naladahc | tripping along the golden path

It has been a sad week in Aquarium of Love™.

About 7 days ago I found my pleco dead. He seemed fine the night before but the following afternoon, when I went upstairs to feed the feesh, he was upside down on the bottom and had turned a sickly mottled white.

Now I've got a rampant algae-on-the-glass problem, but the water itself has been crystal clear. Chemically it appeared fine too.

But I figured I'd clean up the algae and since the pleco died, do a real good cleaning of the gravel.

I spent about 90 minutes removing things, scrubbing them up, and really cleaning the waste out of the gravel.

I also removed the filter, scrubbing up the intakes to clean up debris and algae, as well as replacing the filter media.

Of course, the ever elusive Crab II somehow has been actually getting into the filter through the water return and hanging out in there. That explains why I can never find him but then occasionally see him foraging.

Well. I accidentally left the intake tube off and yesterday I noticed a noise from the filter.

Now Six's submersible filter and the Aquarium of Love™ filter make noise every now and then so I didn't pay much attention to it.

Well. Last night I couldn't find the little cory and started looking everywhere. I figured that maybe the shock of a major water change/cleaning did him in and the snail finished him off.

No. That would have been preferable to the fate he actually met.

That sound the filter was making? Yeah. The little cory got sucked up into the intake and was basically killed by the propellor inside the filter. It was really sad having to remove him yesterday.

I really liked the little cory. He had such a better personality than the larger one.

I suppose I should get another cory to pair up with the remaining one. They were always together and no doubt, while I may be anthropormorphizing here, the big one looks a bit lost without the little one.