OnlyGenusCaps

Rough day with a crap neighbor! Time to retreat to some comfort music. Haugaard & Høirup are perhaps my favorite duo:

I'm not sure science can help with the desire or not to have snails though. It would be hard to gather data to refute "but I like their cute little faces" or "they just really creep me out". 😂 Totally! Jason from Prime Tame Aquatics had the best video on that, where he literally sat on his computer and ran through articles. One of my favorite FishTube vids out there!

This is very true! But @krislegitl, as someone who has some background in science communication, you should be aware that people hold their opinions dear. They also believe their opinions are based in fact and very often backed up by "science" even when the opposite is true. It's not just in fish keeping, we see this in political discourse as well. Paradoxically, as science has nothing to offer in terms of values, we can observe this in belief about what should be done with data, not just what the data tells us directly. As such, I anticipate this channel will be an absolute lightning rod for online abuse. Any doubts? Two words: anoxic filtration. Want two more that will cause fights more recently: water changes. Even your supporters will turn on you on a dime if you go from pointing out data that supports their opinions, to "suddenly" "attacking" one held dear that does not. If you can handle that, I say go for it! Sorry to be the wet blanket. There are ways of approaching a topic to disarm those who would otherwise be offended - but that's not science, that's rhetoric. 😜

Sunday:

So I'm in your head! Or are you in mine?! How can we know?!?! 😵‍💫

I love my desert gobies (Chlamydogobius eremius)! The males are beautiful, and they are so derpy. Wet Spot had them available recently, and Aquatic Arts does sometimes. If you get them, you should try to breed them. Fun! Plus, we can't import from Australia any more.

Saturday:

Friday (could it be any other song, really?!:

Thursday:

Wednesday:

Tuesday:

Monday:

You ain't tried noth'n 'til you've had @dasaltemelosguy's meatball recipe! (I hope my attempts at properly spelling the vulgar vernacular I used were accurate. It's quite challenging to be sure at times. 🤪)

Sure thing! I'll quickly summarize here, and if you want further details, I'd be happy to chat via DM. That said, the person who I know of who has been best with specific additions of microfauna is @Biotope Biologist. So, you might rather hear from him. So, I was able to get species specific ostracods and amphipods from a vendor in eBay. They were awesome additions! Once fish are introduced, they seem like they have been obliterated. But once I have pulled the fish from any of my tanks, there are the pods! They seem to keep algae under better control, and improve fry survivorship dramatically! My only complaint is that I can't get benthic copepods of the family Canthocamptidae. But, I hope to isolate and test species for aquarium suitability this summer. The straw method is pretty easy. Grab some straw (organic best), and soak it in a jar (add an airline, but not stone, to improve the results) with water and in the sun. In a week or so, check out the microbes you have under a microscope. It'll be a lot! Pour into an established aquarium (having some mulm helps loads here!) and let them do what they do. Helps with decomposition, and again with fry survivorship.

Oh no. This is a black tea. The "Ceylon" part is the old colonial name for the island of Sri Lanka where the estate is found. In tea lingo, Sri Lanka has remained "Ceylon". So this tea has zero to do with cinnamon. Well, except that true cinnamon is also native to the same island and so retains the same colonial name. Sorry for the confusion.

If you give loose leaf a try, get some Ceylon tea from the Kenilworth Estate. This one is my go to morning cuppa. I see it gets bagged now, but only the lowest grades tend to make it into bags. I tend to grab mine from places like Upton or Simpson and Vail. There are also some very nice Assam teas out there, but that's a longer conversation.

But the blue fry! Think of the blue fry! Won't somebody please think of the blue fry!

I'd work harder to up survivorship in those fry. If that stripe makes it into adulthood... 🤑

This is an excellent question! It is also a hotly debated topic on the saltier side of the hobby. Without going into a dissertation length diatribe on the modes and means of doing so, I'll say that there are not a lot of different ways to do so on the FW side. Finding sources for microfauna that have been cultured as @Guppysnail and @Biotope Biologist have done is a wonderful method. But it's not straightforward. You could also culture microfauna via methods for feeding very small fry, or how it is done for primary school courses by soaking straw in water. But these are not specifically controlled methods. I've noticed eBay vendors beginning to sell various micro-crustaceans, so that's also a method. But currently, there is no out of the box solution for the FW hobbyist the way there is on the marine side. But it's the right approach, so keep at it!

I'll echo the folks who suggest to leave them. They won't go anywhere. If they are a species that associated with water, they'll desiccate before they make it very far. Besides, I would argue that one of the great joys of aquariums is the wonderful panoply of life they can house - often without our notice, so good on you for paying such close attention!

I love this idea! Indeed I did what I called a "Pseudo-Saltwater Tank" for a bit. I loved it! Perhaps too much. It lead to an actual SW tank. 🤣 But if you can resist the sirens' song of marine tanks, this is a great option!

I really want to get my summer tub up and running. I already pulled out out of under the deck. But that I really need to do is to see if my lotus tuber made it through the winter soon. That's probably the right speed for this project. I know better than setting up my tub this early in MN:

It's all looking awesome, sir! What fry are those? Your WCMM? If so, why are they so blue?! They look like little neons. Mine are never like that.

I like the clear tube! When you get this dialed in, it'll be cool to compare the effective version against the less optimal ones. That's great thinking!

Respectfully, I disagree strongly with that. I think we should be aiming for better taxonomic clarity. It can impact a lot of what we as hobbyists do, up to and including breeding. I won't address that directly as it is clearly a strawman. To me this is a problem that we should aim to rectify as best as is possible. What if the similar looking species prefer different parameters, or you order twice from them thinking they are the same species and can't figure out why they won't breed (or they do and you end up with unintended hybrids), or one order is a larger or more aggressive species? Any of these could result in negative impacts to the hobbyist, all because of incorrect species ID. This happens with different algae eater species, to the frustration of many hobbyists. I would argue that in this case common names might be easier to use, but they are not more "accurate". Indeed, by purposely incorporating ambiguity they are intentionally less accurate. Essentially this is just codifying a separate vernacular, as opposed to formal, taxonomy. It doesn't address the issues you have raised about the formal Latin names. Let's say a new species in the genus was discovered that differed in meaningful ways for husbandry, would this still be an "avocado puffer" but now identifiablly different, or would a new name be required for this species? What if it was only identifiable after time, like adult aggression differs? Of if the only difference was this new species couldn't genetically interbreed with the 5 others that could do so among the older group? Does this require categorizing it, or not in this case? My point is that whatever metrics of taxonomy one selects, the same problems will arise. Anyhow, I'll leave it there. I fear I have already taken us too far down the garden path from @dasaltemelosguy's original topic about a cool looking new plant he is growing. My apologies!