Elodie Rose

There is an equilibrium that is establishing, or that we are returning to in the tanks. River is doing fairly well, I’m trying some tubifex against the wall to see if I can get her to stay out while I sit nearby and take a photo. Not sure if she’s shy or Simon is protective. Great fun watching them from across the room though. The panda guppy fry 5 gal has lost its green water, so that question is answered, I guess. It still has pothos and spider plant, but the Frogbit on top is discolored and dissolving. Jar C is upstairs by the window, but given the recent conclusion, I need to find new places for the green water. Two or three days under the silver dome light does bring a jar of green water back to green. Jar H is the main part of the preserved seed shrimp colony, in their original condition. I’ve fed them some cucumber. Jar Eye was created today, with a mixture of potting soil and pebbles on the bottom, then some sand, and then a generous portion of the hornwort and green string algae weighted down with a few clear glass pebbles. And one stalk of bacopa. Not as big as a pickle jar, bit bigger than a quart jar. Darling and Dearborn’s 10 is doing great. I can see the roots of the dwarf lily, and it has really begun growing. I’ve removed some of the hornwort to other tanks that need it more, though it still fills one half of the top of the tank. Some floating bacopa, and some that’s rooting. Tons of cherry shrimp, they’re doing well. Darling is HUGE. How. I’m concerned. The panda Cories are out a lot of the time, and eat everything I put in that sinks to the bottom. Those are all of the tanks in the living room. Toadstool 5 has the trio of koi guppies, Cayenne and Chili, and Obie, with a few babies. I’m not at all happy with that tank, need to do something different with them. But they look good. Not enough plants in that tank. Yellow Metal Mosaic 5 is doing fine, very well actually. The dwarf water lettuce has covered the top, making the interior pleasantly dim. Leonora and Leo are doing fine, and there are several half-grown youngsters. I see a yellow shrimp every now and then, there are (hopefully) a dozen from LRB. They seem to have adjusted pretty well. It’s a very pretty tank, I stop and watch it often. I would loooove it if I could get a colony of yellows started. And who knows, maybe someday, orange. The Blue-gold double-sword tank is doing pretty well, I just took out a quart size cup of them to the pond, which made the population more manageable. I’ve really messed up the interior of that tank, I’ve got to work on that. This weekend’s water changes will help clear up the tannins, I guess I need some leaf litter that isn’t catappa to alternate with. I think the blue-gold 10 and the panda fry 5 need to be switched. And they need higher stands to take advantage of the window light more effectively. I haven’t seen the Kuhli gang or the CBDs in a while, I really need to move and re-do this tank so they get the stability and attention they need. Violet Mosaic is doing pretty well, the fry are getting nice size on them, and the Catemaco platies (xiphophorus milleri) are fantastic. Haven’t seen any bickering. No real bottom feeder in this one. On the other hand, the Red-tails (xenoteca eiseni) have been removed from the Green Dragon 10, and Emeric is the worse for wear. But now the pair are in the 6 gallon, with some growing-out female guppies to show them there’s nothing to be afraid of, but no tails like Emeric’s for them to nip. The panda cories in this 10 are doing better, and I see shrimp pretty often. The remaining LF neon tetra seem fine in with the guppies. And those are all the tanks in the bedroom. The Butterfly Splitfin Goodeids (ameca splendens) and Panda guppy 10 seems to be doing fine, but I think the Butterflies would be doing better in the 20. It isn’t a good fit. The White Clouds might have to be switched with the Butterflies. Which would really only involve moving them from the Panda 10 to the WC 20, and then when it’s time to break the ponds down, putting the White Clouds that are outside in with the panda guppies. The Dalmatian mosquito fish (gambusia holbrooki) are currently with the remaining ghost shrimp, which is cool, but is a temporary home for them. I desperately want them to go outside. Somehow the ponds are at 65 today, they’re 20 gallon tubs, and that seemed like too much of an adjustment for them. But then I was at a loss for where to put them, which is why they’re in with the ghost shrimp. Which have finally stabilized, and are entirely invisible on white sand. I have to use a flashlight and look for their eyes. The QT tank is currently occupied by the 4 green neons from the House of Tropicals. I’ve seen at least a couple of them, amidst the orange endlers. The LFS will definitely take W. A. Bob. Gotta get him there. Confirmed last time I went that they will be happy to take any guppies at all. Which is pretty cool. I like them. But when I’m really ready to rehome some of the babies, I’ll probably offer them to the local fish club first. Jar G is in the closet with a 24 hour light, to turn the water green again. The blackworm tub is there too. Those are all of the tanks in the bathroom. Those are all of the tanks upstairs. The White Cloud 20 is doing great, the little cories are growing and “corydorable”, the LF bronze supermodels (LF corydoras aeneus) are amazing. The back right corner’s java moss jar was removed (I found a LF bronze wedged beneath it, between the rounded rim of the jar and the glass wall… wtf dude), and a new plant needs to go there. He was super stuck, but otherwise seemed fine. The Endlers 10 has some new occupants! I finally acquired a few pairs of the classic black-bar Endlers from Swamp River Aquatics (poecilia wingei). I was shocked at how well the plastic bottle trap seems to have worked on that tank, to make room for them. I need to check the populations of all of the tubs this weekend, now that I’ve finally gotten them transferred. Those are all the tanks in the office. The 2.5 gallon has a dozen or so blue dream shrimp, I’ll often order a few from wherever I’m making a fish order… so there are four from LRB, another handful from Dansfish with an order months ago, and maybe a few others from Aqua Huna. I probably wrote it down at the time. I did put a trio of the Adrian HD Endlers in the 2.5, and when one of the females drops fry, I’ll move the adults to another tank outside. It’s ready for them, and even has a few ghost shrimp in it (I always split the groups, if at all possible). That’s the only tank in the kitchen. The Redroom 10 is in transition, since all the boy guppies went home to their ladies, which then made room for half a dozen Glitter Limia (limia perugiae). I’m still hoping to get a few from Scottie’s Fishroom, though, someday when he sells to Dan. There are a few green neons in this one, and when the green neons from HoT are out of QT, they’ll join that lonely trio. And there are still 8 Habrosus cories in there, but I haven’t seen them for sale in recent months to give them a few more friends. Jar E has lost its green water, and is currently in the window, to see if the sunlight can revive it. I’m learning what it needs, and how to keep it… I hope. Those are the only tanks in the front room. Four pond-tubs… One for mutt guppies, one for endlers, one for blue-gold double swords, and one for *mosquito fish*. That I desperately need to help with that problem so that I can sit outside with Penny sometimes. Probably some misc in there somewhere, but that’s everything at the moment.

She has eaten today. I’ve changed the water again, but I’ve let the light cycle through the day normally today. Simon is oddly solicitous. I can see them swimming around from across the room, but she’s skittish.

River is eating again.

Simon is chasing River around. She may have eaten grindal worms, she had access to them. it’s about midday, I set them back into sunset lighting. Jar C has been in a west facing window. All the others are on windows that face northish. Today I switched Jar C, which is deep emerald green, with Jar E. Finally put the rest of Izzy’s things away. It has been a sad, sad day. So lots of tank maintenance and new very small experiments in jars, and snuggles with the Penny that I’m luckiest in the world to have. There are a couple dozen ghost shrimp, but this morning I removed a few more pink ones. I called the store and verified that they are freshwater, not saltwater.

One step at a time! And we learn something at every step. 🙂

River showed some improvement earlier, and I gave her a quick check tonight, but she is in a -really- good hiding place. That tank has a fairly large piece of wood in it, something which divides the tank into lots of little sections and nooks and crannies. It’s great for making them comfortable, because they know they have hiding places everywhere, but. Yeah. The ghost shrimp that I put in a 5 aren’t adjusting well, I’ve lost several. I was afraid it might happen, but I feel so sorry for them. I hoped they’d have better little lives. But the three guppy fry that had been in it for a while are still in there, and still circulating around the clumps of mosses and plants. That tank had been set up with some pond substrate, plants, water, guppies. A few of the fry managed to stay in there, even though I really thought I’d returned them all to their pond-tub. Most of the tanks got a bit of frozen food, thawed and with a few drops of vitamins. Emerald entree/baby brine. They all seemed to eat it readily enough, even the newcomers. I watched them all eat at least two mouthfuls. So I know they’ve eaten at least two good meals.

Lol! 😂 I will absolutely do that, I’m super curious!

Water change with mixed distilled water, with Prime. She swam away to hide when I opened the lid. Wouldn’t come to eat, so after changing water I put some blackworms into the corners of the tank, covered it and left. The tank light is on sunset setting. It’s possible she’s eating off-menu… so as long as she isn’t doing that creepy, motionless panting at the top, I’m feeling better about her. I’m trying to minimize how much I’m even in that part of the room, and just leave the tank alone. My anxiety is not going to be a positive connection to her, or any of them, so I’m doing some little projects and chilling with Penny the pupper. I’m learning about ostracods and copepods and all kinds of teeny critters.

I hadn’t put an extra air stone in, but I will. I’ll also see how much clear water there is around the sponge filter. No, I didn’t dose any Prime, I did dose a little Stress Coat last night. I try not to do water changes or use dechlorinator in the mornings, aren’t those low-oxygen times in heavily planted tanks? I think that’s why I do them in the evenings. My routine change is 1 gallon each weekend. That’s the typical ph, KH, and gh of my tap water, which she and the male have been living in and growing in since March. It seems odd to me that it would start stressing her now, but I hear what you’re saying and I will gather some information, and adjust my practices. I will also ask GuppySnail about her RO water and routine. Maybe I misunderstood when I bought them. There’s always a catappa leaf or two in the tank, but it doesn’t seem to affect the ph much. Don’t see a breeding tube, and don’t see any redness around the gills. Haven’t gotten to offering any food yet today, but tank lights are on morning light now (instead of dawn light, which is the reddish ‘ramp up’), and I can see her much better. Thanks so much for your time. Very much appreciated, with all my heart.

Simon is eating fine, looking fine… but he isn’t chasing her. It’s also unusual. River ignored blackworms, so I’m officially at red alert and asking for help. Doing so without having contributed much to the community seems unfair, and I need to rethink some things… as soon as River is eating again (or someone explains why she’s being weird but is okay).

How is the tank doing? Feeling a little roomier now?

She’s only been off her food a couple days, but I’m concerned, something is wrong. She’s hiding in the plants and breathing hard. No spots or wounds. (These pics are from a couple days ago, she’s been hiding the past day or two.) The details: 10 gal tank, pair of GBR male and female, a few guppies, I’ve had them since March, 85 F, sponge filter, live plants, tannins. Diet is live grindal worms, various flake and pellet foods - vibra bites, krill flakes, spiralina flakes, cichlid pellets, algae pellets, etc. They usually get dry food for breakfast, grindal worms for dinner. In the past frozen brine shrimp, daphnia, baby brine shrimp, but unusually, no frozen foods for a couple weeks. Please help, this pair are wet pets and I’m exceedingly fond of them. I’ve been keeping mostly guppies and cories, cherry shrimp. Oops, almost forgot these. The ammonia test looks yellow to me, but I did a 20% water change last evening, and added a tablespoon of api aquarium salt.

All the new arrivals ate grindal worms. Whew. 👍

It has been a busy week. Had a lovely visit with GuppySnail, which was a highlight! I now have a culture of seed shrimp! Gifted by GuppySnail, along with a ton of hornwort and moss, which are so so appreciated in the newest guppy tanks especially. I’m writing in a fishkeeping journal about fish while eating gummy fish candy… lol. I love the fishy life. A pair of redtail goodeids have taken up residence with Esmerelda, they are xenoteca eiseni. Also in that tank are her first brood (which are several weeks old and more than a mouthful), and a handful of panda cories. Pretty as the redtails were on the Dansfish videos, in person, just breathtaking. And they just arrived. They’re not too much smaller than her, but Esmerelda has some bulk to her. The pandas have followed the goodeids around a bit, and I didn’t see them eat any of the dry food. That tank does have cherry shrimp, a smallish colony, I think. Hard to tell, it has tons of hiding places and the entire top is covered with a mixture of floating plants. There are four butterfly splitfin goodeids in the Panda tank with the Panda Lady, a handful of the best hiders of her brood, and some scuds and snails. They are ameca splendens, and tbh look an awful lot like the Panda Lady. About the same size, too. I’ve put food in the tank but haven’t made sure they’ve eaten, need to feed everyone grindal worms. So busy, just haven’t had time yet. And the fish that kicked the entire goodeid thing off, even though they’re technically a platy… or a swordless swordtail?… the Catemaco platies. There are 4 of them, two pairs, and they’re quite small. They’re in with the Blue/Violet Mosaics. There are some fry in that tank, not terribly big, and snails. Violetta is growing, and glorious. Alba is… exactly the same. Cyan and Albion are unrepentantly beautiful, the bullies. Those three new species are in the tanks that are the most lightly stocked, and longest running. They’re all 10 gallons, all about 74-76 F, lots of plants, sponge filters, pothos. I’d really like to get some shrimp into the two that do not have catfish or cherry shrimp. I’ve been curious about ghost shrimp, so I have a few in a 5 gallon, to watch them and see what they’re like. That’s a fairly new tank, and I’ve spent some time adding to it from other tanks to give them a good starting place. Poor guys just got in to House of Tropicals today. The ‘roly poly’ copepods are in Jar G, which no longer has a mystery fry in it. That jar has some sand, a pinch of crushed coral, green water, leaf litter and a stick, and duckweed. I watched it for days to see if it had scuds in it, and I never saw anything. Except that fry, lol. Here’s hoping. Threw a piece of frozen cucumber in there. That problematic yet ultramarine blue shiner now has half a dozen very small friends. I’m sure it’s too late for any kind of breeding this year, but next spring, maybe. We’ll see, I’m still trying to figure out egg-scatterers. Speaking of, I re-installed the false bottom into the 6 gallon cube, and used some acrylic yarn to ‘stitch’ some java moss into the center. Glass pebbles all around the edges, but it’s not perfectly against the bottom, and I’m not sure it’s what I need it to be yet. That tank has mostly salvinia/duckweed, and 10 or so female guppies from the very first batch of mixed queens’ fry. I don’t know if they’re pregnant or not, so they’re just kind of on their own in there with the gimpy LF neon that I felt too bad to sell. The 6 gal is supposed to be a breeding tank for egg-scatterers… someday. Jar D went into a 6 gallon, with 2-3 cups of dirt, a couple handfuls of crushed coral, some gravel, and a couple inches of sand. The eco-complete and mulm at the bottom of the jar spread over the sand, I can kind of see it, even if the green water is pretty dark. The majority of the Panda Lady’s fry are in there, getting sprinkles of fry food a few times a day, along with the other younger broods. Would like to have blackworms and shrimp in there. The fry will be returned to the Panda tank when they’re a little bigger. Probably. ***Chalk Labels*** for cultures and tanks. Reusable labels. Will have to see whether water ruins them, or just erases them. But that might be the answer to the post-it-note / sticker-label problem. Need to work on the vinegar eel bottle, so I can feed that to the fry, need to… do things.

OMG Panda Lady dropped her fry! Omg they’re so teeny! Lol. Not even hiding, just swimming together out in the open. Gave them some ACoop fry food and vinegar eels, and gave mama some vibra bites. Yaaaaaaaay! Time to dance the panda dance! And omg I’m going on a fish adventure - a Goodeid adventure. This could change everything.

Took the snail out of Jar G, added an extremely well rinsed bit of frogbit, and put it out on the patio table. It’s been seeded with phytoplankton, a few drops of easy green, and should be a nice clean green water in a couple days. Would be nice to have one jar that has alternative species of snails and critters, if that’s possible. All the ponds/tubs/tanks outside were at 65ish. Holy moly. The glass tanks were 85ish when they were set up. I added a bit of shade to them and I guess it worked. Will keep testing and try to record it. I’d love to keep fish outside in them if it’s safe. Small, large, glass, plastic, lid, partial lid, no cover… lots of things to try and test. (The tubs were never 85, they’re well shaded with floating plants and astonishingly, stay pretty consistent beneath.)

Toadstool tank’s hood-light has finally failed the test. It just cannot keep enough plants growing. Going to have to put a hygger on it soon. I tested the tanks, and it was the only one with measurable nitrate. Put Jar D into a 5 gal with dirt, crushed coral, and deep sand. It’s very green. I want to see how it does in the window with no tech at all. Scuds are also called “fairy shrimp.” I am so delighted by this. 😸🥹🧚‍♂️ Cleaned out the jar and started Jar G, which I hope will house the aquatic “roly polies” or copepods. Handful of crushed coral, an inch of sand, three scrubbed rocks, a new almond leaf, a tiny bit of well rinsed Java moss and anacharis elodea. An algae wafer and a ramshorn snail, a couple drops of easy green, covered with a coffee filter. Not sure if/when the little copepods will arrive. Tons of space freed up for aquarium tools and supplies, each tank has: substrate, medium river stones, wood, leaf litter, floating plants. Feels like the right setup for me, though I’m trying s 5 and a 10 with sand. I hated the bare bottom and added gravel. Need MTS for the sand tanks.

Won’t know unless you try and change a variable. Maybe that could be considered the “science” portion of the hobby? Which variable could you change, and maybe find more success with one of those things? All a setback means is that you haven’t succeeded in attempt 1.0, method 1.0. luckily there’s a million ways to do things in this hobby. I love that! I fail at my experiments a lot. But once in a while something works, so I keep that part. And tweak the rest, and keep trying different weird things. (No kidding I have 5 kinds of worms right now as I try to figure out what works for me 🪱. Clearly I have no idea yet!)

Very cool to see what you’ve been working with! Are you feeling relieved or sad about that coming to a close soon? Didn’t you say you were going to be getting some shrimp soon? What kind were you thinking about?

Thank you! 🥰

Things have been mostly maintained, though I did finally break down and buy a couple more fish, a type of goodeid and a catemaco platy-ish pair. Everybody in the aquariums is still doing well. No big changes recently. Added a few of the LF aeneus cories to that little pack of supermodels. Panda Lady’s tank got a couple inches of sand, some pothos, and some rocks. Difficult to explain how much I hated that pastel gravel, but it had been established and in that aquarium for soooo long. Long before I got it. So instead of getting rid of it I covered it up. It’s something Father Fish recommended, as a way to ‘salvage’ an old gravel tank. Shrimp!! Omg I did get a few shrimp on a fish adventure! A handful of blues for the Gallifrey 2.5, and a dozen or so yellows to put imo with the yellow metal mosaics. Leonora is doing better, much better, and there are half a dozen fry in there that I can see. It’s got dwarf water lettuce, hornwort, java moss, a rockpile, leaf litter, a small coarse sponge (a filter intake cover from Aquarium Co Op I had lying around), and a bit of wood. That tank has been up and running for quite a long time, first as a grow-out tank for the first few batches of blue-gold DSTs, and then for guppy mamas. So the point of all that is that I think that even though it’s just a 5, that the shrimp would have places to hide and safe places to have babies. But I have decided to put them in a different tank of guppies almost every day this week. But Leonora’s tank is the simplest, the most stable, and the most lightly stocked. At the moment. Ooh and a new type of copepod, not quite a scud but closely related, which I find fascinating. I’ll probably put them in the green water pickle jar with the pothos and spider plant in it… I can’t remember which one that is, Jar D maybe? D or E. Lol. (The fail jar still exists actually, I didn’t have the heart to discard it, despite the leech contaminating it… so now it’s a resurrection jar that I’ll just be watching. I fully intended to dispose of it. (Not quite I sure how I would have done that tbh.) Instead I’m just going to watch it some. There is no Jar G, then, I poured those scuds and all those plants into the green water jar, oh that must have been E! Ok. E-Scuds. Scuds are not elegant, why is that the only e-adjective I can think of. Anyway, Jar E is a scud culture, that jar also has blackworms and snails. Despite how much I want to repair my blackworm culture, I just can’t make myself dismantle the Pickle Jars to get them. They’re these tiny but fascinating little worlds. They deserve to grow, and I want to watch them grow. Jar D - lovely green water, pothos and spider plant, needs a new leaf, probably going to get the new copepod culture. I haven’t seen any critters but worms and snails, so I think it’s safe for them. I’m not sure if I should add a guppy or two to the Pickle Jars. I read a blog by a German fish keeper who swears by his 1 gallon jars as self-sustaining nano tanks. They each contained a few endlers or guppies, scuds, fully immersed aquatic plants, seashells and gravel, and plants that poked out of the metal top with roots in the water, like Jar C. Jar Chandelle? Maybe. The koi guppy fry that I put in it was very tiny, and looks to be a pretty healthy nearly grown guppy now. That jar also has eco-complete, blackworms, snails… that one is really dark green, I’m honestly not sure what all is in there. I poured out 4 cups of it, and dispersed it into a few tanks, to see if the green water could catch on at all. Still not sure quite how to use green water correctly, but I have the vague idea it might increase biodiversity with the phytoplankton. I need to read up on that. My membership to the ALA was confirmed, which is cool (American Livebearers Assoc.). I’ve been looking at those Catemaco xiphorus milleri for so long. Just one pair. Well okay just two pairs, but just two, they’re very small. But omg they’re so lovely. The idea of keeping something, and possibly breeding something, for conservation purposes is kind of interesting, and something I might explore. Honestly I don’t know much about it, and if they weren’t so similar to guppies and endlers and platies, I probably wouldn’t have trusted myself to care for them. Don’t want to exceed my skill level. Or my time investment. Every single tank needs attention. But the koi guppies have got to go. I am not enjoying them, sadly. I would enjoy them a LOT more in a pond tub. That would be lovely. But what I’ll do with them in 2 months once they grow out there, I am still not sure. There will be so many more… Cayenne and Chili are impressively, even impossibly, prolific. That tank would suit a slow breeder and a low temp much better, while I think the koi guppies would love it outside. Ok so that’s a project for this weekend. But no more tubs without handles. They break when they have to be moved. I chose tubs very poorly. Now that I’ve learned, gotta do better. Have been watching/listening to a lot of Lucas Bretz and LRB aquatics lately. His methods and tanks are so interesting. “Musical fish” seems so counter intuitive, but works so beautifully for him. Fun to watch, and I like some of the things that both he and Father Fish agree about. FF is a little more difficult to watch, he’s so gruff, but lots of good info. Reminds me of the gruff-grandpa at the LFS that’s only a few miles from me. The LFS’s Gruff-grandpa is very kind if he’s actually doing customer service. But he’s pretty Billygoat Gruff when he’s intent on a task and being interrupted by a customer. Kind of makes sense to me. I like their fish and their prices, and as I’ve gotten familiar with Gruff-grandpa and the LFS Lady, I can appreciate how they do things a bit. I’m fascinated by the fact that they seem to have guppies in every single tank, even if it’s only a few in amongst cichlids or tetras or plecos or whatever, and they are clearly marked “NFS”, lol, “not for sale.” I had no idea what that meant, and was quite offended when BGG pointed it out to me in his special way. But I got over myself and, well, now I know that. Anyway I’ve had several pleasant discussions with the LFS Lady about guppies, and jewelry, and bead conventions, and frozen food for fish… and lots of other things. She’s great, even if she doesn’t always give me what I ask for. Not sure I can blame her for not giving a complete and utter plant newbie a cup full of duckweed, though. Although… I mean, I do have it in every single tank now. Hah. BUT - also on every single piece of fish equipment, often on my skin, my clothes, etc. That’s a forever-fashion-accessory right there, just like dog hair. C’est la vie, there are worse things. It’s pretty great as a bit of extra filtering. I need to do another round of testing, but thus far I still have to add nitrates, usually getting 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate if it’s been a week or two, and if I’m lucky, a pretty decent pepto-bismol. Not quite hot pink though. That one worries me, and last time I saw that I did a bit of a water change, added a couple generous handfuls of salvinia, lightened up on feeding, and it was palest pink in a few days. I’ll check it again soon and see how it is. Almost all the tanks are at 76-77… they have live plants, and something to occupy each of the layers of the tank. The ph is pretty consistent, but if it gets yellow-orange instead of orange-red, I add a handful of crushed coral and/or a calcium chip. I tried wonder shells too, when the green was too light, or the orange was too light. The orange is the ph, the green is KH. Guppies, shrimp, and scuds need a bit of that, from what I understand. The GH has never been anything but dark eggplant purple. I’ve stopped worrying about it. If I can only keep fish and creatures that can do well in that kind of water, then I’ll try and lean into that. Simon and River are darkly colored, and quite feisty. The small guppies in that tank are kind of fun to watch, but I do think of putting something in there for population control, since the GBR kiddos don’t seem to be thinning them out much. Their population wasn’t supposed to increase in there by too much. Hmm. The white worms are doing great! I need to feed them again today. Been feeding them a lot more often, and stopped taking the old bread out, because that’s where they all seemed to be. I’m trying so hard to figure them out. Grindal worms are going so-so… they’d been doing great, but a couple of them have. Dried up? I dunno. Weird. Not sure if I should dump them out, stir up the remains and start again, or what. Need to remember to ask… but very likely, better safe than sorry. I’m starting to worry a little about Darling and the Panda Lady. I -hated- to disturb Panda Lady, but immediately afterward she demanded food, so. Maybe vibra-bites will buy her forgiveness. Oh the QT tub is now an Experiment tub. It has a handful of orange male endlers and poor old W.A. Bob, that red-eyed tetra. BUT it also has the remains of the scuds/blackworms/snails culture that might have been contaminated with a leech (that just about has to be where the one in Jar F came from). I’m extremely bothered by that, I’m not sure what kind it was, and what it would prey on. So now Bob and his minions get to live in a tub with blackworms and scuds to hunt and et, and possibly other things, who knows. Hopefully things they can eat, that will NOT eat them. I guess we’ll see. My hope is that they will get fat from being good little hunters, and that maybe something of that ecosystem-attempt can be salvaged. The orange guppies are supposed to be the absolute healthiest, and also they are culls from the blue-gold line, and also they are all male. Bob… I just don’t know what to do about Bob. Bob is the red-eyed tetra that had been living in the pastel gravel tank that Panda Lady occupies now. (And someday a horde of tiny pandas??? We’ll see.) I’m hoping that at least he is finding enrichment, with things to hunt and a bunch of dither fish to show him where the food is and that it’s safe. Next time I go to the LFS I need to ask if they’d take him. Or her, it maybe that W. A. Bob is a female, I have no idea. But they shouldn’t be alone, and they need more space. I’ve had him for… a while now… and am pretty sure he’s disease-free. I know they QT though. I was so hoping I’d be able to bring them a few panda guppy fry when I visited. I know she loves them, and we lamented about not being able to find panda ladies, this past winter. Or spring. We’ll see, I guess, no more bothering her or the tank, except feeding. There are *definitely* scuds in that tank. I am hoping that nothing bad got in there. I must have used a filter from the food culture at some point, or just put one in there while I was cleaning it out or working on it. I didn’t know there might be anything wrong with it. I’m so sad and worried about that. There is an outside rack of tanks now, with three 5s and 2 tubs on it, the tubs are probably 4-5 gals. I am testing the temps to see whether they swing too much, or if the shade they’re in is okay, etc. It would be great to give some of the guppy fry some sunlight. The endlers and the blue-gold DST that have been outside are gorgeous. Shrimp!!! There is an incredible colony of red cherry shrimp in Darling’s tank, and a smaller one that is just getting going in Esmerelda’s tank. Did… I call her Evangeline? Her name is definitely Esmerelda, because Green Dragon = Emerald = Esmerelda. She’s pretty black, I absolutely need to remember what she is. Her fry will grow up and then I’ll know, but it’ll take a while. Although some of them are quite dark, which is really interesting. Still pretty small though. Oh it’s Friday! I should go take pictures of all the fry! 😄

Very pretty platies! I’ve never tried to breed them. I’ve just started trying to breed guppies and Endlers, the past year or so. Livebearers are amazing! What kind of betta do you have? I wonder if it isn’t eating some of the fry perhaps? I was told that if I wanted population control for guppies, to put a female betta into the tank. I haven’t tried it, just wondering.

There are still 2 Amano shrimp in Olyphant. What a beauty.