Baphijmm Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 Hey there! My name's Grady, though I go by Baphijmm most online places. I live out in rural New Mexico, where I work at an observatory overnight. I also attend school as a graduate student at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, presently working toward my Master of Science in Physics, Specialization in Instrumentation; I also also attend school as an undergraduate at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, working toward a Bachelor of Creative Media in Animation and Visual Effects, 2D Studio Pathway. I also keep fish! So, rather varied life. 😛 At my place at the observatory, I've got a number of tanks, including a 55-gallon mbuna tank; a 20-gallon (tall) tank that's supposed to be a betta sorority, but I keep not buying bettas and just taking care of the harlequin rasboras and kuhli loaches in there; three separate 5-gallon male betta tanks (only two are occupied by fish at this time, the third is planted but not occupied); two 10-gallon tanks I'll use on occasion to keep mbuna babies from the breeding that invariably happens in that tank; and a 55-gallon I'm trying to make a Rio Negro biotope tank. I also have a place in Socorro, where I'm trying to set up a little 20-gallon "nano" community, presently has some punctatus cories and Inca snails, planning to put some neon tetras in there once I actually find them around here (it's surprisingly difficult to find them right now), plus a male betta once the other fish really get established. Attached picture is of the 20-gallon as it appeared last week, freshly planted (alas, I don't remember the names of the three different plants, though the middle one is a Crypt of some kind) and the itty-bitty cories tossed in there (they're so small they blend into the gravel!); also throwing in a pic of one of my male bettas, who I call "Mr. Bones" because he went on a wild ride to get there which I'm sure he very much wanted off of. Hello! 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Folk Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 (edited) Welcome aboard! Thanks for sharing some of your story, and introducing us to your fish. When you say “observatory overnight,” am I right in assuming you’re speaking of stars, space etc? If so… I have a fish suggestion for you! Edited April 16, 2022 by Fish Folk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lefty o Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 welcome aboard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xXInkedPhoenixX Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 Welcome to the forum! Love the tanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griznatch Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 Welcome to the forum! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jawjagrrl Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 On 4/16/2022 at 7:58 AM, Fish Folk said: When you say “observatory overnight,” am I right in assuming you’re speaking of stars, space etc? If so… I have a fish suggestion for you! Galaxy Rasboras? 😄 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Folk Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 On 4/16/2022 at 1:06 PM, Jawjagrrl said: Galaxy Rasboras? 😄 Brilliant idea! No i had something much bigger in mind… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jawjagrrl Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 Welcome! You're living my dream out there - I wanted to study astrophysics but threw in the towel after fighting 3hr calculus a lot harder than expected. I'd already given up on animation because it was already moving away from traditional to digital - but ended up creating digitally for a career anyway 🙃 Interesting that you are having difficulty finding neons - I am finding rummynose difficult too. If you're open to online, I'm pretty sure AquaHuna has the neons atm - I've gotten endlers form them before and had a good experience with cross country shipping. Mr. Bones is gorgeous! Look forward to seeing more of your setups and fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick_G Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 On 4/16/2022 at 10:09 AM, Fish Folk said: Brilliant idea! No i had something much bigger in mind… The Crab Nebula? 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Folk Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 (edited) Here’s the crazy (relatively rare) fish idea that came to mind in light of your current job… Madagascar cichlid: “Starry Night” Paratilapia polleni Edited April 16, 2022 by Fish Folk 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick_G Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 Welcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baphijmm Posted April 16, 2022 Author Share Posted April 16, 2022 On 4/16/2022 at 5:58 AM, Fish Folk said: Welcome aboard! Thanks for sharing some of your story, and introducing us to your fish. When you say “observatory overnight,” am I right in assuming you’re speaking of stars, space etc? If so… I have a fish suggestion for you! I am indeed! We're a hosting observatory, and host a number of relatively well-known setups. If you remember Comet Elenin from a couple years back (and Comet ISON from a little before that, I think), those were both discovered here by one of our clients. And if you've heard of the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, that's located here, too. (They've gained quite a bit of attention for finding large numbers of previously-unseen galaxies due to their low surface brightness, including some galaxies which appear to perhaps have no dark matter in them.) On 4/16/2022 at 11:11 AM, Jawjagrrl said: Welcome! You're living my dream out there - I wanted to study astrophysics but threw in the towel after fighting 3hr calculus a lot harder than expected. I'd already given up on animation because it was already moving away from traditional to digital - but ended up creating digitally for a career anyway 🙃 Interesting that you are having difficulty finding neons - I am finding rummynose difficult too. If you're open to online, I'm pretty sure AquaHuna has the neons atm - I've gotten endlers form them before and had a good experience with cross country shipping. Mr. Bones is gorgeous! Look forward to seeing more of your setups and fish. Oh yeah, undergraduate calculus courses are no fun. Secret: Once you get past them, basically everyone expects you to just find the solutions to particularly difficult integrals online. 😛 Truth is, back in the day, they used to publish entire books called "Integral Tables", which were literally nothing but solutions to all kinds of different integral forms; this is just the modern version of that. And as for animation, you'd be surprised; Steven Universe, for example, was animated almost entirely traditionally, then digitized. The art is still alive out there, and there's still demand for it. Yeah I don't know, basically every tetra except black skirt tetra is just really hard to find out here for some reason. The Petco in Las Cruces has a stockpile of black neon tetras, but I think that's a combination of ordering neons and getting black neons, and that nobody's buying the black neons. I am open to online ordering, and might have to give them a try. On 4/16/2022 at 12:09 PM, Fish Folk said: Here’s the crazy (relatively rare) fish idea that came to mind in light of your current job… Madagascar cichlid: “Starry Night” Paratilapia polleni That's a lovely fish! The new place in Socorro has a poured concrete slab foundation, so I can probably do a tank larger than 55 gallons there (my place at the observatory has a more traditional crawlspace, so I have to be careful of water weight); I've been considering doing a big cichlid tank. Might be a possibility! And, since it's now daytime, some more pictures, the mbuna tank and the betta tanks. I know the mbuna tank has a bit of algae, but I don't clean it off the glass too often since mbuna are aufwuchs eaters. The plants are pretty standard, Java fern and Cryptocoryne undulata. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jawjagrrl Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 On 4/16/2022 at 2:09 PM, Fish Folk said: Here’s the crazy (relatively rare) fish idea that came to mind in light of your current job… Madagascar cichlid: “Starry Night” Paratilapia polleni 😍😍😍😍 this touches my inner African cichlid soul 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Folk Posted April 16, 2022 Share Posted April 16, 2022 On 4/16/2022 at 5:23 PM, Jawjagrrl said: 😍😍😍😍 this touches my inner African cichlid soul My son and i saw a handful of juveniles for sale at an LFS about 1.5 hrs away several years ago. I’ve been interested ever since. They’re real “tank busters” though, full grown! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torrey Posted April 17, 2022 Share Posted April 17, 2022 Welcome to the forum! Are you on FB at all? Because the New Mexico Aquarium Society is on FB for local peeps in addition to all the support from the forum. I know there are more NMAS members in Cruces than Socorro, as I deliver scuds and plants when I go visit my daughter and my grandboos down there. Be safe with all the fires burning, it's been a crazy week here in The Land of Enchantment. Your tanks are a delight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baphijmm Posted April 17, 2022 Author Share Posted April 17, 2022 On 4/16/2022 at 11:37 PM, Torrey said: Welcome to the forum! Are you on FB at all? Because the New Mexico Aquarium Society is on FB for local peeps in addition to all the support from the forum. I know there are more NMAS members in Cruces than Socorro, as I deliver scuds and plants when I go visit my daughter and my grandboos down there. Be safe with all the fires burning, it's been a crazy week here in The Land of Enchantment. Your tanks are a delight. I am, and I'm a member of at least one New Mexico fishkeeping group... "NEW MEXICO FISH TANKS AND AQUARIUMS" apparently. I'll have to look into the NM Aquarium Society. Yeah, the fires were right up the road; we weren't worried about them coming down here (we're about perpendicular to the wind direction from them), but of course with the busy tourist weekend, we were worried about others starting nearby. Thankfully, it seems folks are being surprisingly sensible, at least for now. (Memorial Day weekend's gonna be a different story, I'm sure. And don't even get me started on the 4th of July.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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