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Brandy

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Everything posted by Brandy

  1. Brandy
    Quick shots not the best, but pics are more fun. Red snakeskin (loving the patterns!): Purple dragon (love that the females are ALSO colorful):
  2. Brandy
    So, I have been thinking a lot about this. For guppy fans, what is everyone's CURRENT favorite strain? Now, no fair saying "Mutts" and leaving it at that. I LOVE mutts, but I am more curious about strains people have kept, and strains they wish they could keep (or hope to keep in the future). Call it a guppy bucket list. 🙂 I am loving my metallic mutts, but I have recently gotten some of those purple dragons. They are so far slowly adapting to my water and I am gradually acclimating them to Seattle instead of Texas/Thailand. They have actually been pretty stinking awesome, popping out fry and putting on weight even as I slowy lower hardness and temperature. Beautiful, hardy so far, and prolific. But my kid picked up some red snakeskin from ACO on a whim on last trip. They have been a little more fussy about water parameters and we have had some touch and go moments (admittedly we have been a lot less cautious, expecting them to be acclimated to local conditions already--that may have been a mistake) but they dropped their first fry and remain a fan favorite--for this fan! What are you loving right now? Maybe you will show me my next favorite!!
  3. Brandy
    Are you using a food dehydrator, or just time, like hang drying herbs?
  4. Brandy
    Nah you are good, Just like @Cincykid says, it is just like frozen food for you. Leave them in a hot car for 6 hours though and they are done.
  5. Brandy
    Your best bet is probably the frozen baby brine. It is hard to say what is up with such tiny guys, but I have had rummynose that do that, then stop eating completely and die. I suspect my fish had parasite issues, But first, before assuming that, I would triple check your water parameters and be sure you are on the mark there. Then yes, I would add more tetras eventually. For now though, try keeping the room dark when you are feeding, and dim the tank lighting if you need to--just put something like cardboard over part of the tank to cast shade so that they feel extra safe. It may be they need to settle in. I had some fish shipped and they acted like they didn't know what food was at first. The brine is smelly, it helps kick them on.
  6. Brandy
    OOOOooo! An experiment!! Must do! Report back! 🙂
  7. Brandy
    Yep, true, but yet I raise hundreds of shrimp under guppies indoors all the time. I think it depends on how you set up your tank. Adequate cover is everything.
  8. Brandy
    No worries, you are right mostly, she could have undone it for many of those years, but was largely unwilling. Now my mother is running into some age related memory issues that make learning new skills very difficult. It is ok Daniel, I think we are good here. The question of whether it is unethical to silo a group of people is just a little weighty for a retail store to tackle, but I understand @quikv6's struggle with thinking about this. Maybe a good idea, since the topic has wandered quite a bit, would be to end this thread here, and if further discussion is wanted we start a new thread in the "Off Topic General" section. We can quote back to this thread to provide context to the new one.
  9. Brandy
    Also, starting to miss my yard. 🙂
  10. Brandy
    I would put largeish mesh on to exclude the dragon flies, but let the mosquitos do their thing. Dragon fly larvae and shrimp are too close to the same size, I think. Then guppies or whiteclouds or similar to eat the mosquitos, and a pile of rocks in the bottom for shrimp to hide in until they are past eating size. Part of the fun of tubbing outside for me would be the auto feeding effect of mosquitos.
  11. Brandy
    I get this. It is sad and ironic that we need to keep tanks looking good even though a less attractive tank would be better for the fish. I run inot this in more than just fish--people believe all kinds of false things about how animals "want" things to be. I have 2 fry boxes in one of my tanks now. The first batch of fry had a brand new pristine box and the loss rate was high. My second batch went into the same box which is now COVERED with brown diatom algae and biofilm. I clean a little window every few days with a toothbrush so I can keep an eye on the fry. I have lost like 4 fry from that batch. Some of the point of a Youtube channel is to educate. If you are making a channel about breeding fish, you probably need to do it the way that actually works for you. Dean has daily water changes, zero natural light, and he keeps his lights on only when he is in the room basically. The tanks are not lit like a fish store all the time--I remember him talking about it on one of the fishroom tours. That is a way to go, for sure, and works great for him. I am new, and I don't do everything perfect, so that scuz on the fry box is my insurance food.
  12. Brandy
    I know what you mean here--my mom is very much the same way. However, there are worlds of difference between siloing vital services from a vulnerable population, and a basic retail experience. Comparing these two things is a little apples and oranges. In my mom's case, you are right that she wouldn't know how to deal with an online order, or contact customer service online, but my mom would have gone to the store in the first place. And believe me, she has NO problem going back and reading everyone the riot act if she is unhappy about any little thing, So I think in this case the only people who can get online orders are also people who are saavy enough to figure out how to contact customer service online. In that way it is completely ethical. The whole online world is inacessible to my mother. Mostly that is a choice she made 20 years ago, that she now is unable to undo. Ironically, my 96 year old grandmother is likely watching a youtube video and forwarding emails to her facebook friends in Sweden this very moment.
  13. Brandy
    Being sick in the school nurses office in grade school and seeing a tank filled with guppies and snails. Listenting to her explain basic genetics, ecology, and animal husbandry in that context may have shaped my entire life actually.
  14. Brandy
    Your stocking list sounds very black and white... maybe that is on purpose. I have been jonesing for a giant school of silvertip teras, and so that is what I would add...as many as the tank can hold/your maintenace allows.
  15. Brandy
    Hmm... I have done it. On 4 separate pumps.
  16. Brandy
    I think the betta thinks they are worms. The snail is unlikely to be attacked and killed, and will likely learn to pull the antenna in when the betta is near. It isn't that he is hungry exactly, it is that for fish "worm" = IRRESISTIBLE CANDY BAR!!
  17. Brandy
    here is my unbelievablly long winded response to someone else...and cory's simple version. 🙂
  18. Brandy
    I have a 4way gang valve with a single nano pump running my hatchery. It isn't the pump, it is the setup. You need valves. Edit to add: I can run 3 brine hatcheries with room for a 4th, or 2 large sponge filters off one pump. You should have enough power.
  19. Brandy
    yeah, I have just gone down the youtube rabbit hole, lol. Thanks guys.
  20. Brandy
    Yeah, this is not an ideal moment to enter the market. But just thinking about "what if" as I look at my most recent cloud of EBA fry and wonder if I could single handedly flood the local Seattle market with this fish in only one hatch.
  21. Brandy
    Just a guess... not the ram. Have not kept the Paradise.
  22. Brandy
    I like it anyway.... it is "art", lol. Especially like the squiggles in the first two pics. We should take more time to enjoy found art, don't you think?
  23. Brandy
    Yikes. I second the salt. I have recently discovered it is pretty magical for tolerant species. I have gone as high as 1Tbsp per gallon for guppies and bettas with miraculous results. I would need to double check the tolerance of angels, but my feeling is that they are not especially sensitive. Not knowing what caused it... the fact that it is progressing makes me inclined to think faster is better in this case, and salt is pretty fast if you aren't sure what you are dealing with. My philosophy with salt is that it is practically chemotherapy, we are counting on the fact that the disease dies faster than the patient. In brackish-tolerant species that may be an extreme statement, but really it is a lot like that for most fish. In the case of really urgent but unspecified disease it seems to be the best shotgun approach--killing everything, but hopefully germs faster than fish. This seems to be the perfect sort of case for salt. If you can eradicate the infection, then you can slowly change away the salt, and let the damage heal with time and scrupulous water care. If you can diagnose a disease exactly, then there is a tailor made tool for the job. But if not, salt does seem to be a good first line of defense.
  24. Brandy
    When plants die, they rot. If they are in the water they"melt" which sounds innocous, but actualy indicates both enzymatic action within the plant tissue, and external decomposition by microbes. Above the waterline, molds are very good decomposers. It is not so much an indication of a disease, as some kind of mechanical damage usually, or maybe a nutrient deficiency. I have Salvinia minima, and mine will get damaged because I netted fish out roughly, or the filter flow was too high. First it browns, then it sometimes rots with mold, sometimes it becomes brown sludge. Think about it like a bruised piece of fruit.
  25. Brandy
    My last boy was almost 18. It took a few years before I was ready to have another. Wasabi is not remotely interested in the fish. He wants the heat from the light. Or to steal any of their food. Hikari comes in the same type of foil package as cat treats! 🤣
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