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Torrey

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Everything posted by Torrey

  1. Torrey
    I'm ORD again😍😍😍 I want some of this polite duckweed you have been sporting, lol Congratulations on the successful growth of Duke! As for the safer space for the science, I think this is a good idea. When I went back to school adjusting to shifts in the degrees of intensity in how people enjoytheir science took some work. Some of my classmates were young enough to be my kids, and they felt really intimidated by the balancing of chemistry equations until I explained that balancing a chemistry equation only needed to be as complicated as they wanted it to be. Then I shared an Adam Ant video and said "can't have half an atom on either side of the equation, just like we can't have half an ant" which was modified for mnemonic memory by a bunch of overly stressed adult, single parents and nobody misbalanced an equation again. When someone freaked out about memorizing the necessary bits of the periodic table, we recreated the table as an emu farm, and turned the AMU into EMU, and it made memorizing electrons and how to determine molecular weight a lot easier. *Anything* can be explained in a way and in a language that resonates for the listener/learner/reader. It just requires enough initial interest on the person trying to explain it (which I think you and dasaltemelosguy did an excellent job at!) to spark curiosity in the person listening/reading to want to learn more, and then a mutually enjoyable language will evolve (like a whole new generation of people who will never forget Adam Ant's most famous video, and half atoms don't work any better than half ants) that is grounded in laughter and having fun. Because, that's the best way to learn, right? Just, not everyone has the same humor thresholds. (Only 80% of our chemistry class passed the class. !00% who passed with an A appreciated my sense of humor enough to show up for every study session potluck at my house, where we practiced redox reactions until everyone understood. Food improves memory, lol)
  2. Torrey
    Prime doesn't lower nitrates. Only thing that lowers nitrates is water changes, or plants absorbing the nitrates (my preferred method), or Purigen (or similar) and the Purigen has to be recharged. My ZeroWater filter does a good job removing TDS and ntrates from my source water... until it doesn't. So I test my source water before every top off and before every water change. Yeah, I use more strips, but I cut the bottle of 200 in half = 400 tests. It's worth it to identify trends and anomalies. Plus, I can easily see if a test has gone bad. Nitrates in my tanks never mathc my tap. Typically, my tap (before the ZeroFilter) has higher nitrates than my tanks. Great, pre-fertilized water.
  3. Torrey
    @Keeg how long had your tank been set up with the original betta? Sometimes, we get so focused on looking for nails because everyone has been talking about the newest hammer, we forget that not every problem is a nail. I normally do a better job asking questions for clarification, I apologize for being preoccupied and not clarifying. Here's something to consider, as well: https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/features/how-to-avoid-old-tank-syndrome/ I don't 100% agree with everything in this article, I have seen people (Tazawa Tanks and Jimmy Gimbal have a video of a fish store, as well) with healthily, heavily planted aquariums see better results without massive water changes... or even many small water changes. Heavily planted with healthy plants is the key there.
  4. Torrey
    I think @Griznatch started it in here, lol
  5. Torrey
    I can attest that taking the water inside in a glass, and then testing it, eliminated my chlorine I had been reading. My porch doesn't get direct sunlight, and only portions of the tub get any direct light for limited times in the summer, as the sun is now north of our building at sunrise & sunset.
  6. Torrey
    I think you might like this method for easy to keep going fry food:
  7. Torrey
    I have been having decent success by attaching submersible LED lights under the odd shaped lid tanks. They can be more easily adapted to a wide variety of oddball shapes, and even work on the flip open lid part to feed the fish. And, submersible... so I don't have to worry about an "oops". Now that I know the biggest secret for healthy red plants is a combination of iron and plenty of light, I'm going to play with mounting a submersible on some wood so the light is invisible, but red plants get side light and stay red top to bottom (no shading of lower leaves). First tank I tested it in. You can see this lid is technically too shallow for this light, so part of the light is submerged up top. Here's the light I've been working with, because I had access to some free ones to play with: This 10 gallon has 2 of them attached to an egg crate lid to get the coverage and brightness the plants needed It's a low cost option, yet is really nice because it's fairly easy to mount these to existing lids without having to cut or adapt the lid.
  8. Torrey
    @Sharlotte Adams how did they respond to being dewormed? Did any of them act differently during the deworming process? Did any of them struggle with any of the quarantine trio?
  9. Torrey
    I haven't had the resources to try either the Auqasoil or the Eco... I also have hard water (affectionately, our liquid rock) that has had a wildly varying KH this year... leading to lots of opportunities to learn new things about keeping plants and animals happy. Substrate in my tanks is either large pond stones/gravel/lava rock over UGF (sometimes a section, sometimes an entire tank), pool sand at one end of a river tank (T4'), hydroballs (with and without UGF), and a blend of soil/oyster shell/BDBS/crushed lava rock partially capped with gravel in my Walstad inspired tank. All have pros and cons. If inexpensive is the goal, along with the look of the gravel that you prefer, mixing up some safe-t-sorb with gravel and then capping with gravel would be pretty effective. Using the plastic zippered largest filter bags with some soil in the bag, under gravel is also a great trick for minimizing the mess, while reaping the benefits in plant growth (keep the bags ~1" thick, and cap with gravel, or can mix lava rock with dirt in the bags for a little more lift in the back, then cap with gravel). I don't have pictures of the capped bag method yet, because I am stubborn and wasn't convinced it was a viable option until I followed a friend's success (they were inspired by my first ever success with red plants and no CO2 last year, in liquid rock but didn't want the floating particulates from dirt). Joke is on me, a year later malaysian trumpet snails dug up all my red plants and snacked, meanwhile my friend's red plants rooted into the bags and the snails couldn't relandscape...🙄 So now their tank looks better than mine.😁
  10. Torrey
    Are you looking to remove tannins? Nitrates? Organics is kind of a wide range....
  11. Torrey
    I need to ask my daughter if I can post the lovely bird of prey she rescued from a church (injured wing) and drove 4 hours to meet up with a licensed rehab, all before heading to work *while* taking care of the twins. Never a dull moment with 3 yo twins😁 I can't wait until my health is back to the point they can hang out [safely] again. We have positively identified the ravens who are raising a family in a nearby pinon by their calls, as well as white shouldered doves and mourning doves, and 2 families of ring necks. Hawk seems to have moved elsewhere since the forest fires got too close. We haven't had a good air day since April, until the monsoons finally started today... and now we have flash flood warnings. I haven't been able to get any pictures that are even close to identifiable, lol
  12. Torrey
    Never be embarrassed, some of us take 8 out of 6 attempts, lol! Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there! Wordle guessed in 3/6! Can you do better? Try this wordle: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=bweqph ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨 🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #mywordle Just in time! Wordle guessed in 4/6! Can you do better? Try this wordle: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=pwdhc ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜ 🟩🟨🟨🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 #mywordle Thank you @FlyingFishKeeper! Staying with your theme, and to show my enthusiasm: https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=lidsd
  13. Torrey
    Thank you, and @dan12boy I apologize that I missed the notification for this.
  14. Torrey
    Welcome to the Nerms! Nice tanks, and like the artwork.
  15. Torrey
    Thank you for eaily replicable directions, and the update. Temp where your cultures are?
  16. Torrey
    Patient Spouse™ says this is the Endlers in their tank in their room, everytime I come in to take care of anything. Apparently, if I leave the room, they all hang out in the corner, waiting for me to come back with bbs, mosquito larvae, or whatever else I'm serving for dinner, lol
  17. Torrey
    I don't currently have a picture of the guppy grass, but I do have Bacopa carolinia growing out of cholla Just stick a stem in a cholla hole, and it will root and grow. The original stem is the far right (you can see it growing out of the cholla) and the stem inside the cholla has added branches (5 branches to the left of the stem on the right) Pardon the algae, this tank stays happier the less I do to it.
  18. Torrey
    You might be a Nerm when everyone sends links that are in some way, shape or form related to healthy aquatic ecosystems: “A recent study has shown that for thousands of years, in sites around the world, Indigenous peoples were sustainably harvesting large quantities of oysters. Researchers believe this could inform modern-day fisheries about how to harvest large amounts of food without harming ecosystems. "People were harvesting just a massive amount of oysters. Some of these sites have over a billion oysters, and many have over tens of millions of oysters in them," said Torben Rick, a curator of North American archeology with Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.”
  19. Torrey
    This was my reality. I decided happy animals and plants was more important than water quality.
  20. Torrey
    ORD 😍 I have my UGF tubes at various levels, if you play with it enough you can literally have musical tanks!
  21. Torrey
    Welcome!!! Everyone complains bout the hornwort shedding, it's temperamental until its calcium needs are satisfied, then it's fry paradise, lol. Milfoil is a less temperamental alternative with roots, if you like the look. Nice looking tanks! As I read this, I looked over at my tank with my assassins and found they are feeling frisky, I'm sure all the bachelors are jealous, lol (this is my bachelor pad grow out tank)
  22. Torrey
    Every time your parked and level, lol! We didn't have airstones (no USB in 92-93), just lots of plants. Enjoy your journey!
  23. Torrey
    As long as you are having fun, it sounds great!
  24. Torrey
    Lol!!! Guilty as charged:
  25. Torrey
    Looks like recycled Cetaphil jars, but with a white lid. Our local restaurant supply (not online) had similar jars I used to buy for massage creams I custom made for pregnant clients.
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