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Maggie

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Everything posted by Maggie

  1. Maggie
    I read the post and article, then did a little more research as it sounded way too easy to blame the aquarium water, especially, as @Biotope Biologistexplained, how virulent this bacteria is. There was no information at all on the government and medical websites about widespread disease in fish, though it seems that this would cause many more problems with handling or eating food fish than tropical aquarium fish. The only time I worried about catching something from my aquarium water was when I had a terrible bout of poison ivy on both forearms. I always wash my hands and arms with soap and rinse well before and after sticking them in the aquarium. To be honest I'm more worried about introducing a harmful substance (soap or lotion residue, or germs after petting my doggie) from my hands to the aquarium than vice versa.
  2. Maggie
    I have this little "single serve" brine shrimp hatchery. It comes with a small jar of eggs - enough for several months for a single tank.
  3. Maggie
    Got plants from the Coop today. They're in a tub with fertilizer and a light, and hopefully tomorrow I'll get the new 5 gal set up. Red melon sword (L) and dwarf chain sword (R) Water wisteria
  4. Maggie
    Well, it looks like I've been overfeeding Cosmo lately and he's got a swim bladder issue. He was fine on Monday. Yesterday he was listless, so I didn't feed him. Today he is hiding near the surface, struggling to swim properly, and is slightly bloated. I started salt treatment at 1 tablespoon per 3 gallons, and will fast him for the next couple days. I wanted to get rhe crypts replanted yesterday but now I'm going to wait till he's feeling better. The water is bottled spring water, pH 7.4, no ammonia or nitrite, <5 ppm nitrate (100% wc done on 9/15 when we got to new apartment, 10% wc done 9/22), temp has been kept at 80 since I got him. He's not being very photogenic today and swims away if I try to get a close up picture. He can swim up to get air, but struggles. I have plants from the Coop arriving today and am in no mood to deal with them. I'll stick them in a plastic tub for now.
  5. Maggie
    Hi @Hobbit, he's doing pretty well except I kind of regret where I set up his tank, now that the living room furniture is set up. I think he wants his crypts replanted, though. The crypts are starting to look a bit ragged since they've not had any root tabs recently. This move was the hardest I've done, physically and emotionally, but it's good to not have a house and yard to maintain by myself any more. Having lived in upstate NY for so long, and MI before that, where summers are gloriously mild and beautiful (you do pay for that come wintertime, haha), I could not get used to the MD summer furnace - and I grew up in MD! I enjoy yard work but can't do it in that heat any more...getting old...and the invasive weeds took over this year. The bright side of the move is that for the first time ever, I caught the real estate market at the perfect time. You know what this means - fish money!! 🙂 I want to try a shellie tank so bad... Yesterday I ordered a red melon sword, water wisteria, 2 dwarf chain swords, micropellets, and Easy Green, and added ammonia test strips to the order afterward (caught it in time before it was processed...phew bc that happens quickly). I've never had those plants before and am looking forward to hopefully keeping them alive. The water here is high pH (8.4), GH and KH both about 5, and I'm not sure what to think or do about that. My old water was pH 7 in fall and winter, but raised up to 8.2 by summer, so maybe it's the same here. Does that happen naturally, or do they make it alkaline to keep bacteria down? It seems if it was 8.4 naturally, the KH would also be high.
  6. Maggie
    I finally got my furniture and belongings on Friday. So of course after setting up the bare minimum of human and dog items, I immediately searched for spots for my 5 gal minibow (quarantine tank) and new imagitarium 5 gal. I had aquarium supplies in a few different boxes and while digging through I made a huge mess. I got the 2 tanks where I want them at least. I now have to place an order for plants and stick another sponge filter in Cosmo's tank for seeding. Once I've got more stuff put away I'm going shopping for a 10 and/or 20H (?) and then next week...shrimp and maybe one guppy to start in the minibow. Also set up the shelving unit next to Cosmo's tank. I'll use that driftwood in a tank. Tomorrow I am fixing his plants which are still floating.
  7. Maggie
    Guess what y'all!! My landlord stopped by the other day and saw Cosmo's tank and loved it. She LOVES betta fish. She didn't say anything about tank number or size maximums, so I'm going to assume I am good to go for a 20 gallon tank. Yippee- a new guppy and __?___ tank is in my near future!! Yesterday I went to two different petcos to see what kind of products they have. Neither one carried spirulina flake (!!??!!) but both have frozen foods. I also checked out the Boston Aquarium Society and the LFS websites, and it looks like there might not be quite as robust of a hobby here as there was in MD. I ordered a 5 gallon acrylic tank and some substrate to start a possible species-only shrimp breeding setup, but need to check with a few LFS's to see if they're interested in buying/trading and what species/colors people want. I like them all (miss my yellow neos and blue bolts, tho). The water here is pH 8.4 and I don't know if they use chloramines but suspect they do, so I guess it's spring water for Cos until I figure out what to do. Can't buy spring water for 3 or 4 eventual aquariums. GH and KH are both 5. Cos is settled in and made a large bubble nest last night. I realized I don't have supplies with me to replant the crypts, so have to leave them floating till the furniture/boxes arrive. The roots look so awesome and I hope they'll be okay after replanting.
  8. Maggie
    @StreetwiseI lived in upstate NY (Saratoga Springs and Albany) for 25 years before moving to MD for work in 2014. I've always loved VT! My ex's family is from a town north of Burlington and we'd visit them a few times a year. I thought Burlington was one of the most beautiful cities I'd ever seen. I'm happy to be in a cooler climate again because MD summers are just brutal.
  9. Maggie
    Lots of finishing to be done, but Cos seems to be okay with it as it is. He chomped on breakfast this morning as he was fasted for 2 days prior (I do not normally fast him). I'm too exhausted to do any work on his tank today.
  10. Maggie
    Today I moved to a new state (Massachusetts) to be near my daughter, and it's been a very long and difficult couple of months getting my house prepped and sold (closing is next week), and getting rid of lots of stuff that I couldn't afford to move (already costing me upwards of $5k for this move). Now I have to wait a few weeks for my stuff... NOW on to the important part. Cosmo handled the move like a trooper in his little glass jar, and is now settled into his tank again. Gotta keep an eye on the water parameters, but I did keep his sponge filter on and in with the plants (and a lot of water leaked all over my dog and the back seat! 😨 but had no choice as his stand needed to also fit in the car). There was an awful lot of roadwork and bumpy roads and traffic. Poor Cos got pushed around quite a bit. I still have to replant the crypts - left them floating so I could get him out of the bowl and into the tank to settle in. My apartment apparently allows fish tanks (yay!) because there is a clause about mold prevention and they mention making sure it's dry "around fishtanks" in that clause. Looking forward to being able to post on here more often again!
  11. Maggie
    Congrats to the winners!
  12. Maggie
    I also believe that once a company attains a certain size, there is almost always a downward slide of its original intent, high quality products, and especially high quality service. To me it's mostly because there end up being "too many cooks in the kitchen" - competing ideas and plans and actions taken by middle managers as the owner necessarily becomes less and less involved in decision-making. Those middle managers are sometimes pretty cut-throat with each other and might not be so nice to the "lower" employees, and the good ones in both groups start to look elsewhere when morale falls. Get public stockholders or franchises involved, and there could be all kinds of new problems. I watched it happen with the only specialty frozen food company I really, really loved - as soon as it was "available in every grocery store", the price dropped by 50 cents a box, but the quality absolutely plummeted. We all want an Aquarium Co-Op in our area, but would it really be THE Aquarium Co-Op? It would be an almost impossible but spectacular achievement if Cory could pull it off. I don't think he wants to take that ride based on what he's said in the livestreams.
  13. Maggie
    Is there another hobby that could replace fishkeeping, in the sense that it has so many facets? Learning about biology, water chemistry, plants, fish anatomy, behaviors and identification, being part of a pleasant forum with tons of knowledgeable people, the physical work, relaxing and just watching our fish and nonfish inhabitants go about their daily lives and achieving inner peace from that, watching our fish color up and get excited when we feed them live foods, watching our fry develop and grow, learning about plumbing and carpentry and gadgetry and how to be creative with using household items in aquariums, and even the not so great parts of fishkeeping like diseases, pests, issues with plants and algae, fish death, and all the frustration, that we learn from and try to do better next time. I know I've missed a few things, but what other hobby does all that?
  14. Maggie
    Cosmo's fin appears to be completely healed - no meds needed! I hadn't seen a bubble nest for a while until this morning - taking that as a sign that all is good. The floating anubias golden in the pic came from my rehomed 20L and I'm waiting for the move to attach it somewhere. It's already grown a new leaf and many new roots in this tank so I don't think it minds being floated at all!
  15. Maggie
    My son is helping and we have u-haul pods, which u-haul will haul for a price. I'm just driving my car, which will be awful enough. I'm having a huge yard sale soon and dividing up the "keep", "sell", "free", and "donate" has been a lot of work. Plus we had to clear out the house for photos and showing and we stayed at a hotel for 4 days (I came back at night and in the morning to feed him). I still don't have a locked-in apartment - it's been hard to find one that accepts dogs, and they go quickly. Stressful. Can't wait for this whole thing to be over so I can live near my daughter and her family, help with their goldfish (they need a tank upgrade - a common and I think a shubunkin (Is that the right name for the colorful type that are also very fast?) in a 75 right now- I want to help them set up a 125 with some tankmates and I can't wait for that!), and start a shrimp-for-profit tank! And a male guppy tank! And a....(no that might be it, unfortunately). Cos has been active today and I'm thankful for that!
  16. Maggie
    I miss my shrimp and I think the first thing I'm going to do in my new place is a shrimp-only tank. I had yellows, might try a different color next. The orange is lovely!
  17. Maggie
    Wow, Hobbit! I've been packing and sorting and nursing a bad back for the past few weeks, and just got caught up on this thread. Amazing success!!! ❤❤
  18. Maggie
    That one fish (cichlid?) looks dejected...oh darn, they caught me.
  19. Maggie
    Cosmo injured his left pectoral fin the other day. I am sure it's because he was over-stressed from the ramshorn snails, from flairing and swimming back and forth at them aggressively like be does, and probably rammed into something and caught his fin. I removed the three big snails and humanely euthanized them (crushed them). I'll have to remove others as I find them until they're eradicated, I guess. Darn, but it was very distressing to see him swim using just one pec fin yesterday. He's a little better this morning, eating and using both fins, and I'm hoping not seeing any snails (esp big ones) will help. I'm of the "don't medicate unless absolutely necessary" camp, esp with Cosmo being very healthy and robust, but do have meds and salt if needed. It was really hard to get good pics. But these sort of show the odd look of that fin. The flash picked up the green coloring on his tail - I love it. Also, he is starting to get more black on him. My house sold this week (yay!!!) - moving in ~2-3 weeks. I sure hope he's 100% healed by then. I'm really stressing about this move. It's hard enough to drive 8-10 hours, most of it on the I-95 "northeast corridor" (ugh), with a fish in a jar and a tank to set up immediately upon arriving (bringing some of the water, w/plants and sponge filter), when I'll be exhausted and I know my back is gonna be rocking with pain. Now I also have to worry about a possible infection if he isn't healed and gets stressed from the move.
  20. Maggie
    The real estate agent is coming Monday to take pics and put house on market...we had a few repairs to get done, but it won't be long now. Cosmo is always curious about the happenings outside his tank but seems oblivious to the hustle-bustle of packing and taking stuff to storage. He has been working on this bubble nest for 3 days, and started a second one this morning. I finally got a pic showing the color change to aqua in his tail. It's weird how light from one direction makes it blue but from another direction makes it more green. After Gianne's betta presentation, I won't be surprised no matter what color he changes to! I'm currently getting him used to bottled water ("purified" water - distilled but "minerals added for taste" - hope Cos likes it). I'll be using that for the trip to the new place and until I get settled in and find out about the local water. Since I only change 20% (2 gallons) every 2 weeks, it's not that much extra cost. 3-day nest Today's new nest Greenish tinge Same photo session, looks blue! Travel container for when we move, with air holes drilled - not sure about this, might get something with a bigger base
  21. Maggie
    When I first got my harlequin rasboras, they'd swim from one side to the other - bubble-riding the sponge filter on one side, then flow-riding the HOB on the other. My betta Cosmo also likes to bubble-ride, though now that he's mature he has bubble-nesting more on his mind. It's fun watching fish have fun!
  22. Maggie
    I had trouble keeping them alive more than a day. Someone suggested keeping them in the fridge, but they seemed to go into shock when with the temp difference when fed to the fish - maybe acclimating them would help. The LFS I bought them from said to keep them on the counter with an open top to allow O2 exchange, so I tried that. Still, half of them were dead by the next day (possibly too warm). But since they were only $1.50 a cup (mostly water of course), and it was recommended to me to be a special treat only, I wasn't too worried about the loss, and haven't bought any recently. Maybe try a styrofoam cooler that's kept just cool but not cold, and with the lid off the cup of shrimp for gas exchange. Good luck!
  23. Maggie
    Thanks Alicia! We haven't moved yet. I had to get my AC and a couple other things fixed ($$$) before the agent would even consider a listing, and am waiting for a house painter who's on vacation, and in the meantime I'm packing stuff and moving all the nonessential items out for photos. They asked me to move Cosmo (he's not in a good place for "staging") but I said no - he's gonna have to be moved at least twice during the move. I am planning on it listing by the first week of August. My neighbor sold his house in 3 days and they closed in <45 days, and i hope for the same. Then I have to hope I can find an apartment in time, as they go really fast in the greater Boston area. BUT the market here is sizzling hot right now so that's a good thing for walking away with a few $$ in my hand, which I will need in order to buy some new aquariums and stock!
  24. Maggie
    Finally got video of him flairing at the ramshorn.
  25. Maggie
    The large LFS near me near Baltimore, which has been around for decades, looks kind of messy and disheveled. At first glance, it's not a great impression. But, they're always hopping busy with at least 6-8 employees in the freshwater section plus 2 full time at the registers. The fish are well taken care of. There are always 2 or 3 people doing tank maintenance and someone is changing the betta bowls' water (wish they'd get Cory's system). When I scheduled a day to bring (donate) guppies (boy do I miss my wiggle-butts), the guy had to set up a quarantine tank first, so I know they quarantine their fish. They're helpful and for the most part very knowledgeable. I hope there's a store like this when I get to the Boston area.
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