So, apparently in a past life or my drunken college days I've offended the king of all monos. Monodactylus Argenteus that is.

Anyway. I've had three runs of them now, and someone somewhere has decided I'm not allowed to keep them.

First batch, I was trying to bring the ph back down since the source I got them from had them in a lower ph but my salty mix cranked the ph up to a little over 8. I figured it was my fault since it was the first time I've ever messed with chemicals to monkey with the ph. Okay, lesson learned, don't mess with the ph.

Round two, was acquired further down the road. I got a bigger tank for them, an at the same time, I got two brackish moray eels to keep with them. Fun! The monos should have been big enough that the morays would only eat their guppies and little bits of shrimp. Guess what the morays did? Anyone? One of the cooler but absolutely annoying things I've watched here was one of the morays popping out of it's hidey hole, grabbing one of the monos by the face, and yanking it back into it's hidey hole.

Palms were applied to foreheads, and my friend who got me the monos got me some more, since he also was sure that the monos and morays would behave together. So, the monos were set up in their own tank, alone. Well, oke there were a few plants, but still, plants won't eat monos. That brings us to this weekend, when yet again, epic mono fail.

My office is the first in the loop for the air conditioning system, so it's chilly. I like it, the tanks get heaters and everyone is happy. At some point, after thursday afternoon, (I know it was thursday since I got some java moss and tied it to a rock and put it in the tank) the tank heater failed. Friday, everyone was good. I fed them they were acting normal. Saturday I normally don't feed them anyway, and we had a bunch of things going on so I don't even remember looking at the tank.

Today I went to feed them, looked in at the tank and saw death. Lots of death. Many profanities came forth, and I started cleaning up and trying to figure out what had happened. The what had happened took about 6 seconds to figure out. I stuck my hand in the tank to get one of the bodies out and the water was cold. Not just cold, but a wow that's cold, sort of cold. The sticker thermometer wasn't registering at all, so I stuck in a temp probe and the water was wavering between 64 and 65 degrees. My books all say they should be kept around 75 for the low end, so now I know what happens at 65.

I really like the monos, but it's getting to the point where I'm beginning to think I'm jinxed keeping them.

Sorry to hear that Saint!

Bad things happen in threes so you should be fine the fourth time around

Heh. I'ma hold you to that D.

Seriously though, I may end up trying them again at some point, but ugh. I'm not sure why it's always them. I've got other brackish fish doing just fine, so I don't know if I want to get more and have them end up dead too.

i know how you feel, im the same kind of fail with angelfish...still sucks though, sorry

Well, seems the last time cant really be traced back to you....Mechanical failure is a bitch and non-working or failing heaters are beyond your control. Although most of my tanks have two heaters to prevent one failing and everything dying, I do have tanks with only one heater. Anyway sorry to hear about your loss and sorry to hear about your bad luck with them fishy's.