# Not a great way to come home



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Came home from Markham today, later than usual, thanks to the weather and a few stops I had to make, and I could hear, as I opened the door, a loud buzzing noise. The sort of sound a dry filter makes. And it smelled very, um, wet.

Found my 5G shrimp tank had leaked.. roughly 4 G of water has soaked into the floor and carpet. From the look of things it must have started this morning, perhaps soon after I left. Cause that tank was full when I left ! 

Now, the floor has been coming up for ages, as this place is very old and the glue had long since worn out. So the fact a few more parquet tiles came up is not a big deal. And I was going to toss the carpet anyway, seriously. It's more than 25 years old and it's junk.

But my place smells of damp, all the Amano and Snowball shrimp appear to have died, though I hope some few snails may still be alive. The water was about an inch deep, so the substrate was still very wet. The scuds are probably still alive. Plants all shriveled, don't know if any of them will come back. I hope I can salvage some of the Azolla. It's the only tank I had it in..

Tank is cracked from one side to the other across the bottom, more or less in the middle. I've taken 90% of the contents out and put it in a big dish pan for now.. the tank is tilted onto it's long side to let some water remain in case I missed something living.

Tank was certainly very old. It was a gift, which I resealed when it proved to have a leak at the very top corner, but it's been in service now for over 8 months, I think. Been on the same stool all that time. No idea what could have provoked the crack, but clearly, something gave way and as this is the old style metal framed type, I don't think I will be fixing it. Too much work. 

I only just finished putting all the Snowballs in there 3 weeks ago. sigh... this is so discouraging. 

I am too tired to clean up more tonight.. I've folded back the rug and got a fan running on the area, to help dry things out, and I guess nobody downstairs noticed.. at least, I pray nobody downstairs noticed.. I think the rug soaked most of it up as well as the wood from the parquet and it was a slowish leak, certainly when it started I think it must have been painfully slow. Guess I'm grateful for that. I wonder if that filter will ever work again, must have been running on empty for hours. The noise was quite loud. Cheap filter, so not a huge loss if it's cooked.

What truly bums me out, aside from losing the new Snowballs I just put in that I got from Tommy, I also had just put in some new Amanos, that I was hoping to try breeding. I have all the bits and pieces I need for the brackish tank now, so I was hoping to get it going before Spring. 

Oh well, at least it wasn't a 30 that cracked.. be grateful for the blessings life brings you, right ?


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## Jiinx (Apr 5, 2012)

aw, Karen what a string of bad luck you've been having. I'm sorry you came home to a watery mess being tired, I'm sure, already from the long day.

Wish there was something more that I could do. I hope your plants survive.

big hugs. 
sarah


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

Sorry to hear that, Karen. Hope the damage is controlled. I can give you a few snowballs next time we meet, stock is low now but should have some in a few weeks.


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## Scotmando (Jul 10, 2011)

Sorry to hear Karen. 

I have more Azolla if you need


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Karen I have a Fluval Chai that I am shutting down. If you want it its yours!
It is complete with the filter thingy on the top. I was using it for my Tiger shrimps but they will be going away on the weekend, so I can clean it out for you.


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## Egonsgirl (Feb 28, 2012)

Sorry to hear......


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

You guys are all so nice... consider yourselves hugged ! It is pretty depressing, but truly, things could have been worse. 

If you are sure about the Fluval, Anna, that would be amazing... and I appreciate the offer of Snowballs, Randy, very, very much, and the Azolla too, Scott.

But no worries over time. There may be a few scuds and maybe MTS in the tank remains, and I suppose it's remotely possible one or two shrimp survived, but I could not bring myself to look at it today. Too tired, too bummed. I sat and hugged my cats instead and listened to the fan blowing the carpet dry for awhile before I dozed off. I needed some rest, so that was ok. 

No damp odour today, so probably there will be no mould problems. Thank any deity around, considering how severe my mould allergy is.

Be a bit of time before I have the substrate cleaned and sifted of anything that survived, salvage any plants that can be salvaged, before another tank goes up. I'm a gonna' just shovel all the popped up parquet tiles - go with the bare concrete look. Put a mat under each tank location to soak up wayward spills, and slice off the piece of carpet that got soaked.

For now, it is starting to dry up. That is mostly thanks to the ruinous heat here, but I shudder to think what the rug might start to smell like on a humid day come warmer weather :-( - having been soaked with tank water. It was by far the cleanest tank I had, for some reason it always was sparkling clear and clean, but let's face it, tank water does not smell good after it's had a chance to, what's a good word for it... maybe, season ? Yeah, season, eau de tank water well seasoned in old carpet.. not going to be good. So I'll try and slice off the worst carpet and undlerlay bits and dispose of them as I go. 

One good thing, I have not heard a peep from management, so I am hopeful the water all stayed right here and none got downstairs - a significant mercy.

Think I'd best check my insurance coverage, in case aquariums require a rider. New tanks have warranties but old ones do not. I hadn't really thought of it before, but if one of the newly renovated units ended up with water damage they could put at my door, so to speak, even though there was no negligence on my part, I'm sure they'd use it against me

I don't think sudden breakage, on the unviewable bottom glass pane such as this can be called negligence, can it ? To the usual glance that morning, all was as it should be, no sign of leaks before I left. If I had been here maybe I'd have heard the glass crack, but maybe not. No one can be home 24/7. Last time I did a WC there was no sign of any issue of any kind, and while topping up needs have been somewhat extreme, same has been true of every tank here with the heat and fans running. So I don't see that there was any way I could have reasonably foreseen a problem like this.

Anybody else had insurance issues with tank leaks ? No warranty involved with a tank this old, but for damages to other units in a highrise rental or condo ? This landlord has gutted most of this building and I know that the day I do move out, they will gut this unit down to the bare concrete, so those wood floor tiles were slated for demo anyway. Though it's sometimes hard to think positive, I do think I got kind of lucky this time, though I'm sure the 40 odd shrimp that were in there might disagree. 

Poor little shrimpies. But thanks again for the kind words.. much appreciated.

If anybody out there knows of a clean two bedroom apt with no stairs to enter that's $950 or less. I'm looking. Don't want to move.. worst self inflicted hell is moving, but I am not sure how much more of the landlord crap I can take before it literally makes me ill. Always waiting for the next shoe to drop. Like my current area in Mississauga quite a lot but I'm open to suggestions too. 

A thought.. any shrimp or fish tank crazies out there wanna share a house ? No ? Didn't think so. Oh well, just a thought. Would have to like cats too of course - for some reason I must have feline companionship. Shrimp and fish are great but they don't purr and they don't cuddle worth a d**m.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Karen go on Kijiji and look for apartments in Miss...you can list what the price you want and one or two bedroom and it will scan for them. My daughter lived in Port Credit and I always liked that area too...Im a Clarkson gal myself 

There are some half decent apartments along the Lakeshore rd there, and often bottom ones are harder to rent so you could luck out there.

Don't give up on the shrimps....I have lowered water in tanks to barely above the substrate/gravel and even emptied them of water, except for maybe a tablespoon still in the bottom, and would you believe it...SHRIMPS, still living in whatever amount of wet soil they can get to, so don't give up I bet there are a few still in there.

No problem about the fluval chai, I have to still clean it out yet.

I also had a flood in my rental apt/condo here last Oct. If you remember it was the night before Octoberfish and that was when my washer decided to turn itself on and overfill. Water seeped downstairs thru the light fixture....YIKES. Good job my Super likes me...he's a Scot too and loves my baked goodies LOL. As it was NOT our fault, but the darn stupid/cheap washer the landlord uses they just came and fixed it.

It took 8 hours of using one of those SHAMWAH cloths and every towel in my cupboard to mop up the water that seeped out over my bathroom, laundry room, hallway, kitchen and dining room, and all this the night before the Show/Auction. I was soooo tired I almost fell asleep between Scot and Tony (was totally whacked out, probably bid on something I didn't even know I wanted) LOL.

We are required to have apartment insurance of $1,000,000 (yes can you imagine that?) but I don't mind paying the premium, because if ever that 120 gallon broke/leaked it would be a nightmare....eeek~

Once the carpet is dry, rub one of those Fabreeze sheets over it, that should help remove any stale odour.....course you cats will probably roll on that area forever LOL.


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## prolific8 (Jan 10, 2013)

Will swing by this weekend to drop off some clipping and snails for you Karen, one thought popped into my head though. I wouldn't use the same stool/stand that was under your tank for the new tank. A stress crack on the bottom can often be caused by uneven support.

I am impressed by everyone on the forum, so generous when a friend has a tough go. Kudos


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## randy (Jan 29, 2012)

I have about 10 tanks in my finished basement, I was concerned about the humidity they would create and mold issue but for some reason my basement is very dry. Last November/December time, I went downstairs and found my 40G was only about 2/3 full?! It was a used one when I got it and fishroom condition. I was looking around the tank for leakage but there was none. Then I found out why. I lined a piece of filter moss on top of the media in the Fluval slim HOB. And somehow that piece flipped upward and complete block the opening where water comes out. So the water level went up in the HOB and overflowed from the side.....

So, about 10G of water on the basement floor (carpeted). There isn't much room on the side or behind the tank. So I didn't know what to do. I wiped dry the powerbar that got soaked (right under the HOB) and the tank rack. That's about it. The carpet was all soaked in water in an area about 3'x5'. A day later, I did the only thing I could, put a fan to dry the carpet, and a few days later the carpet was completely dry and no smell. In fact, my wife didn't even know that happened. 

I feel for this kind of things. Luckily, I didn't lose any shrimp that time since there was still 2/3 of water in the 40G. For that I was so grateful for the love of Lord.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

I like to think that we can all come together to help out in some way when our hobbyists suffer a major loss of some kind.

If we have extras we don't use/need then its more beneficial to give some to someone else who can utilize it/them.

Isn't that what sharing/caring is.....too little in today's World.


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## Dman (May 1, 2012)

randy said:


> I have about 10 tanks in my finished basement, I was concerned about the humidity they would create and mold issue but for some reason my basement is very dry. Last November/December time, I went downstairs and found my 40G was only about 2/3 full?! It was a used one when I got it and fishroom condition. I was looking around the tank for leakage but there was none. Then I found out why. I lined a piece of filter moss on top of the media in the Fluval slim HOB. And somehow that piece flipped upward and complete block the opening where water comes out. So the water level went up in the HOB and overflowed from the side.....
> 
> So, about 10G of water on the basement floor (carpeted). There isn't much room on the side or behind the tank. So I didn't know what to do. I wiped dry the powerbar that got soaked (right under the HOB) and the tank rack. That's about it. The carpet was all soaked in water in an area about 3'x5'. A day later, I did the only thing I could, put a fan to dry the carpet, and a few days later the carpet was completely dry and no smell. In fact, my wife didn't even know that happened.
> 
> I feel for this kind of things. Luckily, I didn't lose any shrimp that time since there was still 2/3 of water in the 40G. For that I was so grateful for the love of Lord.


I'm glad I'm not the only one with a fish room in my finished basement... I set up my rack n tested how I wanted the tank but where the water came out of the hose from the sump in the back the hose lifted off and drained 15 gal on my floor, I almost cried. I really wish I didn't finish my basement


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## Scotmando (Jul 10, 2011)

Dman said:


> I'm glad I'm not the only one with a fish room in my finished basement... I set up my rack n tested how I wanted the tank but where the water came out of the hose from the sump in the back the hose lifted off and drained 15 gal on my floor, I almost cried. I really wish I didn't finish my basement


That sucks too! Hope you have a ceramic floor downstairs.

I had my toilet overflow this past weekend and go thru the dining room ceiling onto the hardwood floor! The ceiling is ruined. the floor is a little wavy. i thought it would be worse, but I caught it early. Those damn low flush crapper aren't worth a crap! They clog so easy.

If anyone know of a good toilet, I really want to replace this one before it happens again.

What is going on here? Glad I don't live in Bangladesh or New Orleans.

All my aquariums are in the unfinished basement except the 7.9g Fluval EBI on my kitchen counter.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Hah talking about toilets....be glad you weren't on that Carnival Triumph cruise....geezzas....I would be wanting to swim home 

Sorry to get off topic, just thought a little light banter might make things a bit more bearable.


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## CrystalMethShrimp (Apr 27, 2010)

hi Karen,
it's natural to feel depressed and discouraged. Alot of us have been exactly where you are. I promise you the feeling will pass and be replaced with a sense of gratitude and assurance for your new set up.

My breeder tank leaked a few months ago(due to me using a thin particle board as a foundation) and all i could do was watch helplessly as a 30 gal long empty itself.. At the moment i was in shock and mentally exhausted after the clean up. I just wanted to quit the hobby. Thank goodness JT (he builds acrylic tanks) provided me with assured me this wasn't as bad as it seemed and I would get over it. He took care of everything for me (even the repair) and I am still thankful to him for sticking with this hobby and having a shrimp tank that's thriving today.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Looking on the positive side of things, the one good thing about this is that the leaker was not the tank with nearly all my new shrimp in it. Unfortunately, it did have about 10-12 Amanos and around 30 or more Snowballs, and until today I'd completely forgotten it also had six brand new Sunkist orange shrimp in it. 

But I'm not giving up on it by any means. It's just physically very tiring having to deal with this sort of cleanup. I have Fibromyalgia, among a few other problems, and it simply wears me out and makes it harder to get the other stuff that has to be taken care of done too.

But there is some good news along with the bad. In some kind of minor miracle, I have just found two live shrimp, a short time ago. Details farther down.. and I also found several Nerites which I thought were in another tank, not this one. They were mostly buried, so I kind of wonder how well they'll do, but for now they are alive.

Everyone has been so very kind, I truly appreciate it. Yesterday and Friday I was kind of bummed, and also desperately tired, so I kept picking out snails as they appeared on the sides of the dish pan or tank, and sieving the moonsand with my hands repeatedly to try and find anything that might still be alive. But that was all. 

Today I finally got up the energy to start cleaning up the tank and the dish pan I'd dumped the tank remains into. Some plants appear to have made some recovery. A few short grassy things, forget what they are, most of the crypts, mosses and ferns. Lost my beautiful Anubias Hast ???, sorry, the name escapes me. One of the less common ones and kind of expensive. It was on wood up high and thus one of the very first to go dry.. it had become a crispy critter by the time I got home.

But Anna, you were right, I did find two live shrimp, who must have been pretty much buried in the substrate, because I sure did not see any sign of them until a short while ago. I was about to start rinsing the moonsand into a bucket through a sieve, because I'd run my hands through it so many times I was too tired to continue. One time I thought I saw something moving fast, but assumed it was a scud. 

To my great surprise, it turned out there were two of the Sunkist shrimp still alive. BA calls them Orange Bee shrimp. They're not true Bees at all, they have larvae. Sunkist is one common name. Anna knows what they are. But I'd forgotten they were even in this tank, I've only had them a little over a week, and I'd popped them in with the Amanos and Snowballs because they cannot interbreed and I hoped they'd get along. Wonder if Al's has any of the Sunkist shrimp left ?

None of the Snowballs or Amanos made it, unfortunately, but I had six of those Sunkist ones, so they must be seriously super tough to survive in the truly gawd awful conditions they've been in since sometime Thursday. Filthy, smelly water and very little of it, in a dish pan in my bathtub. I figured only snails had lived and was not even looking for shrimp any more. I'm stunned these two made it. 

Quite a few scuds survived, so I'll dump 'em into their own tank to see if I can keep a colony going. Didn't really want them in the shrimp tank, so I guess this is one way to make sure there aren't any.. bit drastic though. I know my loaches like eating scuds, so maybe I'll sell some for fish food.

So it could have been worse. The rug has dried and oddly enough there is no appreciable odour, at least right now. Because the crack was only a hairline type, only water got out and despite all the gunk that's been stirred up in the moonsand since, the water in this tank has always been crystal clear, Still going to chop off the section of rug that got wet though. It's beyond salvaging.

Thanks again for the kind words and support, and if I've not replied to any messages, it's because I was just too tired to look at the laptop. I'll look at them now though.


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## bettaforu (Sep 6, 2009)

Caridina cf Propinqua is what the Sunkist shrimps are....look like orange ghost shrimps...same humpy back. They are very nice shrimps overall, brackish water is needed to hatch them...so if you have a pair and the female gets berried let me know as I have the Mosura Shrimpton food which is specifically for hatching brackish water invertebrates along with baby shrimps. I can give you some.

Amanos are more fragile and as they usually eat algae there was probably not enough food to keep them going, and being bigger they probably got dried out faster. Smaller shrimps can bury into the wet soil and as long as there is any kind of water they will migrate to it and stay there, eating biofilm off the substrate. I found a lot of mine in 2 inchs of dirty water in a bucket where I had put the driftwood from the tank I had emptied....they were in the driftwood and slowly dropped down to what available water had drained out....happily living in the muck.....Shrimps are so adaptable 

Anytime I take out driftwood now I stand it up in a jar with some water in the bottom...eventually any shrimps hiding will end up in the water.


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## prolific8 (Jan 10, 2013)

*Orange Bees*

I saw the "orange bees" at big als mississauga yesterday (had bars like tigers?) and another small blue shrimp they called "blueberry shrimp"(what is this one, the pearl neo or the velvet neo? or another caridina altogether).


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

If I wasn't married already.....

very odd for a small tank to crack, just very bad luck. Im surprised more shrimp didn't make it, they still had water and it wasn't that long. But I am no shrimp expert, barely qualify as a newbie with shrimp.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Well, it turns out there was one Snowball that survived. I was removing the scuds from the bucket that everything was in today, and noticed a tiny white thing moving around. I caught it and it was a very, very tiny Snowball shrimp. I haven't ever seen one close up that small, and I had no idea it was there. However, one of the two Sunkist that survived has now vanished. It was the smaller one, and I don't know what happened to it.. no sign of it in the bucket.

I've been floating the sponge filter in the bucket, and the scuds seem to really like it. Then I dunk it in the scud tank and sort of wipe them off into the water and now have quite a population of scuds, and there are more in the bucket. 

It also appears to have a bunch of planaria, crawling around on the walls of the bucket. They are small, maybe 3/8 inch long, very narrow, and it's difficult to discern a head, but one end does have a vaguely triangular shape. Darkish brown and they move sort of like a snail, gliding along, but they can shorten up into a ball if they want to. 

I'm trying to avoid transferring any of them to the scud tank. I thought planaria were much larger than this, so maybe these are babies or a smaller variety ? I've seen quite large ones in a tank, that were giants compared to these. If they aren't planaria, they might be tiny leeches, I suppose. Either way, don't want them.

So I'm amazed a near newborn Snowball made it.. and sorry that none of the others did, except the one Sunkist one, which is a fair size, I think it must be full grown. Nice colour on it.. quite bright.

Thanks for the offer of the food for brackish babies, Anna. Didn't know there was such a thing. But I really do want to try raising brackish larvae. I would like to get more of the Sunkist and the Amanos. I may just wait awhile on the Snowballs though. 

I got a few more nice Fire Reds that Steve was kind enough to pick up from the East end shrimp meet.. Randy put an extra one in for me, thanks Randy.. they're lovely shrimpies and seem quite content in their new home.

I also got a pile of plants of various kinds from people at the East end Meet, and many thanks for those too. Not too much of what was in the cracked tank survived, other than some of the little crypts, mosses and the ferns. They got quite dry but nearly all of them rehydrated pretty well. None of the floaters made it, one or two short stems of Sunset Hygro, if I'm right on the ID, survived. But I had some purple crypt Nurii I got from Alex and they were on a mound of sorts, and dried out so much I don't think they have a prayer of coming back from what's left of the roots. Sigh.. hopefully I can get more later on.

I can't imagine why the tank cracked. It was on top of an old cutting board, which was on one of those old TV stools that has the handles on each side. The board was necessary because the space between the handles was too short to fit the tank between them, and not quite wide enough to support it safely. The cutting board is now badly warped, but it got soaked, so no wonder. 

Crack goes from one side all the way to the other, in a sort of S curve. There were no significant defects in the bottom glass when I resealed it, and the seals are intact. I guess it will remain a mystery. It might be possible to silicone a patch on top, and use it for a terrarium, but I am not sure I'll bother. It is quite old.. don't think they've made those metal framed tanks in decades now.

But thanks everyone, for your kindness and generosity. So very much appreciated, and I've almost finished rinsing out the moonsand, except for the stuff in the bucket that's full of MTS snails and apparently, either little planaria or little leeches. Once I'm fairly sure I have most of the snails out, and who knows, maybe another baby shrimp will turn up.. then I'll boil the sand and get rid of the creepy crawlies that way and start over with another 5 G tank and a new bottom support of exterior plywood that can't warp.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

A nice evening surprise.. I found the missing Sunkist shrimp, in the 2.5 I put his relative and the baby Snowball into. He must have been stuck in some moss... anyway, I was pleased to see he hadn't disappeared after all.

Because I was looking closely, I also noticed at least one more form of wildlife that's new to me. Super skinny worm looking things, pinky brown, either they thrash in the water column or slide on the glass like an inch worm. About 3/8 inch long.. are they anything to worry over ? Just haven't ever seen one before.

Also noticed there are a lot of something like copepods in there.. and in the breeder box too. Enough I could probably culture them. Nice size for little fish or fry.. I must get a decent magnifying glass so I can ID them properly. But they're some sort of infusoria. 

Because the cracked tank was so low down, I rarely viewed it from the side.. usually from the top. I guess all this wildlife could have been prospering in there for ages and I'd not likely have seen them. Planaria included.. if that's what the other ones I saw are.

Also a few scuds in the little shrimp tank.. I tried hard not to get any of them in there, but they are small and fast.. and likely stuck to the moss. I only put one small bit in there,and I rinsed it first.. but they are clingy things, and I'm sure the shrimp must have got in that way too. 

Oh well, at least I have two of the Sunkist guys again. Hopefully Als still has some, though I didn't get down there today, I'll try for tomorrow.

I have some short video of the wormy guys.. wish the heck I could post it !


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## matti2uude (Jan 10, 2009)

They had lots left when I was there on Monday.


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## xriddler (Feb 16, 2012)

yea there are still sunkist i bought ten today for the fun of it 2 for $3 on sale at BigAl's scarb. The worms are called detritus worms. I have them in my tank now too. The fish love to eat them when i shake them off the glass or off my frogbits.


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## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

Thanks for the ID on the wormy little guys. I'll try netting them for the fish in other tanks. 

Were any of Sunkists at BAs Mississauga ? I sure hate to miss a sale.. even if it was in Scarborough. Mississauga's BA had some last week, guess I'll have to check.

Hey matt, posted a pic of the pencil fish on my ad thread if you want to have a peek.


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