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Pokey

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Everything posted by Pokey

  1. Pokey
    Wow! That’s great longevity - congratulations! 😃 I wouldn’t have guessed that any tetras would live that long. Was that Snoopy swimming around there too? I’m budgeting out for one bigger tank for Dorsigera - but I still want a Bolivian Ram whenever I see him or others. So I’m just going to have to extend the ‘ole budget out for another tank. 🤣 He/she would be the only one with some upper level fish group - would a 20 gallon be big enough for that?
  2. Pokey
    Thank you both! Perfect - I was figuring I’ll have a lot more than I need for the houseplants because I have also been using tank water or de chlorinated water with a bit of Easy Green in it. 🤪
  3. Pokey
    I’m sorry but I don’t have any experience with ramshorn snails. A few references I found said about 3 weeks for them to hatch, but didn’t mention how long it is after mating before they lay them. They also mentioned it’s not uncommon for them to lay infertile eggs.
  4. Pokey
    What a fun way to spend some time! 😃 Do you usually let the fish go or are you collecting to keep some?
  5. Pokey
    I’m sorry to hear about your swordtail. ☹️ How do fish get cancer when they’re so well taken care of? (good food & environment) Maybe from their genetics?
  6. Pokey
    @Kit Craft I don’t have any experience with ramshorn snails but I’d like to add that the Japanese Trapdoors have live babies and they’re really cute! 😃
  7. Pokey
    @Lennie I think that you do have Japanese Trapdoors, just maybe a less seen color variation? I found this where they have one with stripes and a short description of colors. 😃 I got mine at Aqua Huna where you can see various colors/patterns. Hopefully mine will get more active during the day! 🤪
  8. Pokey
    Thank you @Sarina for starting this. I hope your Paradise Fish recovers! And thank you @Guppysnail @Odd Duck for sharing. I tend to worry so much about not doing things right that I talk myself out of doing them at all! Especially when it comes to live creatures. As a beginner, it’s a good reminder that things aren’t always going to go perfectly and we just need to do our best and not give up!
  9. Pokey
    @Kit Craft I have Japanese Trapdoor Snails, but mine seem to only be active at night. They’re very pretty though! I have found my Malaysian Trumpet Snails to be more interesting as they come out during the day. But based on all the stories here about Mystery Snail personality, I don’t think either of them come close. Bladder Snails can be entertaining, but population control is hard! @Lennie do your trapdoor snails come out during the day?
  10. Pokey
    October 2023 Well, it’s been a quiet month in the aquarium. The snails are well, the only female old enough to have babies right now (Trapdoor), has had two that I’ve been able to see. The nine babies born when I first got them are growing up well. They’re all brown right now with a couple of the very tips being tan maybe. The trumpet snails are fine. If they’ve had babies, I haven’t seen any crawling around. And of course the bladder snails are doing great, 🤣 I have set up the jar trap again. I know I am over feeding but I can’t help it - it’s the only time I get to see the shrimp. 🤭There’s a lot of good biofilm, almond leaves & some green ?algae I guess, on the side so I only feed every three days. But I think it could be even longer if I didn’t want to see them. Seven of them are still alive for sure, and maybe an eighth, out of the ten so I’m very happy about that! 😃 This is the jar I use for snail catching. I tried to get a close up of the shrimp to post here, but it was too blurry. It’s a beautiful true blue. This pic just doesn’t show it. The lucky bamboo is almost up to the light now. I want to cut the top off when they get there and try rooting them to fill out the whole back area eventually. Also I don’t want them to touch the light. If anyone has any experience cutting them back, I’d love to hear about it! I haven’t been able to keep the stems in place except with the floss. Kinda unsightly, but it works. 🤪 The water sprite and Anubis’s seem to be very happy with their growing conditions, so I’m content to leave things be for now. Future plans include a HOB, Mostly because the box filter floats for a while after I clean it. When I weigh it down with a rock, eventually the rock falls off and I’m afraid it will squish somebody! I want to get more shrimp and I keep going back & forth whether I want to keep this shrimp and snails only or add a few fish. I’d also like a few rooting plants. Things to look forward to! 😃 And finally: duckweed. Now I totally understand the love/hate feelings! 🤣 I love the look of it but I hate having to put my hand in the tank, even after I move it off to one side I always end up with it all over. Here is this months harvest. I dry it out on a plate and then put it in a baggie. When I get enough, I’m going to add it to my houseplants.
  11. Pokey
    I’ve been putting a small glass jar in the feeding area, about the size of a baby food jar, laying on its side with pellet shrimp food & pieces of veggies in it. I leave it for a full day to a day and a half since the food is mostly contained and then carefully pull it out. It’s always full of snails. Next time I have to trim the population I’ll take a picture. I use the wide top jar (as opposed to one with a narrow neck) because besides bladder snails that I want out, I catch my trapdoor & trumpet snails - as well as usually several shrimp! It’s easier to dump them all out so I can sort them - what I want back into the aquarium, and the bladders in the snail container. Not sure what I’m going to do with them all because I don’t really want to kill them either … 🤨🤪 Your dog is adorable!
  12. Pokey
    I live in Northern NY. I’ve read various opinions of the Ivory Billed. I hope it’s alive in some deep woods somewhere living a peaceful Undisturbed life! 😃
  13. Pokey
    @Chick-In-Of-TheSea that is wonderful you got the video of the woodpecker! A couple of weeks ago when it was still warm enough to have the windows open, I heard very loud bird calls. I was almost positive it was a woodpecker but wasn’t sure it being so loud, I figured it must’ve been very big. So I watched and hoped it would come into sight and it did - it was one of those pileated woodpeckers. First time I’d ever seen one and had to look it up. I also found out it was the kind that Woody Woodpecker was based on. 🤪 (How many of us remember that cartoon? 🤣)
  14. Pokey
    Really nice happy fish! That is so interesting that they change colors and patterns to communicate! And I love that they recognize you specifically! Do you think they would be happy alone or with two or more females? (In a community tank.) I’m not interested in babies that I would have to find a home for, and I suppose the males would fight if there were only males. Would you consider them a good beginner fish? I am also considering the Bolivian Ram instead as they seem to be just fine as a single ram in a community tank. I’m having fun doing my planning while I wait to be able to actually implement any decisions. It’s like going over and over seed catalogs and planning the spring planting. 🤪
  15. Pokey
    I just did a search to find out about Riddick. She’s a very lucky fish to have you! I’m glad she’s happy in her own tank.😃 Does a corydora live quite a while? Are eye problems common with them?
  16. Pokey
    Here’s my boys, both rescues. They were so tiny, a little over a pound each on their first vet visits. Now they’re each a bit over 16 pounds. Jax is 11, very brave and outgoing. I found him in the parking lot of the store I worked at. Shad is 10, a feral chased into a friend’s garage by their dog. He’s a big baby at home, but very fearful of non-routine happenings. I’ve had horses, dogs, birds (parakeet, cockatiel, finches), small critters (mice, hamsters, gerbils), guinea pigs, hermit crabs, turtles, 2 pet rats which for the record I loved a lot. 🤪
  17. Pokey
    Four baby skunks came by everyday for their share of crunchies. They’ve gone off now. The outdoor cats didn’t pay much attention to them. If they got too close, the skunks just made this strange sort of chittering sound, hard to describe. They were really cute!
  18. Pokey
    Thanks @Schuyler, I do like that idea. Someday I’d still like to have a betta which got me researching in the first place. In fact I think that’s how I found this forum. 😃I would have a 5 or 10 gallon dedicated to just him/her and a couple of friends. My idea of a “big” aquarium (for me) is no larger than a 40 gallon. Not sure if that would be considered on the smaller side after reading about some projects here! 🤪
  19. Pokey
    @Chick-In-Of-TheSea Yay snails! 😃 Thanks for looking at the shrimp! I’m encouraged - they all still look the same to me. 🤪I’m watching them everyday and as they get closer to mature size, I’m sure I’ll be able to tell after a while. I feed them algae wafers, shrimp food pellets, green beans and blanched zucchini. They have cuttlebone in with them right now, but I’d like to experiment with Repashy when able to and include supplements in it.
  20. Pokey
    Do all your frogs like to have caves and other places to hide? Now that you’ve had them for a while, do they seem smarter than so many places I’ve read that they’re not very smart? It just seems to me that they manage fine in the wilds, so they can’t be totally dumb! It must be a very interesting tank to watch with so many of them! 😃
  21. Pokey
    Blackie is a very lucky cat and I hope she lets the little one stay! A piece of lunch meat surely is magic to their noses! 😃
  22. Pokey
    I’m sorry to hear about the crabs that have passed but that’s great the others are doing well! It sounds like they each have their own little personality quirks and that’s very fun & interesting! 😃
  23. Pokey
    That’s so good that they can come for a meal! Thank you! There was a stray who had kittens under the neighbor’s gazebo. She’d been eating the dog food I was putting out for the crows so I started giving her some of my cats’ food too. You know what that means once you start feeding them! 🤪 She had three kittens, two calicos and a tortoiseshell. One was way friendly and I found a home for her when she was old enough. The other two disappeared whenever anyone was around. The mother must have been a housecat because she was friendly. I had two spayed, someone else here paid for the other one, but we haven’t been able to find homes for them. Other than living in a chicken shed down the road (plenty of hay) they’re happy. They eat well here as another apartment dweller helps keep them fed and they get all kinds of attention. They love it now, so don’t give up on the calico! 😃(Two years old now, mamá about four.)We’re only allowed two cats at this apartment and I already have two rescues. This was first year outside my apartment enjoying sunshine & waiting for dinner.
  24. Pokey
    Your tanks are beautiful! I hope to get my tank to that point when I can. How are the crabs doing? Even though I like fish, my wish list is filling up with invertebrates I’d like someday. 🤪 I found a hermit crab on the lawn with no kids around who might have dropped him. I took him in, got him a friend and named him Gomer because he made me laugh. 😃His friend’s name was Golly of course. 🤣 Golly lived five years and Gomey eight. I really enjoyed them.
  25. Pokey
    Thank you @Guppysnail! 😃 - that’s it exactly. Especially with this gravel. It gives everything a yellowy tinge. Thank you @nabokovfan87! What is earthbound? The only reference I could find was to a video game. 🤪 Thank you @TeeJay! 🤣 yes, I’m afraid I’m heading in that direction already! Luckily my budget will keep it at a leisurely pace. So, I wanted to make a note of the snails so far… Japanese Trapdoor Snails - I ordered six and August 24th received seven, five male & two female. They settled in well and within a couple of days there were nine babies! They all cuddled up together a lot and I thought, how cute. Then one of the females died and I kept closer watch, finally realizing what was really happening. I believe the one that died was the one that had the babies. They are liveborn and surprisingly big. I believe that she was exhausted or depleted from that, then having the males constantly pestering her just did her in. 😢 As soon as I thought that might be the case, I separated the males into their own container. It has a bubbler, Java moss & duckweed. (I ordered more duckweed when the first batch died.) They’re fine & no longer cuddle. But the clincher is that the female, (whom I’m going to call Abbie from now on 🤪) found a spot, crawled into her shell, and didn’t come out for THREE days! I thought I was going to lose her too. She seems to be fine now. Yay! The babies are getting big and as soon as I can be positive of their sex, the males will be going in with their poppas! Abbie stayed here for days. A girl baby, both tentacles are same size so she gets to stay with mom! The reasons I chose them were, first I wanted one that wouldn’t crawl out. Maybe I’ll be able to have a couple of mystery snails eventually. They were my first choice. Second I wanted a kind that wouldn’t over produce. And third I wanted them to be pretty too. 🤪 I had considered nerites but didn’t want those eggs stuck all over everything. General activity so far: they’re not very active and when they do get around, they don’t go very fast. Other observations: they’re extremely cute! And it’s also very handy that it’s easy to tell the males from females. I’ve read they can live three to ten years. Guess I’ll have to wait & see on that one. 😃 Trumpet Snails - I ordered five and got eight. One was so tiny it might have been born in the bag. I know they could over populate too, but their faces are so cute & shells so pretty. Funny too the way they stick straight up out of the gravel.🤣And also, they don’t crawl all over Abbie & the babies which is the worst thing about the bladder snails! Trumpet snail with shrimp photo bomb! The shrimp all look like boys too me, but I have zero experience with them. What do you think?
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