One last post before leaving California for the summer. I've spent many of my office hours by the pond pounding on my laptop at a small card table, shifting to stay under the shade of a magnolia tree. I'm really going to miss this setup when I go back to New York. It's amazing being able to glance over to see the fish in the pond, the dragonflies perched on the lilies, and the hummingbirds dancing through the air. The white clouds are looking fat and happy, and counted 17 when I was feeding them so I think they'll do just fine. I'll be back in a couple of months, so I'm hoping to see a few more (unless the mosquitofish eat all the fry). No sight of the shrimp, but that's not unexpected.
On a separate note, I set up a mini scape in an old 1.5 gallon vase in my dad's office (I caught him obsessing over the shrimp before I added them to the pond). I put a tiny 1w pump in there surrounded by coarse sponge and covered in a pile of pebbles. I had a couple of baby mosquitofish in there for several weeks, to help get the tank cycled with no problems. Last weekend I got half a dozen cherry shrimp, removed the fish (back into the pond with you!) and put the shrimp in there. They looked pretty happy, so I went to the bathroom to dump out the old water. When I returned, I found, to my horror, that most of the shrimp had somehow found their way past the sponge, into the intake and, sadly, through the impeller. My father now has a no-fert, no-filtration nano tank with anubias, hornwort, and two beautiful fire red cherry shrimp. We'll see how that goes. I think I may be haunted by the site of floating shrimp bits forever. Lesson number 1 - shrimp have a death wish. Lesson number 2 - maybe I should have siliconed the sponge around the intake.
Thanks for reading, and hopefully everything will survive until Thanksgiving.