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Minanora

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Everything posted by Minanora

  1. Oh yeah, and my hardness is THROUGH THE ROOF. Holy moly. Even with adding only soft water/ RO water (depending on the tank) I don't add any minerals aside from KH.
  2. I'm sorry for my lack of participation. My life as a mom has taken the drivers seat, plus some, and work.... Honestly, my life has been chaos. All of my tanks are happy and healthy though. My marriage is catching up, and that's what's most important right now. We're building on our foundation that we both neglected for too long. Sigh. I'm really tired these days. Honestly. My fish keep me going, my husband loves them as well, so really it's keeping us whole. I'm just exhausted doing all of the other things. Especially since we're trying to remove plastic in our food stuff as much as possible, plus my husbands grandpa (91) is struggling, so we've been very busy making time for him. Then we had to sell our favorite car and damn me to driving a 9mpg truck... while my husband drives our 255k mile 2003 4 runner every day. We're car shopping.... but it's hard. I got some more 3 stripe cories for the 75 on Friday. I got 6 more and they are very happy... I started feeding guppies to my chickens... along side the duckweed... don't judge me, I have soooo many fish and I can't justify going down to the fishstore to sell them right now. I just can't make the time. My time is so valuable as a mom/wife/ceo. Lucky, my workload is about to shrink... I can hardly wait. But sheesh, I'm so dang busy with everything, I can't keep up with it all, I have to pick and choose. However my fruit trees are all pruned, garage isn't leaking, kitchen is clean, and we're eating dinner as a family at the table every night.
  3. I'm sorry for being absent for so long. Our lives have been full of things that have kept me so busy that I don't even read on Kindle. I spend.... 42 minutes a week on average on my phone/computer. Keeping shrimp.... you really just need a few to survive from your original shipment. I always order 20+ shrimp when I am starting a new color of neos. That way, more live, and I can adjust their babies to the water of the tanks I keep them in. It's all about the goal. Alll about the goal. What water parameters do you keep full time. Do you want your shrimp to live in that, or something else. Shrimp are a pretty expensive investment outright, but the more you can afford in the first batch, the better off you'll be getting the colony to establish in your setup. Don't make more work for yourself if you don't have to. That's my thought. I I have Orange neos, and Yellow neos. They are in entirely different water parameters. My orange are at 7.8PH in both of their tanks, plus an odd tank I keep at 7.2~. My yellows are at 6.4. I will move some into higher pH eventually, when I want to sell them to the local store, but for now, my plants are in charge. Plus all of the Panda Cory babies. <3. I keep amano in a tank that is 7.8 pH without the CO2 running. (yes, running CO2 changes your pH so keep that in mind if you are going to go higher tech. My yellow shirmp btw, I got 80 to start. just to make sure I had a robust colony in the beginning. I have well over 300 atm. 9+ months later. You got this. Shrimp are very hard to find in a seasoned/ planted tank.
  4. It happened! My son spotted a baby three stripe Cory in the 75. I had given up on the idea that any of them would ever hatch.
  5. @JoeQ thank you for your thoughtful input. I hadn't even considered the different phosphates. My pH is very high, hardness is a major issue for me when choosing plants I want to kill. Some live days, some live years and appear to thrive even. All joking aside. I'd love some of your recipes to reference. I'm actually thinking I'm willing to get back into weekly 60% water changes on my 75 gallon now that summer is winding down. My 75 has about 120 fish in it. So without water changes the nitrate stays at around 10ppm with the current plant load. I don't feed the plants any N. At least I didn't when I was actively fertilizing. Only K, iron and micros. Plus some root tabs. The tank was looking fantastic. Still looks good now but I've lost some stems (all of them), and I have some hair algae that's in retreat now that I am running co2 again. Moss is taking off, crypts look amazing, swords and Java ferns look ok, anubius is alright, buce is hiding in the moss.
  6. I'm about to venture into my gla dry fertilizer adventure. I'm using the rotala butterfly calculator. I feel like mixing the fertilizer in distilled water is the way to go.... I'll be using my RO, what fertilizers can I absolutely not mix together in the dosing solution? I'm thinking about the fertilizer that's crystalized on my easy green, so I'm less nervous now, but I also want to make sure I'm not mixing things that'll not work as well if they're in a 6.2pH solution. Is it better to dry dose? I have a gram scale, we use it for adding salts/minerals to our water when we brew beer. I'm using the pmdd method as it is similar to my previous fertilizing routine using seachem flourish products. I may adjust it along the way as I do not routinely water change, and I plan to dose at a half rate to start. I have one tank that will not be getting this fertilizer method,. I have one tank that gets easy green once a week, and no water changes. Which is kind of my goal with this pmdd dosing trial. My other tanks need more potassium and iron then easy green provides without adding excessive nitrogen. Easy iron doesn't work well with my other tanks high pH.
  7. Ah, Saturday. I have spent lots more time watching my Aquariums this week. It's been really nice to make time to enjoy them. I really want to build out several more tanks............. ........ Every room should have a box of water in it, right? Anyway, I'm about to mix up my first bottle of dry fertilizers. Hopefully I get it right. I've been starving my Java ferns of potassium for far too long. I need to just commit! Everyone is happy and healthy. I plan to sell off a bunch of guppies soon. Here's the plaza, my crypts are starting to recover, I've been fertilizing with the easy green in the plaza again. 😊 I'm going to clean up plants today. It's long overdue.
  8. No fish-she-shed yet. We have a bunch of projects that are at like 90% done that we need to finish. It may just become a rack in the office closet. 🤷‍♀️ we'll see!
  9. Thank you. I caught up with most of your main journal today! You have been very busy! I love your Zen garden so much!!! I'm watching my three stripe cories lay eggs right now. It rained randomly last night. 🤷‍♀️ Being busy is exhausting. This year we had a bumper crop of peaches and nectarines so I had to deal with that, plus two new garden beds that aren't on the irrigation system yet, plus the hot, hot, hot, HOT weather we've had this summer. We're fighting to get Chevrolet to refund us for our car that they've never been able to fix and they've had for over three months... My chickens love all the duckweed! 🤣 I still have no snails in the plaza, but plenty in the 75, and 20g...
  10. Sigh, I'm so behind with all of the updates and adventures! I need to get to work updating my own stuff. Not much is new, my son is in kindergarten and I recently helped his teacher start a successful classroom tank. He's got 4 of my lovely black saddle cross guppies for now. Once the tank is really seasoned I'll be giving him some shrimp and maybe some panda cories to round out the group. It's hard to not get way too involved.... I keep telling myself "it's not your project... leave him alone..." 🤣 I finally changed water in the plaza, just because there was a lot of mulm in the bottom and so much plant growth I couldn't see in there.... I had turned off the canister filter back in April so a single sponge was all that was running in there. Tested the water, less than 5ppm nitrates, kinda soft, perfect pH, good kh. I was shocked honestly, there's like 80 guppies in there, plus 20 cories, 8 otos, plus over 100 yellow shrimp (you see, everything made babies). I had to completely clean out the canister, it was foul. I had turned off the co2 in that tank and stopped fertilizing when I turned off the canister. So I did lose a decent number of plants but others are still hanging in there, things are coming back now that I'm using co2 and fertilizing again. That tank went 6 months with no water changes. The 75 is still going without a water change! I ran out of co2 and didn't notice until the hair algae attacked.... so it's looking a little wild in there. There's like .... .. 5 million guppies in there. 😅 Mr swimmy leaves them alone, the harlequins leave them alone ... so, lots of babies. The shrimp sanctuary is dirty, but the shrimp are happy! No water changes there either. the chili ruins looks good. I need to top it off, no water changes there either. I miss being active on the from and reading about everyone's adventures! I need to make more time now that things are settling down. I have made some lifestyle changes so I will not have time daily, but I will make time on the weekends!
  11. All of my girls are supposedly sapphire olive eggers.... Mine are squatting and singing the song of their people like they laid an egg, but no eggs yet, 14 weeks old and the first squat, from Susu, was at 12 weeks. She's also laying in the nesting box, moving bedding and such. Anyway, my point is that they may lay eggs in shades of green. But there's a chance that they may lay blue, pink, or brown eggs as well. 🤷‍♀️
  12. I have two doxies and six chickens. Doxies: Reno (under the blanket) and Rainy. Chooks: Light colored is Princess Peach "peaches" Darkest neck, Susu. One with a bit of gold on the neck and face, Hiker One that looks almost like Susu, Merlin One that's lighter than both Susu and Merlin, Fidget Smallest one that has the most consistent barring, Tinkerbell "Tinki" Left to right: Susu, Peaches, Hiker, Fidget, Merlin, Tinki.
  13. Yeah I have still not changed any water in my tanks since March. My ACO test strips sensitivity to GH isn't enough to read 3 of the 4 tanks. That includes my primary shrimp only, Shrimp Sanctuary. That's the home of my main orange colony. I haven't seen any dead shrimp in at least two weeks. The water is so hard that I lost all of my Hydracotil Tripartita. And my red plants fizzled out. I haven't been feeding mineral junkie due to it bringing up the harness. Only really been feeding shrimp dinner and shrimp baby. My chickens devoured my kale so I haven't been giving them kale either. I don't even have kale to feed the humans in the house. 😂 The yellow shrimp colony is doing great. I haven't tested that tank in a few weeks.... I should. I want to do water changes this weekend. Though nitrates are always below 10 in all of the tanks. Even with the billion guppies and panda cories. I've just been insanely busy this year. I'm over it. But it's not letting up.
  14. I have no experience with curing shrimp ailments yet. I've been fortunate in that regard. I have dosed tanks with paracleanse with shrimp in them. However I didn't even think to monitor them so I'm not sure how much they were impacted. 😞 I hope your colony bounces back. you're a trooper, hang in there friend.
  15. I'm glad the shrimps are happy and doing well for you! In a few months I'll have yellow goldenback neos as well. 🙂 Your tanks are really coming back together and I love the invert tank looks fantastic!
  16. All of my tanks are happy but unkempt right now. Still mostly just topping off. I spent some time looking at all the shrimp yesterday. The ones in the 75 are starting to multiply again now that the water is staying warmer. I don't run the heater from 11am to 11pm in the 75. I've done that since August of last year and it's seemed to be a good choice. All the fish are happy, even Mr swimmy. I need to get a much needed update done, this is the last busy weekend for a while, I hope. Here's a happy mommy in the 75 yesterday. 😊
  17. I have given them some of them! But I often forget to pull enough out of the dry pile before it rains for the first time of the season. I leave them on the ground to combat weeds in the spring and then I use them in the compost after the foxtails germinate and come up through the leaf litter.
  18. Ah, My free time. I don't know where it is! BUT!!!! All of the fish are happy happy happy. All of the shrimp are happy. I've slowed down feeding the Orange shrimp in the Shrimp Sanctuary to slow down the baby boom. It's working quite well. The colony has leveled out over the last few months which has been nice. All of the tanks are pretty over grown.... LOTS of duckweed, but that's keeping the nitrates below 5ppm in all of the tanks which is crazy. I have just been topping off tanks and have actually had to use my crushed coral to buffer the pH back up. I've had to vacuum a bit in the Plaza but even that has been a minimal need. Been feeding the plants and even heavily feeding the fish because of the baby corydoras and shrimp in the Plaza. The fish and shrimp bring me so much joy. I got chicks! I have a chick squad. 6 little ladies! They are right around 3 weeks old now... I still need to build our coop.... heh. That's on the list. I moved a TON of dirt at our other property, I'm actually getting pretty good with the tractor, Working with the front loader and the box scraper was an interesting learning experience. Now we can pull our camper out, and our other toys without damaging them on the hill incline and the side slope. I also got up in one of our big mulberry trees and pruned it back. Hadn't pruned it in 6 years.... Now I know why all of the quotes I got were over $700 to prune the things.... but I did it, got the workout of my life with a pole-saw, got to use my fall protection for the first time (wear it, not exercise it thankfully). Been feeling super accomplished this year even with the random challenges! Now I just need to catch up so I can do more fish stuff and less adulting chores.
  19. Thank you for your input, Sir. A lot of good points here! I'd considered all of them aside from the water depth and actually looking at the type of plastic used for the body of the tote itself. So thank you very much! I have lots of extra sponge hanging out just for this project. I have two extra co-op sponge filters. I'm going to keep the tote on the cooler side, probably 72-74 degrees, but with two sponge filters running; spaced evenly in the tote. The fry going in are pretty big already; one month old and two month old guppy fry and swordtail fry. I just need to move them so they don't breed back to the parents of each line. I am short on space... too much going on to work on my fishroom project. I'll keep the water level lower, move a bunch of my extra moss and all of my cuttings into the tote. Our water is great for livebearers and I've been breeding for a good while, just... running out of space... A general reality of livebearers. @Beardedbillygoat1975 Yeah, this tote will stay in my unfinished "fish-she-shed" while I finish up other projects. Should honestly have all of them sold by next month anyway. Totally wouldn't put a black tote outside in our yard right now with a low water level, it was 84 here today. My soil temp is already staying in the low/mid 60s over night! I just want to keep growing them out without them making MORE babies with my females that I'm letting empty. Gotta keep moving forward, if they get pregnant now, it'll be another 6 months of babies I don't want! I'm already 3 months through their stored wares. 🙂
  20. Has anyone used one of the 55G totes from Home Desperate for fish? I'm thinking about using the one I have as a chick brooder for growing out some fry. My thought is to make a brace for the middle of the tote so it won't bow out and put about 40G in it. Thoughts? Experiences with this size tote?
  21. I now have my own little flock. Only two have names so far. Susu and princess peach. Six sapphire olive eggers. 💚 Still need to build the coop..... 😅 Chickens for duckweed management. I make too much for my compost now. 🤣
  22. Today is the day I do a full water test, so I'll post an update. I still do 50% water changes with 10L of water and use RO with one heaping scoop of salty shrimp GH/KH. At least with the main colony in the Sanctuary. I'm sure the GH is much higher now.
  23. I fed my orange shrimp "shrimp dinner", "shrimp baby" and "mineral junkie" from GlassG. I only fed them every other day, max. I also feed the snowflakes. Just randomly when I have a busy week. I'm terrible about schedules.... but I have sooooooooooooo...*breaths*... ooooo Many orange shrimp. 😛 I also have a bunch of yellow shrimp now. Those kids are in a totally different tank but breeding very well. I need to read better. @Slick_Nick vs op @the other Irene XD Shrimps!
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