The Poet and the Fish

[Aus]

I feel like such an idiot for even walking into the livestock section there again.. sighhhh.

Can't take them back - I would have to taxi to the LFS due to my health issues, and can't afford another round trip after today's slight overspending on tank hardware. Their return policy is effective for 24 hrs only..

So I'm advertising them free to good home on an Aussie fish forum, hopefully someone will want them.

I'm more upset to have two unhappy little fish than anything.. but the fact I'll probably have to tear my tank down to get them out isn't bringing me any cheer...

They'll go into a higher-flow tank if and when I can catch them, until I can rehome them.

I swear, I'm getting some kind of electronic collar that will give me a nasty shock next time I even THINK of walking into that place...

[LittleBettaFish]

Sucks to hear about that Aus. It's why I always take the advice of pet and fish store employees with a grain of salt no matter how knowledgeable they seem.

You think he would have at least offered an otocinclus or some corydoras as suitable tankmates. I couldn't imagine anyone thinking a hillstream loach would be ideal.

I have recharged the camera and I'm going to take some photos of the strohi so you can see them. They have nice big fat tummies after breakfast this morning.

Also, here's a picture of my persephone pair since you were interested in them:

[Aus]

Thanks, LBF. I'm chalking it up to 'live and learn'...

And ooh, they're so pretty! Cheers for the pic, can't wait to see the strohi.

Since I'm in a better mood after some sleep, here's what I scored on my shopping trip:

Large sponge filter & pump + tubing
Dymax T8 lights
Glass for tank lid
NLS betta pellets
Bottle of blackwater extract (they only had HUGE boxes of aq peat..)
New bottle of Prime
1 x large piece of mopani for the big anubias/some java fern
2 x smaller pieces of wood for java fern
20 kilos of substrate sand (I'll have fun washing that today..)
2 x freebie trumpet snails for the NPT (because the guy didn't know what they were)
10 x red cherry shrimp (happily munching gunk off the strohi's plants in the holding tank - later they'll join the Zoidbergs as I think Cole would simply nom them all..)

I forgot the frozen bloodworms, which I can pick up another time.. (they didn't have any live worms)

And of course, the poor bloody loaches, which I -still- cannot catch, and have uprooted several plants trying. I'll give them a rest (poor things must be SO stressed..) and try again later. They can go in the empty IQ3 until I find a home. :\

But aside from that, a very decent haul and so the tank goes up tonight (unless I am all in from washing 20 kilos of sand..in which case, it'll be in the morning) with substrate, plants and wood (it can just float a few days, if buoyant..).

I just need to go to Bunnings for some tubing for the eheim filter, a few terracotta pots for hidey spots/moss growing and some dwarf papyrus..

I really want to get some of that native hairgrass you've got, LBF, from Dave - just deciding what else I want, to make the postage worthwhile. So tempting to get the longarm shrimp right now.. but I think one new species at a time is enough, lol.

[LittleBettaFish]

Here are the strohi having a nice snack of frozen brine shrimp. You can see how dark the dominant male gets haha. The biggest is around the size of a small female fighter. The others are a little smaller but wilds usually grow slower than splendens so it's to be expected.







Sounds like you had a pretty good shopping trip. I killed my hairgrass from Dave *oops* due to neglect. That tank got torn down as I just chucked all my blue-eyes in together since my killifish needed something to live in.

[Aus]

^ squeeee

Wow, the big boy's colouring up nicely. So cute! And haha, look at the little fatty eyeing the next bit of food in the 2nd pic, "I am pretty sure I could fit that in!"

Daughter's commandeered ownership of a pair already. "And if they have babies - they are mine, too. But you can take care of them, Mum.."

Awh gee, thanks for that.

So, looks like it's morning for set up, I'm so beat. Did a pile of cleaning and gardening (ie, ripping weeds out of the weed patch..), washed sand, did water changes, did groceries. Tried to catch the Those Bloody Loaches (as they have come to be collectively known) and failed ... now it's time to cook dinner. Easy meal tonight, chicken skewers on veggie rice. Then I might kick back and watch a bit of Game of Thrones (I've seen all the current episodes, but I'm in the mood for perving on Jon Snow) and up early tomorrow to get this tank in order, FINALLY.

I think Bunnings can wait for Saturday, or I won't be walking anywhere next week. ><

[LittleBettaFish]

Aw found some photos I took of my strohi fry growing up. They still look fat even in these pictures haha







When they were wee little things. Just so glad I do not have to hatch BBS for them anymore. According to my posts they are just over 5 months old. My rutilan juvenile took around 8-12 months before he was fully mature.

[Aus]

Ahhh, so adorable! They looked like tadpoles, lol.

I'll be taking pics of the new set up tonight. 95% of the plants have survived the extra week or so in the holding tank. I have a ton of moss (well, a big takeaway container full of it..)! And some really huge anubias. Not sure the lily is all that happy right now, but everything else seems fine to go in today. :) It'll probably look a bit sparse until I get some more hairgrass and the bog plants for the other end..

I'm probably going to order some live cultures from Jodi-Lea all at once - it's actually cheaper than cabbing it to the lfs when my legs aren't good. Would grindal worms be a good idea? I'm looking for high nutrition food to tide over until I can get the mozzie bucket happening again.

[LittleBettaFish]

Jodi-Lea sells VE, MWs and soil-less grindals I believe. I have gotten some cultures from her before and got a free VE culture after the one I had originally was dead (she wasn't sure if they were still alright but I said send anyway).

Jodi-Lea is really nice to deal with and I'm always getting stuff delivered from her to my house. I just hide now when the postie drops my parcels off so I don't look like a 20 something-year-old hermit.

Grindals are fairly small. If you are feeding them to the strohi and your splendens it would take a fair amount to fill them up. I personally prefer live blackworms and white worms for feeding larger juveniles and splendens.

Also she has been busy with a new AB shipment I believe so I would probably email her after the weekend so you get a reply back. I've also found using a very specific title such as 'WTB: Live cultures', rather than something like 'Question' tends to get a reply quicker.

[Aus]

Thanks for the tip, LBF. I'm looking forward to doing business with her - hers is one company I would love to support.


Finally -- the tanks is up! Well. It's got water in it.. cloudy water.. after I rinsed the heck out of that sand for a hour or so. I'll do a full water change (out the window! no way am I lugging 15 buckets back and forth to the garden -twice-!!) tomorrow and refill, that ought to take care of the remaining debris.

Daughter and I spent another hour or two sitting on the porch freezing our butts off with buckets of plants and wood and some cotton, tying plants to the mopani and the other bits.. the effects are quite good, if I do say so myself!

I ended up stealing Cole's gold vine, which has FINALLY decided to be waterlogged, as I think it was just too awkward in the 10 gallon. So he's now swimming around like a maniac, wondering where the scenery went. I replaced it with a lovely thick bunch of java fern so he still has lots to explore.

I seriously fail at tying moss to rocks, however, and will be purchasing hair nets to make this job a little easier.. for the rocks, I mean.. not the hair..

My room looks like a bomb hit it, lol. Oh, well, that can be tidied. But not tonight! I'm quite pooped. No pics yet, the iPhone is taking its time charging, so I'll get those tomorrow before and after the water change.

I still have an 8-gallon full of java fern, most of which will be clumped and tied to rocks, and dropped in the 3ft. I also have a large takeaway container full of java and peacock moss, which I think will be very glad to be under lights soon. And another container full of HM - which is definitely unhappy and will perish pretty soon if I don't get it under proper light..

Several neat things I found while messing about with the plants:

- a full grown ramshorn snail in Cole's tank. It must've hitched in on the java fern. I really don't mind, but there's a few snails in there now including four baby ramshorns, the MTS's and a big fat pond snail, so I might have to keep my eye on numbers... and ammonia...

- a -tiny- baby red lotus. I mean, this is just a seedling with the pod still attached, awh! That went in Cole's tank, too, and can go in the 3ft when it gets larger.

- a single java fern leaf almost a foot long, with large babies growing off it.

- the tiniest little anubias, just two baby leaves.

I'm sure I'll discover more tomorrow. Bucket-o-plant surprises are fun. :)


The Zoidberg Chronicles #2:

One of the male Zoidbergs (not Mister, thank goodness) became Cleo's lunch today. She is looking -mighty- pleased with herself, but has a pudding belly now and won't be getting pellets for a day or two.

And the most puzzling thing! I was looking for Mrs. Zoidberg to see how the eggs are doing.. and saw that there was not one but TWO Juniors.

Now, these are not newborn shrimplets, so it's nothing to do with Mrs. Z's clutch. So how did I end up with two identically sized small red females?

Irish suggested that when the first berried female was eaten and dropped her eggs everywhere, there could have been a couple hatch. Good call, Irish! Because there's no other way that extra little shrimpy got in there.

Which then leads to the question of how many shrimp, exactly, are lurking in the java fern clumps in the back of the 3.5 gallon..

No sign at all of Mrs. Z - Cleo never eats them 'quietly' and parades around for a couple hours with various shrimp-bits in her mouth after she's dismembered one, and I haven't seen her do that for a while, except with the male today...

I hope Mrs. Z is hiding out with Jr 1 & 2.. after the 3ft is done, I may dismantle the tank and remove her.

Demyx update:

Awh, poor little booger. He's still floofing around merrily, with his tattery fins. The popeye is subsiding, finally, and there's no new fin damage. The regrowth is still terribly slow, however, and I'm not seeing a lot of new growth now.

Daughter's been feeding him craneflies pretty regularly of late, as I said he needed more live food/protein. It's tragically comical watching him trying to eat these, as even his mostly-missing dorsal is still too large for him to manoeuvre at the surface easily. He ends up circling the bugs for ages with his dorsal fin over his face like a waterlogged cloak. But he gets them in the end!

Bloody Loaches Update:

Still can't catch them.

[Aus]

So last night I find Cole attacking one of the loaches and while I was looking around for the net, he killed it. Poor loach. The other one's still okay, but impossible to catch, and I really have tried, uprooting everything in the process. It's better at hiding than the other one, too (which is why it's still alive, obviously), which isn't helping me to get the slippery little sucker out of there.

In stark contrast, we tried feeding Demyx a cranefly (our place is full of them at the moment.. I don't think I've ever seen so many) and .. well. Demyx isn't very good at the whole live food thing, so the cranefly drowned while he was staring at it suspiciously as though it may just decide to eat him instead.

Had such a busy day today, as the sun was out and I was in the mood for cleaning and weeding the weedpatch. The washing machine has taken to flooding as the overfill valve is broken - I discover this thanks to catching sight of water trickling halfway up the carpeted hallway on its way to Irish's room. So now I not only have a week's worth of laundry x 2 left unwashed, but every absorbent piece of fabric in the house is now sodden and in need of laundering as well. The house was pretty much underwater from the loo at the back to the living room at the front.. Much excitement.

And having had quite enough dampness for one day, I'm leaving the 3ft alone until tomorrow.

In all the various excitements of late I'd quite forgotten about my little micro tank, which is quietly doing alright but probably needs some clean water in it tomorrow. Everything's still alive and the water's crystal clear, but it could do with a few more little plants and maybe some moss.

And now I'm off to cook some barramundi for dinner and then chill out with the PS2, maybe play some Resident Evil..