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Minanoras adventures in fishkeeping


Minanora

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On 2/21/2023 at 9:44 AM, Minanora said:

My husband and I sat and watched, there's definitely at least two.

That's awesome.  Pandas in the 75 used to have 4-5 caves.  They claimed one as their panda hangout.  They had one at the entrance like that forever and would always protect her fry inside.  It's a cool behavior.  Pandas are just too much fun.

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@Minanora sorry about the crawl space and the plumbing and bleach bombing, the landslides and everything else. I can’t even imagine. You’re such a trooper. So glad your tanks are doing well. Hope you get to work on the she shed soon.

Taking a moment to THANK YOU also for your shrimp advice. I followed your suggestions and @nabokovfan87 also appointed himself “head shrimp info researcher” 🥸 and look what we have here. (There are 3 in the photo… look closely, can you find the pipsqueak?)

1CB7D614-8156-4BA3-BEBB-351805A45CC7.jpeg.dd5dbda9f4d5fe7ae4151a02e21baf7d.jpeg

So 2 shrimp litters so far and a female is berried now too 🦐❤️

 

Edited by Chick-In-Of-TheSea
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  • 4 weeks later...

I've been a busy momma.

All the kids are happy. I have lots of baby guppies, baby swordtails, and baby panda cories!

 

We left for vacation for 9 days, as we left there were a bunch of cory eggs in the plaza. I'd been watching the eggs for a few days before we left. Now there's 4 more tiny cories! The other two are getting much bigger. One of the saddleback male guppies is missing a tail now... not sure what happened there. He's swimming around just fine but dang. Poor guy.

All of the shrimp are doing great! I have allllllll the shrimps.

 

Mr swimmy has started ignoring the guppies again; Thankfully.

 

My fish-she shed may be turning into a rack in our office closet. For the sake of saving energy. Plus we can put in a "washer/dryer" hookup so it won't be "crazy fish lady lived here" >.>' heh. yeah well crazy fish lady lives here.... heheheheh. YES! *shakes fist in triumph*

 

My phone hasn't backed up its photos yet, but when it does, I'll upload photos of all the things. For now I have to focus on getting water out from under the house.... again..... and getting our gas back on.... Bleh.

 

I love you all! I miss all of your adventures and I hope to catch up soon.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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.

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On 4/10/2023 at 7:20 PM, Minanora said:

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).

😂

That's awesome, nice work!  Do you dry some of the leaves for the shrimp?  Not sure if it'd be safe to use but they do sell mulberry leaves for that.

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On 4/10/2023 at 7:54 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

😂

That's awesome, nice work!  Do you dry some of the leaves for the shrimp?  Not sure if it'd be safe to use but they do sell mulberry leaves for that.

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.

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  • 1 month later...

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. 😊

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  • 3 months later...

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!

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On 9/9/2023 at 11:02 AM, Guppysnail said:

I’m glad you are doing ok. I miss having you on the forum but totally understand the to busy part. 🤗

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...

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On 9/9/2023 at 12:25 PM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Good to see you back! I’d made a mental note to ask about the fish-she-shed! 

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!

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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. 😊

20230916_115710.jpg.f3b252804545832f2e8aaf38905ef2b9.jpg

 

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I'm going to clean up plants today. It's long overdue.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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  • 2 months later...
On 11/11/2023 at 3:16 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

How are the tanks doing @Minanora?

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.

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On 1/15/2024 at 10:11 PM, Minanora said:

we're eating dinner as a family at the table every night.

Because of this last statement you made, I do believe you will be fine.

Good luck and God bless you and your family in this new year.

 

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