for the tank to stop the algae growing on the shells?

Finally, although they all look very content now in a much cooler tank, the four fish seemed to find the gravel cleaning process even more traumatic than me. Despite following the instructions I couldn't get the syphon to start without a good old-fashioned suck on the pipe, which was fine for the first bucket load but after that I wasn't too keen on sticking my gob around a tube full of goldfish ****! ''

Can anyone advise me on the best way to clean the gravel and let the water drop so drastically without stressing the fish too much? Also is there a particular technique to using the little shovel on the end of the hose for gravel cleaning because it seemed as though unless I kept lifting the shovel and letting the gravel in it fall out, the same gravel remained in the shovel all the time?

One other thing I forgot. When refilling the tank, I had filled a couple of buckets full of water to let them stand overnight but this was only about half what was required and the rest I had to get straight from the tap. I added a few drops of the chlorine neutralizer but is there any better way of doing this without having loads of buckets standing overnight. And when refilling the tank I was concerned to try and avoid a heavy stream of water falling directly on the fish, so tried to pour against the side of the tank. However the two bigger fish seemed to be attracted to it and wherever I poured the water, they kept swimming directly under the stream and I was scared of damaging them.

Any advice would be most welcome and I would be extremely grateful for all your good suggestions.

With my apologies for driving you all potty with my pesky queries, I fully appreciate that I should be posting this message in the newbie forum but having not been able to post there originally for some reason, it seemed more sensible to continue here? Please forgive me if I've contravened any rules

Thanks a million
Bernard

Thanks a million. That's the sort of logical advice about using the gravel filter tube that I just wouldn't have thought of until after I'd received a mouthful of completely kack filled fish tank water

Our tank is a Clear Seal (seems to be a common brand in the pet shops here) and I believe it holds about 15 gallons (@30" x 18" x 15"). We started with the large Goldfish we inherited (I think it's a Veiltale @ 6" long including about 2.5" inch of its flowing tale fin), a silvery salmon colour having lost all its gold and then I added a large Black Moor @ 4" in total for company, followed by a small Fantail @ 1.5" and the lovely little Panda Moor also @ 1.5". Since it's sad demise I've added the Pearl Scale which is like one tiny bubble @ 1" in diameter all round!

The advice I received to a post in the other forum I think reccomended 10 gallons per fish, however the four fish hardly look cramped in our tank and compared to how they'd be if they remained in the crowded tanks in the pet shop, they have positively loads of roam!

But I think I will keep it at four fish, despite the temptation every time I stick my head in the pet shop. They currently have this wicked looking fish, which I think is called a Lion's Head but it is about as big as our Black Moor and so as much as I would love to have it, while in my humble opinion I don't think it would be cruel to add smaller fish, it might be a little crowded with another larger one.

My main reason for remaining at four would be that based on the law of averages, the more I have, the more fearful I would be of losing another.

Up until now I didn't think fish (especially tiny ones) had personalities but our new pets have soon set us straight about that. My missus was blubbing so much when she phoned to tell me that she'd just discovered the demise of our dear departed Panda that I was expecting her to announce a death in the family but I guess she was, as we'd become so attached to this little darling (just as had everyone who visited in the three weeks it pleasured us with its company, even those who are completely indifferent to animals - although I don't count too many of these as my true friends!!)

One of the things that bothers me/us most when talking and writing about them is being unable to determine their sex. I haven't been able to discern any bumps behind the anal gland and so we are only able to go one their characters (not the most reliable method), calling them all he and she at various times. It just doesn't feel right referring to our new family friends as "it". For want of a more accurate means, I guess we'd be best of just choosing which sex we felt each was and sticking with it?

Those of you who read my original post in the Newbie forum will already have heard my tale of how we've become fish fanciers by a stroke of fortune and I therefore apologize for repeating my shaggy fish story here, but for the benefit of anyone who might be interested, it is a tale I enjoy telling.

We have a positively ancient cat and for the last year and a half a real handful of a dog (Staff/Neapolitan Mastiff/American Bulldog cross) and the missus and I were taking said animal for its early evening constitutional in the park when we got caught in a massive downpour. More than any dog I've known, Treacle is terrified of loud noises. I was doing my best to hang on to this shivering wreck as she was desperate to get home, while we rather foolishly sheltered under a tree to wait out the worst of this thunderstorm.

We were standing there watching this sopping wet young chap walking towards us, carefully holding out in front of him some sort of bowl, when both at once we saw that there was a fish in his bowl. Neither of us could work out what he was up to, taking his fish for a walk in the rain. I was imagining that perhaps he'd just found it floundering somewhere having jumped out of one of ponds in the park (but then where had the bowl come from).

Curiousity got the better of both of us and we hailed this feller, asking him what he was up to. It turned out that he had just walked about two miles or more, holding a heavy bowl full of water and a lovely looking fish, which to my unknowing eyes was very unusual looking, having lost its gold colour and with these wonderful gossamer like flowing fins. His girlfriend was moving home and being unable to take her pet fish with her, he couldn't bear her option of flushing such a lovely creature down the karsey. So for want of a better plan, he'd decided to walk to a pond in the park where he hoped it might have a better chance of survival.

We stood there with him for a few minutes debating the fish's chances. With there being all sorts of predators in and around the pond and with the fish being used to having his/her grub served up on a plate every day (ok in a bowl ), I didn't think it had a hope of surviving. What's more after he'd walked such a distance (responding to several curious queries with the asinine answer that he was "just taking his fish for a walk"), only for us to stop him a mere few yards from his destination, it seemed too much of a coincidence for me to ignore.

So after a further few minutes of debate, during which I got the standard "well so long as you realize it's your responsibility, as I'm not getting involved in the cleaning, feeding etc" speech from the missus, despite the fact that I knew she would have been no happier than me if we'd walked away, because we would have both ended up sitting up into the wee hours worrying about the poor fish's safety, I decided that I couldn't ignore this fateful meeting and we decided to adopt this fish.

I was asking the feller about what sort of home it required and was grilling him with a few of the many questions I could think of before we parted company, when he explained that they had very nearly completed the load up of all his girlfriends belongings and if I came over immediately I could collect the tank which they'd just piled outside with all the other jumble that wasn't making the trip to her new home.

So having arrived home with two pets instead of the one we'd left with, I jumped in the car and went and collected the tank which to the uninitiated like myself appeared to be the whole kit and caboodle. With light, air pump, plastic plants etc. there was I thinking I had a ready made hobby which would only require feeding once a day to keep happy.

It wasn't until I went to the pet shop the following Monday morning (after feeding Ridley - named after the road they lived in and where he'd walked from - on breadcrumbs for the remainder of the weekend) that I discovered quite what I had let myself in for, having been told the whole cleaning routine and coughing up a small fortune for food, a filter, Ridley's new friend which was a big bug-eyed Black Moor, the most unusual looking fish in the shop, another air stone (+hose and splitter) and a couple of real plants to go with the plastic ones.

The lights had not been on in the one particular tank containing the Black Moor, so it was only when I arrived home and after the required amount of time to acclimatize, released him/her under the lights of our tank, that I fully appreciated the wonderful markings, with the Moor's gold and silver underbelly, it looks like he/she has a fishnet stocking stretched over his/her entire body

Our local pet shop is only around the corner and I must use the road it's on at least four times every day. However having renamed Dig (it doesn't take a brain surgeon to suss that the former keeper was an Aussie) after the road from whence he/she came, as we sat there thinking of names for our new fish, I suddenly had a brainstorm and couldn't recall the name of the road around the corner.

As Rona reminded me, we both looked at each other with amazement due to another weird coincidence, as the name of the road couldn't have been more perfect "Blackstock"

Meanwhile if I haven't bored you all to sleep by now, my babbling is sure doing wonders for my insomnia so having thanked you all once again from the bottom of my fish tank, sorry heart, for taking the trouble to offer me the benefit of your experience in assisting with my bothersome queries, I shall bid you adieu

Until later, TTFN
Bernard

PS. Having previously had little or no interest in our finned friends, I am rapidly becoming an aquarian addict. Where once I was an armchair vegetable in front of the TV, now with the fish tank to my left and the TV to my right, I thought I would never have to watch another commercial break again but instead of which I find my attention drawn towards the tank more often than the gogglebox, becoming mesmerised for hours at a time (and that's nothing to do with the paucity of entertainment on offer on my left from lousy TV programmes, although a new series of Sopranos might perhaps be the only serious challenge !!)