Hobbit

I KNOW @Mmiller2001 has enough plant scraps to make an entire Dutch scape without buying anything. 😉 But I imagine to make it look truly Dutch, you’d have to plan pretty far ahead.

I’ve done this twice! It’s quite fun. Mother hens are a joy to watch with their young. They need some help occasionally—Fluffy didn’t seem to realize how often her babies needed water—but overall she was FANTASTIC. Yes!! They love this. You can even give the babies a little shallow bowl of sand and they’ll start their dust bathing behaviors. The sand will also be their first grit, so if you see them eating it, that’s great. My adult birds eat sand even now for some extra fine grit.

I’m very curious too! No signs in the babies yet but that’s to be expected if it’s a recessive trait. Hopefully if Squidward can make some babies with the babies, we’ll see a few swirls. 🤞

I had grand plans for naming my first four chickens all sorts of fancy things… and then within 48 hours they were Fluffy, Blackie, Goldie, and Pretty Girl. 😆 We did re-name Blackie though to be more PC. Her name is now Toothless.

I hope this counts… I didn’t have everything at home because I technically I grabbed the sticks and three rocks from my neighborhood park 😜 Stones from the park Aquatic roots of some unknown plant, also taken from the park Leftover sand from the 55 breeder 1g vase I’ve had for years Plants from various other tanks Squidward the swirly snail At first I was going for an out-of-water stick thing but that ended up being annoying. The large branch was some driftwood that I’d also picked up at the park, but it turned out it had been from someone’s fire pit so it smelled pretty bad. Early days: Squidward has grown… And then what it looks like today, all cleaned up. It sits on my desk where I do most of my work. A few months ago I added a single root tab and I think the anubias liked it!

I have three! And I label them for clean water vs dirty water too 😄 Instinctually I made the dark blue bucket for dirty water… and then I realized that you never need to see what’s in clean water but you OFTEN need to see what’s in the dirty water! Did I slurp up any fry?? How many snails are in there??

AWWWW! Goodness they are cute. Their loud cheeps break my heart because those are the “Mom Mom Mom!” calls… But they do just fine without the mom hen in the end. I’ve seen some people hang up a feather duster that they can snuggle under. 😂

I just love that scape! It’s such a happy looking tank.

A few fish updates: I’ve set up one of the 20g to be my juvenile platy grow out tank. This is where they’ll go after they outgrow the medium fry 10g. I’m experimenting with using coconut coir planters to see if it’s an easier way to grow non-stem plants to sell. Got to boil them on the stove and weird out my husband. 😁 Didn’t want them leeching too many tannins in the tank. Putting dirt, then sand, then gravel in various pot. Went yard sale-ing for most of them! Here’s what it looks like now. The plants haven’t grown in yet. Not sure I’m going to be happy with this setup, because while I *can* take everything out when I have to catch the platys, it’s going to be a pain. I’ve got a great infusoria system for feeding my ricefish fry. Basically I split the culture and add yeast every 48 hours. Squidward the Swirly Snail lives on! Still haven’t found any offspring that are swirly, but it’s not too late. Here they are enjoying a green bean. My husband got me an adapter that can fit my hose onto the kitchen sink, and it turns out the same one fits onto the pump I’ve had for ages but never really been able to use. I had a LOT of fun with some water change magic the other day! The plecos have been having babies almost non-stop. Dad Pleco is taking a much deserved break from cave duty and Mom Pleco looks about ready to burst! I’ve pulled out the old fry box to try to raise some pleco babies more purposefully. So far I have maybe a dozen juveniles that I barely tried to raise, which means if I actually try to raise them they’ll do even better. Right?? That’s how it works, right?? 😀😜 And lastly, I have two sick platys that I’m trying to nurse to health. One I found in the small fry area with basically no tail. Looks like some really bad fin rot. It’s in some salt water with a homemade sponge filter, and we’ll see how it does. (I don’t have pictures of the other one because it’s really small, but it just seems to be having a lot of trouble swimming. It looks a bit malformed.) And lastly, I went to a wedding recently and my cat didn’t want me to leave. I was only going to be gone for one night but she didn’t know that, poor kitty!

So glad the flow through fry box is working for you. 😊

@WhitecloudDynasty your tanks look AMAZING! 😍 Hair algae is great for egg layers isn’t it? 😆 Looks like you got a great haul from the coop!

Aww yay ricefish babies! I have several jars of babies I’m trying to raise… they grow so slowly 😝 Looks like there’s still plenty of excitement in your fish room even after all the setbacks 🥰

Ohhh now we have an experiments forum! …I feel like 90% of what I post I should go there. 😅

Oooo love it! You may consider hornwort if you want more plant material in your jar. It doesn’t root and grows fast. Where are you and @Fish Folk getting your jugs/jars from?

What in the world…? Was she looking for other spores? Who needs a smoke machine when you have Ursula Flerken??

Aww shrimp should be fun! Bummer about the other fish though.

@Atitagain I think you can vote either way. I like to do multiple votes per category because I think that’s more fun, but if you want to make your vote really count, you could totally just vote once. @Streetwiseis there any way we could get a Scapes from Scraps tag on all the posts for this contest?

Yeah, I’m just wondering if anyone already knows that he does or doesn’t like this sort of thing. I’ll probably just have to email him and ask if I really want to know.

Hey everyone! I just realized that my little sister lives maybe 30 minutes from Greg Sage. I think she and her boyfriend would really love to see Greg’s setup, and I’d love to live vicariously through her 😍 but they’re not fishkeepers and aren’t going to be buying anything from him. I’m just wondering if Greg enjoys giving people educational tours, or if that would be a bother. My sister and her boyfriend are easily excited and curious people who are environmentally conscientious (he does solar, she does grants for sustainable food systems, and they’re both vegan), and I’ve transferred a decent amount of my fish excitement to her, so I’m not worried about whether Greg would feel appreciated. I just don’t want to even suggest the idea to her unless I think Greg would enjoy a visit. I know he’s a busy guy so I thought I’d ask the forum before pursuing the idea. Is it bad that I’ve never gone to visit her in CO but I’m thinking about it now that I know Greg lives nearby? 😆

Aww yay! Happy tank birthday! Sounds like you have some great plans ahead.

It’s funny because this is actually one of my favorite things about the hobby! It can definitely be frustrating at times, though.

Oh noooo! I was afraid that would happen. Combing, to me, sounded like a great way to rip the plant out completely. Unless you grab the plant lower down with one hand to hold it down, and comb with the other. (Pro tip from someone who used to have long hair. 😉)

Ooo very excited to hear the story! 😃

I mean, sounds reasonable to me. Others might have more to add though. My general impression is that you tend to stock your tanks pretty heavily, and that means a small thing going wrong can have big consequences. I’m not really one to talk though with my platy breeders always absolutely stuffed 😝 I only use sponge filters and rely heavily on anacharis and hornwort to keep my nitrates down. It seems to work, but platys are pretty hardy. I can get away with a 50% water change every 3-4 weeks.

Yaaaay! What a great list! Very well deserved, all of you! @Torrey you especially have been so supportive of me as a fishkeeper and as a human, and I’m so happy you’re getting a package. 🥰