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Daniel

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Everything posted by Daniel

  1. Daniel
    I am not much of a quarantiner with plants which means I often get hitchhikers. I get a few dragonfly larva sometimes and snails too. Generally I am as interested in all the little surprises as I am in the intended items. It is all biology to me.
  2. Daniel
    Daphnia Blackworms Mosquito larva And it wouldn't be complete without baby brine shrimp, a cone full every 12 hours!
  3. Daniel
    This is the closest thing I know of to an online database, but unfortunately it only covers vascular plants 😑 But it is very, very good. UNC Herbarium HERBARIUM.UNC.EDU Other states have something similar too.
  4. Daniel
    @Spewing_nonsense_ I understand this is not exactly what your looking for but it is what I use and almost everything is in one of the books. But you have to bring a lot of prior knowledge to table just to use a moss book. You cannot get the majority of plants or mosses down to a specific species just with photos. There can be much jargon, but once you learn it, your ID's are spot on.
  5. Daniel
    Another aquarium plant that I collected in that same ditch as the parrot feather and Ludwigia was Utricularia macrorhiza. It is a relative of the aquarium plant Utricularia graminifolia. Both are bladderworts. Bladderworts are very cool because they are a carnivorous aquatic plants. They have little bladders with trap doors and it is possible for them to ensnare aquatic insects like Daphnia. Some people think this strategy has evolved because the bladderworts live in such low nitrogen environments any additional nitrogen source is extremely valuable to the plant. They also have lovely flowers.
  6. Daniel
    This post has been a well documented lesson in what to do for a fungal infection. Thank you so much for the steady stream of updates @BreeMarie, this is model for what I wish every post in the disease forum would be. It is how I learn on this forum. A problem is posed and then a course of treatment is followed. Often we never hear from that original poster again. One of my recent wild collected fish has injury in the same place that is developing a fungus. After following your experience here, I know exactly the course of medications I am going to treat the injury with.
  7. Daniel
    @Ben_RF Yes, Carteret has a dot on the map!
  8. Daniel
    Non-toxic dye or little neutral buoyancy plastic beads or fish food would work also.
  9. Daniel
    It is often surprising to realize just how many of our aquarium plants are native to the United States and especially the Southeastern US. One of those exotic looking yet home grown plants is the lovely banana plant, Nymphoides aquatica. Found from New Jersey to Florida in ditches, still waters, and ponds it is one of my all time favorites. My first task was to locate where it could be found in North Carolina. I used my Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas to narrow the search down to specific counties. Craven County had a dot, and so was added to my itinerary for my aquatic plant collecting road trip. I thought surely I could not mistake banana plants for anything else, but you can never be too careful, so I brought my trusty, Godfrey and Wooten, Aquatic Plants of the Southeastern United States just to be sure. After several productive but non banana plant ditches I hit upon this site. Shazaam! Banana plants galore! Checking my Godfrey and Wooten for confirmation against what I was collecting I was sure I had success! Even a few baby banana plants. The eternal question always is: What do plants want? Knowing where and how they grow natively in the wild would go a long way towards answering this question, so I was determined to make observations and take measurements. Here was the temperature This is the water chemistry No nitrates, no GH, no KH and a very low pH. Surprisingly there seems to be a bit chlorine, but whatever the source, I guarantee it did not come from a water treatment plant as I was in a very remote unspoiled location. The substrate was 3 inches of mulm, over a couple inches of mud, over a sandy bottom. Most plants were firmly rooted all the way into the sand in about 1 to 3 feet of water. Some plants had lily pads nearly the size of my hand. Smaller plants on runners or nearer shore had more bananas. Some plants were flowering with delicate white flowers floating just above the surface of the water. I collected a handful of plants and headed quickly home to the 1930s Historically Accurate Planted Aquarium as these would be a very authentic addition!
  10. Daniel
    Planaria always have the goofiest looks on their faces. They look like they are cross-eyed 🙂
  11. Daniel
    When we were at the gap on the Appalachian ridgeline a few days ago we saw monarchs cresting the ridge headed Southwest. Today when we got home I found these in our milkweed patch. This monarch chrysalis above still has a ways to go, but this one below (you can just make out the orange on folded wings) is imminent.
  12. Daniel
    I have used an X-acto knife to clean out silicone in the corner of aquariums.
  13. Daniel

    FOOD

    Daniel replied to keyman's topic in General Discussion

    What does 'GBG' stand for?
  14. Daniel
    Even by 1936 Innes was suggesting growing plants as one of the 4 conditions of a successful aquarium. I am starting the aquarium a few years before 1936. There is no local tropical fish store yet so I will have to collect my own plants. Luckily I live in North Carolina and many of the current plants found in our aquariums today occur in the wetter areas of the central and eastern part of my state. So road trip! I found a ditch just on the Kinston NC city limits located both the highway and Duke Power right of way, so I felt free to collect aquatic plants from the ditch. The ditch was not a pretty sight. But it had good stuff. Bacopa, Ludwigia, Parrot feather and more. The parrot feather was especially nice in places It looks like I will have some good plants without a visit to a pet store! So far, so good.
  15. Daniel
    The journey begins! I have committed to using Innes' 1936 'The Complete Aquarium Book' so I might as well start at the beginning. Hopefully, I will not repeat the mistakes of the lady with goldfish.
  16. Daniel
    Several years (at least 5) including a couple of moves to different locations. Once I figured it out it wasn’t gonna pop I just learned to live with it. It is what really taught me just how darn flexible glass is. It seems like it’s stiff, but it’s really more like plastic. But it also showed me what the value of that center brace really is.
  17. Daniel
    @subramn, yes they come in as hitchhikers on plants.
  18. Daniel
    Blackworms are the easiest live food culture to keep for me. I keep them in the fridge. Baby brine aren't the easiest (but still very easy overall) because you have to do a couple of minutes of easy chores each day, but they are really inexpensive for the amount of food you get. Less expensive by far than blackworms. So at the intersection of cheap and easy I would pick baby brine shrimp. Or sometimes in the utility sink with cold water dripping on them. Hikari Vibra Bites are my fishes favorite prepared food. Mosquito larva and Daphnia are pretty easy because I don't keep them so much as catch them from outdoor containers.
  19. Daniel
    I once had the middle brace on a 150 break. The result was the front and back glass bowed out alarmingly (it seemed like an inch or more on either side). But the tank never actually catastrophically failed, even through it always looked like it was about to so.
  20. Daniel
    An oven tray and a skillet have been the only 2 items needed to cook a meal other than a cutting board or bowl. I keep waiting to get tired of these meals but so far that has not happened.
  21. Daniel
    I know this is not quite what you are asking as this tank is larger, just something to think about, like how will I get the aquarium in the house? For my 500 gallon tank I worked through my LFS to have it custom built by Oceanic. Once the tank gets to a certain size it is not just a matter of finding it or buying it. The issue becomes moving it and placing it on a stand. The LFS moved the large aquarium off the truck with a forklift through an opening in wall of our house. 12 people with suction cup handholds then moved the tank from the forklift to a custom stand built by Oceanic. Without the manufacturer approved stand, Oceanic could not provide a warranty on the aquarium. Leveling was critical as was the plumbing of the bulkheads. It is good to have experienced, smart people who have moved a large aquarium before. I wonder what @Taylor Blake experience was in moving his 300 gallon tank.
  22. Daniel
    34th wedding anniversary, went for a day hike in the Shining Rock Wilderness with my dearest to where we first hiked together 36 years ago.
  23. Daniel
    I live streamed a honeybee observation hive this spring for days at a time in 4k at first using a Brio 4k as @Streetwise mentions. But in the end to get better quality I upgraded (as @Cory mentions above) to camlink4k with a Panasonic GH5s and Xsplit Broadcaster. An observation hive is a glass box full of biology just like an aquarium and I intend to try this setup on a fish tank soon.
  24. Daniel
    I have seen tiny baby gouramis investigate hydras, I have never seen one eaten by a hydra.
  25. Daniel
    Definitely hydra...100%. Here is an interesting post on hydra. Spixey snails and croaking gourami are known to eat hydra if you don't like your cute tiny freshwater anemones 🙂
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