Chick-in-of-TheSea journal

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Man, this guy that sells the filter baffles. Customer service 110%. I reported my Marina S10 baffle didn’t fit. Not only did he ship out my replacement same day… he shipped 3! Just in case!

W😍W!

Etsy: GalaxyGlowStudio

Edited December 17, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

There are juvenile shrimps in Geppetto’s tank. Despite that I tried to select all male shrimps for his habitat. Guess we have at least one lady in there!  Shrimps are out in the open, and he’s not even bothering them. Sometimes he looks at them, but they also stare back and are lightning fast if they feel he can’t be trusted. Then he just does a 180 and carries on with whatever else he wants to do. Especially sitting on his leaf hammock and keeping a catappa leaf afloat with as many bubbles as possible. There is a catappa leaf carpet on the bottom as well that the shrimps go under and eat. Also a couple of hides and cholla.

I did a water change for him this week but I didn’t siphon or move the hose around, so his bubble nest was not disturbed. Then I added his rooibos tea bag for 24 hr. I quite like the ease of those for adding tannins.

He’s doing pretty ok with his fin health. I just keep up with the tannins and leaves.

The Malaysian trumpet snails are sprinkled here and there, but they are not overpopulating, and they are not annoying or invasive.

P.S. @Guppysnail Geppetto loves grindal worms!

Oh, and speaking of catappa leaves, the pleco likes eating that! He has chewed a bunch of holes in the one in his tank. He likes the Soilent green Repashy a lot too. I gave him white worms but he doesn’t understand them and they are still squirming around in there from this morning.

My grindal worm culture was crashing. It had ammonia smell and mites. But I split it and both containers are once again doing well. 

I split the white worm culture today too as that was starting to get a bit of a smell too. Everything seems good now. I use masking tape to label each culture with the date it was started. Also when I cut holes in the lids I reinforce with masking tape first and that way the plastic doesn’t crack when I make the cuts.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Starting to acclimate the ember tetras to a tank light. It makes them look very nice.

 

I gave them a plant as well.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

So I think the 5.5g will be scaped and that will continue to house the embers. The original plan was for them to live with the shrimps but now that I see how they eat, I don’t trust them at all with shrimplets. But first they need to continue on with quarantine. There was a sick fish in their tank; he passed; and so their quarantine clock has reset and we will go one more month before changing up the tank.

Sidenote: when I go to edit what I’ve written, I tap to get a cursor but it’s highlighting a whole word instead.. then I have to manually drag to unhighlight and let go where I want the cursor to be. Not sure if it’s a forum thing or a mobile device thing, but it’s only been happening for a few days. Anyone else noticing the issue?

Edit: seems to be happening on my other apps too, so, not a forum thing. Annoying though. Phone must’ve gone through some update.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Friend has been experimenting with her worm cultures; they go crazy for flake food. The white worms seem more active, in more areas of the container, she reports.

@Guppysnail

Edited December 21, 2023 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Guppysnail]

On 12/20/2023 at 10:32 PM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Friend has been experimenting with her worm cultures; they go crazy for flake food. The white worms seem more active, in more areas of the container, she reports.

@Guppysnail

There are as many methods for keeping and feeding worms as there are was to keep and feed fish. 
The goal is to find what works best for you.  
Im glad you are both enjoying your worm experiences.

 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Happy New Year to Flint! Flint completed his one month quarantine and has joined the community. 🖤🤍

 

 

 

A couple hides have been added in case he wants a little retreat.

 

I’m seeing one or two fin splits but healthy otherwise.

Edited January 1 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Busting open a new test kit and this made my day! Wooohoooo! No more fumbling with caps.

 

Edited January 3 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

😂 It's so amazing when something as simple as a product update that makes life easier (and reducing cost for API) happens.

Nice to see it.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 1/3/2024 at 11:24 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

😂 It's so amazing when something as simple as a product update that makes life easier (and reducing cost for API) happens.

Nice to see it.

Plastic too. No dropped, broken vials. Also the markings are raised up. One problem I have with glass is eventually the little line wears off. Then I scotch tape around the tube and fill to the tape line.

Edited January 3 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

@Guppysnail accurately predicted where Flint would enjoy spending his time.

 

[Guppysnail]

Just me or has Flint grown some ?  He is beautiful. 

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 1/4/2024 at 6:32 PM, Guppysnail said:

Just me or has Flint grown some ?  He is beautiful. 

I think he has!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I no longer need 2 quarantines, so I scaped one of those tanks.

Before & after

I played a little with void space this time, on the right. This is 5.5 gallons.

Also, Flint says hi.

Edited January 6 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/6/2024 at 7:57 AM, Chick-In-Of-TheSea said:

Flawless.  Well done!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Exited this morning to go to the gym and discovered this cutie!

slug

A little while later went out back to feed the birds and saw a crab spider hanging from silk.

 

Doesn’t the pattern look like a frowny or worried emoji? Hehe

 

 

 

Edited January 7 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Flint is making my tank look good. He gets plenty of veggies and kelp/spirulina/BSFL foods but he has assumed the role of tidying up this piece of spiderwood.

Flint’s section:

Other section:

 

 

See how his one fin doesn’t lay flat? I wonder if he has an old injury or something. It apparently doesn’t bother him though.

Edited January 9 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Just doing the twice-a-week water tests and the display tank was showing, or so I thought, “a tinge of green” I guess. But could I be certain? No. So I did another liquid test and went outside to read it and was still on the fence. So I did a 50% water change with Prime and Fritz Zyme 7 and added this Seachem card.  7 hours later this is the card.

There is no explanation other than the pleco is new and he poops a lot. But I have been removing that daily with the baster. So.. ???

No signs of stress, so I think maybe things are fine? Here is Snoopy just cruisin around, the tetras are schooling and doing their thing, and so are the snails. Except the nerites who don’t like water changes in general and either burrow or exit the water. They were fine before I changed it.

Also did I share my Christmas presents with you? Here are some pens I got. They write really nice! Black gel! Very smooth.

And also I got some correction tapes:

All of these things came from my hobbyist friend who had adopted some of my snails when I bred them. 🙂 

Oh also another friend gave me snail soap dispensers where you push down the shell and the snail spits out the soap. I haven’t set them up yet, but it should be fun when I do. Hehe

Edited January 11 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[nabokovfan87]

Maybe time for a bigger filter on the tank, taller sponge just for the sake of it?

The snail stuff is really neat, very adorable. 🙂

[beastie]

Are you sure the seachem badge works? I have had both for amonia and ph and while it worked for short time period, at some point, it did not and gave false info (on the ph). Just to make sure you arent trying to solve a problem that is not there

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 1/11/2024 at 4:21 AM, beastie said:

Are you sure the seachem badge works? I have had both for amonia and ph and while it worked for short time period, at some point, it did not and gave false info (on the ph). Just to make sure you arent trying to solve a problem that is not there

No, I’m not sure. It’s brand new and my first time having one. (It says on the packet they are only good for one year. This one is just a few weeks old.)

On 1/11/2024 at 3:43 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

Maybe time for a bigger filter on the tank, taller sponge just for the sake of it?

The snail stuff is really neat, very adorable. 🙂

yeah maybe so, couldn’t hurt. I do have the s10 I can throw on there as well; it’s not in use. Not sure if that would be helpful or if I should just make a purchase of a secondary hob, or two matching hobs.

Edited January 11 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

The last 2 days I haven’t detected any ammonia. I think the last test that was questionable was a fluke. 
 

The embers are doing very well and like to hang out under the leaves like they are umbrellas. However the void space is getting on my nerves and my inner voice is saying “something needs to be there!” Probably will add more anubias to keep the theme.

Here are the embers enjoying some Repashy.

 

I really like these little guys. If you recall, they come from Aquashella. 🙂 

Edited January 12 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Sand Hill cranes. Enjoy Nature Daily

Edited January 19 by Chick-In-Of-TheSea

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

I always worry whether or not Flint (pleco) is getting enough to eat, but one day I found him in the food dish when the light clicked on. And this morning I found “evidence”. So he’s feeding at night. During the day he eats catappa leaf, banana leaf, and wood.

Also there is Button eating some of the zucchini.