Fish Survived My Holiday

Left the fish tank, the shrimp tank and the cycling quarantine tank alone for the five days I was away.
We stopped at Kesgrave Aquatics to pick up a couple of amanos, 5 red cherry shrimp and two pygmy corys.
All looked good in the shop, the amanos are huge compared to the two which I already have.

One of the corys is a bit different. They are supposed to both be salt and pepper (corydorus hasbrosus) but one has black eyes and a black tail being silver in the middle.  They are very cute.

I did an immediate water check as soon as we got in, before even unloading the car or trailer tent and was concerned to see a bit of ammonia in both the shrimp only tank and the main 60cm tank.  The quarantine tank, which I dosed to 2ppm the day before we left and topped up the day we did leave, was perfect being 0 ammonia.

Before I could even start to acclimatise the newbies, I had to do water changes.  I freshened the water in the quarantine by more than 50% and even with the two corys in overnight it is again 0 ammonia this morning.

What would have caused the increase in ammonia in the other two tanks though?
All fish in the 60cm were present and correct.  It is well planted with live plants and already had two amanos in it and, of course, there was no food in there for the five days to go bad.

My problem is that I was hoping to be able to go away for a week next time but now I am uncertain about the extra one or two days.

Hi Sue, no as far as I can tell there were no power cuts.
The shrimp tank in particular was definitely green on the API chart when it is normally a bright yellow and the fish tank had a slight greenish tinge. Just looked at the colour chart and I would say the fish one was 0.25+ and the shrimp was 1.0+.
It changed some water pronto but I could have done without it since we literally had just come back.
Handy as it was to pick up the livestock from Kesgrave (I wanted to suss the shop out for future reference if I ever do buy online) I wouldn't do it again. 
It was too disturbing not being able to acclimatise them all straight away until I had done the water changes and with three tanks, small as they are, it took a lot of time.
We learn by our mistakes. 
However, Kesgrave Aquatics was worth a visit. It was a strange setup, being in a large shed but they had a big carpark and although inside the shed was a bit dingy and dull looking and very humid, the fish all seemed well cared for and happy. There were fish boxes all over the place and they were obviously busy getting stuff ready to send out.

Thanks Sue. That's pretty much what my other half suggested. I kept saying to him that nothing was dead and the  shrimp and snail would have succumbed  if it was that bad. I'm beginning to wonder whether I was just so tired I didn't do the tests properly. 
This morning, having changed water yesterday, I re-tested them all.  I needed to do the quarantine anyway just to make sure that now it has two fish in it I had to be sure it was actually cycled properly.
Two of the tanks showed a light brown instead of yellow and light brown isn't even on the chart!!
I left it an hour, sorted out breakfast and started again. This time they both showed the right yellow.
I think I must have miscounted the drops and left one off in two of the tubes.

Yes Cod. I think you are right.  I've done a bit of browsing on the web and it appears to be corydorus hastatus rather than hasbrosus.
Bearing in mind this was Kesgrave we are talking about I did think it odd that they didn't know what a salt and pepper was and asked me if I would recognise it which I said I could. One was definitely salt and pepper but the other one she netted out was the little hastatus. When I pointed out it was different she assured me it would be fine as they were all pygmy corys.
I don't mind really as it is very pretty, I just hope the three of them get on well together.
Although my original salt and pepper and now this new one, do sit on the bottom sometimes, they are also very active all over the tank, and up and down the glass.

I was surprised too as they were obviously doing a good trade in despatched fish.
The girl did ask the older woman in the shop if they had any hasbrosus in and she didn't know.  I said they were tiny salt and pepper catfish so she guided the other person towards the pygmy catfish.
It doesn't matter much to me as long as it's healthy and as long as they will he happy as a species together.
At some pint I'll have to try and get another few but not while I have a full tank.
I keep expecting to lose some but there they are, large as life.
I still come down every morning and check with trepidation and I am not happy unless they are all accounted for.
The short break was very good thank you and I tried not to mention the fish at all and waited for the subject to come up. ! There wasn't any sense in fretting over it since I wasn't here but it was hard.
Even the other half said to go straight in and check the fish and feed them which I did.