Torrey

My dad had taken off the knob, and hid the pliers required to change channels in a drawer to high for us kids to reach. The TV lived on top of the violin cabinet stand, so I had to stand on a chair to turn up the volume. It's okay, and generated quite the laugh when I came home from college with a few pals and asked my dad how we watched Cronkite on PBS🤣

::gets ideas::

I miss having a microscope, looking at hacks on how to turn a cellphone camera into a microscope😁

ORD😍

and sometimes it's a miner's cart on a roller coaster, and there aren't any seatbelts👀

Never need to be embarrassed, as long as you maintain a healthy sense of humor. Freezer saved my brine shrimp eggs when our house burnt down. Freezing is no big deal, but heat decimates viability. Oh, and welcome to the Nerms!!!

ORD🤣🤣🤣

ORD and thank you! The specimen container inspired a new short story by my spouse! there's an excerpt in my "Argument" journal. Who knew that converting my spouse into an aquarium tolerator from an aquarium hater would boost their creativity streak🤣 I am already seeing a huge difference in my two smallest tanks, which are quickly evolving into "show tanks"

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I forgot to even cover my scud tank, lol "when I remember" is very apt. I drop in a carrot at least once a week. Drop in leaves from trimming the pothos (when I trim). When I notice the prior offering to the scuds is gone/down to the veins, I drop in something else to keep them occupied.

ORD 😍 I grew up in one of those homes. My mom grew up in an even better era home: pre-colonial, with a dedicated piano room (great acoustics), enclosed solarium, a dedicated sewing room, and I have no idea what the insulated addition to the solarium was originally designed for, but it had double hung, poured glass (complete with the bubbles and waves poured window glass is known for) "glazing" and both the outside glass and the inside glass opened independently of one another. My grandfather eventually added screens to keep bugs out, and it had been converted to his fish room long before I was born.

Yeah, I definitely understand🤣 Like, 13 cm x 25 cm on zip tie bags, and then 32 cm x 14 cm (or 14 cm x 32 cm) on the line with actual zippers being labeled sm/md/lg at the top (and no micron listed? just "25 mesh/16 mesh/8 mesh"???) would have left me thinking the bags them selves were different sizes, especially since the information is in different places (packaging is not uniform). I hate shopping on a certain company website, because the information is never uniform, and it's hard to make the script large enough to read all the needed information without sacrificing access to about half the screen (accessibility is a joke). Thank you for posting this, you saved me from a similar mistake with a different company! On a side note, the large bags at 19' x 17' are perfect for using lava rock to help elevate substrate and can be stacked with soil in the small bags to reduce silt in the water column.

But it's a DIY, which means Dean found a way to make it better.😍

@Martin I am concerned that ammonia of 0.5 ppm has been present, *and* before making an assumption I would verify with another test. Good to see you decided to stop chasing water parameters and work with what you got, however that doesn't mean reduction in testing and validating the test results. (If that is what happened, I don't want to assume, I am merely explaining my full thought process out loud). Most tanks don't really qualify as 'seasoned' until somewhere between 6 months and a year of age. In that time period it is perfectly normal for various algaes to develop, grow, and then die back. The algae itself helps process ammonia to keep it out of the water column: Fish eat food, then release waste in the form of urea (ammonia and fecal matter) which is either processed by bacteria into nitrites or consumed by plants (including algae) as a more bioavailable fertilizer (another good reason to feed a variety of quality foods is to ensure neither plants nor animals develop nutritional deficiencies). If you talked about your fert dosing schedule, and what you are using to fertilize your plants, I missed that. When you say GH is "8" is that 8 drops on an API test? 8 ppm? Some other measurement? Depending on your source water, your testing method, and a few other variables, there is a lot of room here for misinterpretation of data. @nabokovfan87 gave you my favorite link for improving filtration. Most of the manufacturer supplied filters use carbon, which delays the beneficial bacteria development to process ammonia into nitrites, and then the second type of bacteria to process nitrites into nitrates. Carbon also removes medications and plant fertilizers from the water. I suspect you, your fish, and your plants will all be happier after you retrofit your HOB. I love the new strips from the Co-op for testing water parameters. They save me time, and don't hurt to use. I still use my API tests and shake the bottles and the test tubes to ensure I am getting accurate results, and I pay for tap water testing from a professional lab about once a year (and that's a great way for me to confirm my strips and my API reagents are accurate). It also gives me more in depth information, like iron, lead, copper, and petroleum levels in my tap water. (And giardia one time, fun, fun, fun). If you can share that information, we can be of more service by finetuning the nuance in our suggestions of how to fix problems. Also, some electrical shorts are not registered on our skin the same way they can affect fish. I recommend anyone who has equipment (like heaters, or powerheads, or pumps) that require electrical equipment to be in contact with water, to invest in a low cost voltage meter to check for shorts. If otherwise happy fish suddenly end up dead for absolutely no obvious reason, or happy fish suddenly change behavior, we tend to look at illness (we have medicines and want to use them) or a bully in the tank (we have all known a bully) and frequently overlook the potential for an intermittent stray electrical current (we don't feel the shock when we put our hands in the water so the fish couldn't possibly be getting shocked). I'm not saying that's what is happening, I am saying a voltage meter to test the water is the best way to rule it out so you have more information to work with (90% of working in the ER was ruling things out until we had an accurate diagnosis).

ORD 😍😍

I am so sorry @paarkrosis! I lost my Krishna and Kismet close together last year. Came home from 2 different hospital visits, and in the morning they were gone. I had gotten Kismet right after my son died, so it was really hard to process her (Kismet's) loss. Then I watched Gianne's presentation for the Co-op Member's forum, and decided it was irresponsible for me to take on any more bettas as long as I am living somewhere with single digit humidity levels, their labyrinth organ deserves better. So no more breeding bettas, and no more as pets for me either. Now, I sit with my dracaena and my philodendron, and remember the joy they brought me in life. I buried them in my plants. May their memories be a Blessing for you, it's obvious you work very hard at providing them with the best life and the least suffering possible.

Yeah, my first guess is usually as many vowels as possible to get a good idea of which direction to go in. Normally, that vowel is in my second guess.... I think FlyingFishKeeper is catching on, lol!

I do not have limnophila aromatica, I realized my wording wasn't very clear. Ever since I set up the Walstad inspired tank last year I have played more with lighting siestas. I have discovered that tanks I have on 3 photoperiods are growing plants faster, and with more vibrant colors, than only 2 photoperiods that are longer (ie: my bedroom has 2 photoperiods of 4.5 hours and then 5 hours, with a 4 hour block in between) versus the living room on a 4 hour on/4 hour off/ 4 hour on/ 3 hour off/ 3 hour on/6 hour off cycle which reduced algae growth and is yielding enough plant growth to necessitate daily ferts. (Weekly, and even biweekly ferts seem to irritate the shrimp and snails, so I broke it down to daily dosing). I initially lost about a third of the AR rosaeafolia in the tank on the left, probably due to low nitrates. Ever since I got the Easy Green, and started daily dosing that includes magnesium, I quit having the same dieback. These 2 tanks are now growing plants for the rest of my tanks, because the plants here grow faster. I am wondering if it is the light cycle giving them "3 days" for every "2 days" in the rest of my tanks, even though the *total* amount of light (~11 hours of light every 24 hours) is the same. So I was wondering if you moved your slower growing limnophila aromatica into another tank to give it more photoperiods would speed up growth? I thought at first sight it was supposed to be that pale, which is a visually appealing contrast to the other plants. If that is not the case, my lighting solution when the rest of the tank is doing well, is a targeted side light like this: The tank on the left didn't need an increase in lighting once I fixed the overhead lights, so a piece of aluminum foil prevents light bleed into the left tank. That leaves the tank on the right with overhead lighting for the emersed growth, and a sidelight for the plants growing underneath Even stems I thought had died in other tanks, start putting out new growth with this method, and this is without CO2. I'm wondering what you can accomplish with CO2, in preparation for your next contest. The pearlweed (for me) is hardier and easier to grow than the dwarf baby tears, with similar texture. That's why I asked if that would work. Even with the "brightness" you can see the longer internodal lengths indicate medium light at best. Water parameters on the 2 tanks: Nitrates ~10 ppm (right now. Typically I test after dosing ferts, and ferts get them up to 25 ppm first thing in the morning.) Nitrites 0 ppm GH is down to ~75 to 150 on the Co-op strips. I am out of API for a precise drip count KH between 40 ppm & 80 ppm (shrimp/left) and off the chart for endlers (right tank) pH 7.2 for shrimp (left tank) & 7.8 Endlers (right tank) TDS shrimp tank is 180, endlers are still coming down (currently 327) Left tank is remineralized ZeroWater, the rest of my tanks are a mix of Pur filtered water and ZeroWater, and the plants definitely prefer getting at least 25% of the filtered tap water every water change, as growth explodes after each water change. The shrimp tank (left) doesn't seem to have the same explosive growth after water changes for the plants. The shrimp? They seem to love the daily top off with ZeroWater, and the biweekly water change with remineralized water. I apologize for the confusion on the aromatica! EDITED for autocorrect making up new words, and to add the answer to substrate: Shrimp are blasting sand on a homemade UGF (left tank), and endlers are on hydroballs mixed with gravel, plus a lot of mulm. Filtration for endlers was originally a Back2the Roots hydroponics system and is now a sponge filter and plants.

May your transition to a new job exceed your expectations, reduce your stress, and improve quality of life. Will miss the updates on the pitchers, hopefully someone in here can oblige our curiosity 🤔 I know that a lot of members are in the area, I wonder if Mr Peas would appreciate something he doesn't need to haul gallons of Puget sound water to maintain 😁

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The trick is to but the cochin in the quail run, so the quail start out hatching where they belong. Another interesting interaction is hatching peafowl under cochins😆

I am such a fan of tannins!

The seed shrimp aren't a negative for the snails. I would recommend following @Guppysnail for suggestions on snail care, she does an amazing job diagnosing problems and resolving issues. Snails need steady water parameters, slightly alkaline water [7.2 pH or higher] and access to magnesium and calcium for healthy shells. Water quality stays healthier at lower temperatures, and I am now using bamboo skewers to hold vegetables on, and pour boiling water over the veggies to do a quick blanch. Carrots help my red ramshorns maintain their gorgeous coloration throughout their lives. Green beans, spinach, kale, squash, and broccoli *stalks* also are well liked. My tanks are at 65° to 72° and I can leave the vegetables on a skewer in the tanks for 24 hours without damaging water quality. Above 72°, I need to remove skewers after 12 hours. If pH drops below 7.2, shells get thin and crack more easily/are vulnerable to damage during scuffles. I leave dead snails in H2O2 overnight to clean and decontaminate, then rinse well and return to the tank to provide a mineral source with out risking illness. I have tanks overrun with snails, and then sell off 90%, rearrange by color, and let them go at it again.

Not dumb. In a world where we are deliberately kept stressed, because it is easier to manipulate impulse buys out of stressed people, our brains take shortcuts wherever possible to maintain sanity. Sadly, people with degrees in psychology and sociology get paid far more to design packaging and advertising for large companies than can be made actually helping to heal society, leaving the packaging fulfilling its job of getting people to buy it. My biggest frustration with some companies is the lack of ability to blow up images so we can read the fine print before we buy. Don't beat yourself up, and now I wonder about the size of the mesh🤣

I love watching the lights turn back on, and fish are happily swimming around... almost as much as I enjoy seeing plants pearling after the lights have been on a while. I still have a bit of algae that grows in response to the light between the two tanks. It's taken almost a month to get this much algae on the tank wall, though. I feel like I am getting things in balance with the microdosing. I need iron and magnesium separate, and looking at this windelov leaf, I am 70% confident the leaf was damaged like this when I got it? But I am not 100% sure. I may have a deficiency I haven't identified yet.... I am too old to fight a plant like duckweed. Plus, we use it in stirfry and it's a staple for the turtle, so I just move it to the turtle pond, or wash it and leave it in a bowl for a week and then we eat it anytime it overtakes the surface of a tank. Hoping to set up the newest tank with out it, we shall see🤷‍♂️ Thank you for your encouragement!