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RovingGinger

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Everything posted by RovingGinger

  1. RovingGinger
    I float or plant based on aesthetics and laziness. So far I have not noticed a difference, I feel like Jesus with loaves and bread with the multiplication rate it seems to have.
  2. RovingGinger
    I think this is normal even for professional artists. I don’t know of a single aesthetic skill where anyone is satisfied with their own work long term. Whether it’s a plant arrangement, an aquarium, a painting, a website, or woodworking, the minute you’re “done” you will always see what could be improved in your own work. The journey, iteration, and experimentation is also where the most fun is. Would you really enjoy it as much if you set up tanks to perfection the first time every time? You’d run out of space three times as quick at least!
  3. RovingGinger
    I think mine came in on gravel from Home Depot that wasn’t rinsed well enough. Although I have only seen it also in my fry tank where I was feeding basically only coop’s fry food and frozen bbs. I have also heard it’s basically in house dust dormant and waiting to resurrect? Relocating infected rocks and plants to the pea puffer tank did basically nothing, but I put a plant with a colony on it in the blood parrot tank and I swear there’s none left now. Since all the fry I have seen seem to avoid them, I think they’re kinda neat.
  4. RovingGinger
    How have you liked the solar lights and air pump? Do you mind posting links - I have very limited electricity available in my yard and those would be awesome additions.
  5. RovingGinger
    This thread had some experienced suggestions
  6. RovingGinger
    I gotta say those don't necessarily look like sewing supplies there under the sewing table Dean. 🤔
  7. RovingGinger
    I just picked up “Aquarium fishes and plants”. K. Rataj and R. Zukal are the authors and J. Maly is the illustrator for the 56 illustrations. I am a sucker for fish and plant illustrations, but I thought their advocacy for a sand substrate and aeration was pretty interesting given the discussion in the Walstad thread.
  8. RovingGinger
    I’ll be interested to see what you find. So far both the Walstad book and another book I have on planted tanks seem to come down heavily anti-air-pump anything. Very anti bubbles. But I have to think the fish may disagree. I have a 6 gallon nano set up with pool filter sand, Monte Carlo clippings, java moss, and najas/guppy grass. The only occupants so far are snails, mostly MTS. I am not sure if I will chicken out and add a filter or test it with a few male endlers without a filter. Most of my tanks run sponge filters.
  9. RovingGinger
    This may be a stupid question but I haven't seen it really addressed by anyone going no-filter: don't you need a filter to generate some sort of water movement? Or a pump of some kind? Or can you literally set up a soil water box and some plants and have still water aside from the movement any critters generate? Similarly, why is sifting the dirt such a big deal? These are all questions I cannot seem to find simple questions to in Walstad's Book Of Complex Chemical Things. Help, I was a marketing major...
  10. RovingGinger
    From what I have seen they are a favored fish treat.
  11. RovingGinger
    This is in no way a useful suggestion but it is the first thing that came to mind. I don’t really see anything practical you could do other than what you are already doing.
  12. RovingGinger
    Most of them grew up in nearly full MN summer sunlight so I don’t think lighting is the cause. I’d rather not cull since they look so happy and try so hard but if it’s not something potentially contagious I’ll probably just keep them separated. Edit: I found another one. At least 3/4 are female, possibly all 4.
  13. RovingGinger
    So far I have found 3 fry with bent spines, all bent basically up right after the dorsal fin. The first one I thought was mechanical damage as it got trapped under substrate but after I found two more with the same affliction I’m starting to wonder if it is a hereditary issue. They are mutt guppies I got from a local hobbyist in swap, and these fry are probably from the 3rd or 4th litter which I believe would have been either before I got them or only that blood line. I have added more mutt guppies from other sources but afaik haven’t gotten any fry as a result yet. For the most part they are pond raised with a variety diet of guppy food, fry food, brine shrimp, bloodworms, etc. TB? Scoliosis? Hereditary? Dietary deficiency?
  14. RovingGinger
    Hydra eating a worm in one of my guppy fry aquariums. A fry comes to check out the wiggliness but quickly leaves, this fits with what I have seen in terms of fry just avoiding being too close to hydra in general. Maybe with smaller fry born from eggs it would be more of an issue.
  15. RovingGinger
    Would pool filter sand be too much of a handicap to consider measuring? It’s what I’ve gone with in a few tanks as I have primarily easy stem or floating plants right now and I got tired of paying so much for ecocomplete. Would love to see what the trade off actually is. I am tempted to experiment with soil, but thinking of doing it open terrarium style and only planting within glass bowls, settled in sand or even left on a bare bottom tank. Does that limit root growth to the extent that it’s worthless? I have grown a lot of terrestrial plants successfully in terrarium conditions and killed probably at least as many so I know it takes a lot of plant death to find a plant success. But the journey is half the joy.
  16. RovingGinger
    @Daniel wow! I love your no lines style and the color. Watercolorist? As you can see, I am mostly lines... Here are my little dudes and a doodle depicting their facial expression. In actuality they seem fairly chill unless you are particularly small and wiggly.
  17. RovingGinger
    It is a skill from years of practice encouraged by an art teacher mom. I highly recommend the book ‘Drawing on the right side of the brain”, it’s great for adults/teens who want to develop drawing skills and really breaks down how to “see” what you are drawing which is really the actual struggle. We naturally draw what we think we see, not what actually appears in front of our eyes.
  18. RovingGinger
    For fun, I doodle a lot. I’d like to try my hand at more fish. Post a clear, high-quality photo of your fish and I’ll give it my best shot. i might end up using the artwork in something crafty to sell, so please be ok with that. You’re more than free to use the doodles for whatever personal use you might want. Also a doodler? Feel free to hop on the doodley band wagon.
  19. RovingGinger
    Between that bit and the magazine article where they claimed god gave all the brains to cichlids, I am very much enjoying the snarkiness level of old-timey aquarists 😂
  20. RovingGinger
    I bought the book and am part way through reading it, which is definitely an experience that makes me regret skipping chemistry in college. From what I understand, the Walstad method and the whole dirt planted tank was a big trend online a few years ago, but to mixed reviews and it seems to me now the prevalent low tech approach takes lessons from the Walstad method but generally shies away putting dirt in an aquarium. If you tried the Walstad method or a variant on it, how did it go? TIA!
  21. RovingGinger
    I think a lot of people use the Python water change system that hooks up to a sink (inside, so they can choose a temp, generally). They put any treatment into the tank beforehand (chloramine removal, etc). I just ordered one because I keep spilling buckets, so no direct experience. I have your same question re: is anyone using a pump or a power head to move water especially IN to the aquarium. I’m hoping the python solves the problem though.
  22. RovingGinger
    I was at our local PetSmart as a middle aged man was buying his first fish. I was thrilled to overhear their staff a) tell another customer not to buy their fish same day as their tank and b) warn this guy against fancy goldfish or large cichlids in a 20 gallon if he wanted multiple fish. I don’t normally pop into stranger’s conversations but I evangelized about the glories of guppies, how they swim at all levels and eat algae, and the crazy variety they come in. He had them show him the guppies!! I had them as a kid and liked them and I got them as an adult and I like them even more. The first tank I bought came with tetras (Serpae, red eye, black veil) and in comparison I find them so. Boring. Even my nano tank for my pea puffer has been repurposed into a guppy home for a sad cripple fry. I have a few other types of fish but I think I’m guppies for life.
  23. RovingGinger
    What would be easiest for bumblebee gobies? My pea puffer eats snails and they go for them too, but I’d like something more reliable as they don’t seem as skilled at gulping tiny bladder snails from their shells as the puffer.
  24. RovingGinger
    “The problem with air-driven filters is that they drive off needed CO2 in the tank.” basically yes, sounded like you were taking a tank with no co2 injection and then making it retain even less naturally. It also goes into the relationship between co2 and ph, which since I already have high ph, lack of co2 making it rise further seems bad. From houseplant experiment, most of the times what a book tells you to do optimally is not at all necessary to be a perfectly happy plant owner with lots of props. So I assume it is the same here and I am not accidentally stunting all my plants and slowly killing all the fish, and it sounds like that is right. I am glad to see so many people have tons of plants and no co2. Edit: also this from the book made me concerned - “If you choose to try a tank without supplemental CO2, make sure that you choose a filtration system that does not unnecessarily agitate the water surface. This means no air-driven filters can be used...”
  25. RovingGinger
    Man-made fish getting back to nature seems like less of an issue than just normal fish being released into the wrong environment. Giant plecos in lakes, etc. We've had a few giant goldfish turn up in the lakes of MN, including one that was estimated to be over 100 years old.
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