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Daniel

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Everything posted by Daniel

  1. Daniel
    That is a great question! Aquarium keeping in the 1930s seems pretty similar to what we do now, with pretty similar results. I won't do anything that isn't good for the fish. I might have to work harder though if I am trying to find live foods for example. And it's possible I won't have to work as hard as there will be fewer gadgets to maintain. From my initial reading of the literature, 1930s aquariums do not seem like they were worse for the fish/plants than now, just managed differently, certainly fewer fish per gallon than we tend to keep now. The living conditions of many economically important animals generally haven't improved since the 1930s. Ask yourself, if you were a chicken or a pig or a cow, for the short time you were alive on the Earth, would you have preferred to have been on a 1930s farm or in a 2020 Industrial production facility? I know it is not that good of an analogy but the point I would like to make is that while many, many things have improved in the last 100 years, some things are remarkably similar, and few things were possibly better a 100 years ago. I am prepared to end the experiment if I have to make compromises that would cause the fish to suffer, but let's find out together what it was like to keep a planted tropical fish tank in the early years of the Great Depression. And this vintage magazine just came in the mail today. Here is the cover for the August 1934 issue of Home and Gardens magazine. I think this will give me something to shoot for as I set up the tank.
  2. Daniel
    We are about to find out, I think I once heard @Cory say he thought people fed their fish table scraps back in the 1930s. I’ve got a lot of research to do.
  3. Daniel
    The results are in (from 66 years ago). And the answer is: Betta, Betta! (Who Cares about Guppies)
  4. Daniel
    I figured you had gone for the best white light for this job
  5. Daniel
    Anything special about the LEDs?
  6. Daniel
    Pretty fish by the way.
  7. Daniel
    I have never tried to move them off of glass. The eggs are very sticky and I suspect damage is likely if you try and detach them. But, there is hope! If it were me, I would lean a narrow strip of glass (like from a 10 gallon aquarium top) or plastic in the corner where they always breed. Then wait for them to lay eggs on your new insert. That way you can move the eggs to a hatch out tank. Hatching the eggs and raising the babies separately from the parents is a little tricky as the eggs are prone to fungusing, but it is what a lot of pro angelfish breeders do. There is lots of documentation out there on how to do this.
  8. Daniel
    I have an idea. If you can do a geographically accurate biotope aquarium, why can't you do a historically accurate aquarium. Sort of a historotope if I'm allowed one neologism here. At an estate sale a while back, I acquired a 1930s era aquarium with a metal frame and a slate bottom. This is not one of those stainless steel MetaFrame aquariums everyone (including me) had back in the 1960s and the 1970s. It is clearly something much older. Everything about the aquarium was in good shape when I got it, and it was watertight. Last year when I was using it to grow mosquito larva outside I forgot to bring it in when it got cold. When ice formed in the tank the expanding ice blew out one of the glass sides. So, what might the rules be for a historotope? Rules: You are only allowed to use equipment available during your chosen time period. You are only allowed to keep fishes that were available during your chosen time period. You must use historically accurate foods. You must use historically accurate plants. You must use historically accurate substrate and decorations. You must use historically accurate maintenance methods. Since I have the aquarium (once I get it repaired), my chosen time period will be the mid-1930s in the United States. My first step is to get the tank water tight again. I will post more later as this experiment progresses and your thoughts and suggestions come in.
  9. Daniel
    How is your infusoria culture working out so far? It must be pretty cloudy by now. Do you have a microscope?
  10. Daniel
    I collected Daphnia today. These are wild Daphnia I collected from a ditch in front of my house. It was about to dry up so I am running a little more water in to it so the Daphnia will last a little longer.
  11. Daniel
    LOL! If I hadn't used up my reactions for the day, this one would have gotten the haha face.
  12. Daniel

    Other Pets

    Daniel replied to Cory's topic in Off Topic General

    Fish tank water tastes the best!
  13. Daniel
    Impressive work as usual!
  14. Daniel
    Sometimes it's just a bad batch, and notice ultimately Cory is going add the ones that died off and the ones that did better all to the same big tank. He says there is some risk, but he is willing to take it.
  15. Daniel
    I wouldn't euthanize the remaining PetSmart neons, if they live, they are the survivor neons. They deserve a chance.
  16. Daniel
    Its probably not water parameters, or something in your big tank nor likely a specific 'disease'. It's just the stress on the neons of being moved from the distributor to the wholesaler to the retailer to you. And it is the difference between the two retailers. The PetSmart neon's were likely moved through the supply chain rapidly and without a lot of TLC. The Aqua Huna neons were likely well acclimated and stabilized long before they were ever shipped to you. If there were loses in the process, Aqua Huna took those loses, and what you received are the rock solid survivor neons that will live for years. Isn't it ironic that fish you buy at your local fish store and that only experience a brief ride home can be so much more fragile than fish purchased online and shipped to you? I can't sing Aqua Huna's praises enough. Even though they are West Coast and I am East Coast, everything I have ever received from them has arrived in excellent health. Usually within minutes of being released from the shipping bag the fish are already eating and look bright and healthy. It's not you, it the difference in how the fish were handled before you got them.
  17. Daniel
    Maybe not so much being a 'fish nerd', but you might have a 'fish problem' when you have the following conversation with your 6 year old child (whose daily morning job is to help you change the water on 300 betta jars). Son (bursting into tears), "Dad, I wish I had two broken legs! Me, "Oh no! Why?" Son, "So I didn't have to change the bettas jars every morning!" He's 26 years old now, and we both laugh about it. And I think he has even forgiven me for the time we forgot his birthday because we were at the 2001 International Betta Congress convention in New Orleans and stopped on the way home for an impromptu birthday meal at a sketchy Mexican restaurant in southern Alabama where he got food poisoning and threw up for the rest of drive back to North Carolina.
  18. Daniel
    I love watching the entire betta breeding process. Building bubble nests, recruiting females to come over to the nest. And then whoa! Watching a male clasping and then rotating the ripe female who seems to go unconscious and float to the surface at the moment of egg release! And then the male, good dad that he is, meticulously hunts down each egg and carefully takes the egg(s) in his mouth and then spits them into the bubble nest. What a show! But wait, there's more. Being the good dad, he shepherds and protects the fry for a few days until they are big enough to leave the nest. It is only when the wanderlust of another female betta beauty catches his fancy does he finally abandon his post. Plus like guppies, the fry grow quickly and take baby brine shrimp soon after becoming free swimming. And like guppy genetics, you get colors of all kinds and you can develop your own strain in a handful of generations. The biggest drawback though is because bettas are so tough and prolific, they can be like oxycontin. Without some self-control on your part, that pair bettas can become hundreds of bettas before you know it. I could be talked out of those high maintenance, stuck-up discus and be pulled back into betta world.
  19. Daniel
    I just made a little video showing the benefits of algae. Algae and plants are the primary producers in the food chain with all the animals in the food chain secondary and dependent on the primary ones. Or think about it this way, this is the ultimate 'Nano' tank because you need a microscope to see all the biological drama!
  20. Daniel
    The mystery of the mysterious death of the mystery snail...
  21. Daniel
    My green hair algae is probably not the same species as your hair algae. My algae has explosive growth and forms green, slimy mats with the consistency of phlegm. My green stuff sounds similar to @Brandy's brown stuff. Here is a picture of it in a tank I setup last week. It shows that if combine a Diana Walstad 'I just dug up my lawn and put it in an aquarium' tank with too much light, you get enough hair algae to make a nice green wig. Biologically this a fabulous tank. But it is not fashionable because it looks like the backwater of a natural pond. But then again why would a tank of hairy green/brown snot algae ever come into fashion? I have tanks with the same amount of light, but no dirt, and these tanks do not have green hair algae blooms. But without the excess light, the hair algae wouldn't bloom either. And for me, like @Brandy, big slimy hair algae blooms, don't tend to happen in long established tanks. I am not sure why, but maybe the long established tanks are more diverse and the resources are more locked up and the hair algae just cannot outcompete its rivals enough to have a population explosion. All in all, lots of light and plenty of nutrients with few competitors and no predators seems to be the recipe for growing luxuriant slimy hair algae.
  22. Daniel
    Cricket is on the job already! She is in the tank scraping silicone, Watson her twin brother is supervising!
  23. Daniel
    This forum is clearly being funded by 'Big Guppy'. Apparently guppies are the opiate of the masses. After not having any for years, I too got guppies this week! Two weeks ago you could have knocked me over with a feather if you told me I would start jonesing for guppies again.
  24. Daniel
    My neighbor just now gifted me with a 58 gallon aquarium he has had for 25 years or more. It has lovely woodgrain trim. He said the yellow tape was 'to keep birds from flying in to it'. Recently it started weeping a bit (a small leak). It is not really clear where the leak is. Should I scape away the old silicone, or just slather a generous bead on all the seams? Anyone had success with repairing older aquariums?
  25. Daniel
    The bee grubs are not too bad as human food either. I wouldn't eat them regularly unless it was hard times. Let's just say though I'm glad the 'Hello Fresh' box came and that we are having Apricot Chicken with roasted Yukon Gold potatoes tonight.
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