What are you doing today?

[GaryE]

It's early morning here, with a pink sky and a blue sea. I'm inclined to be impressed by the colour of the sunrise, but I think the oil refinery off in that direction has a lot to do with it.

It's going to be warm today, compared to the last few months, so it'll be a yard day. The ground seems thawed, and I can repair the garden deer fencing that blew down in an early winter gale. Then I have to fix a small tear in the roof of my plastic sheet greenhouse. The sun should finally allow the adhesive to stick. Since any snow still to come won't last, I can get the garden swing out, and put the garden chairs under the white pines. It'll start to look like a backyard, even if there won't be leaves or any green in the grass for a bit.

All of my tanks near windows in the toasty garage have plant starters started sitting on them - simple stuff - tomatoes, peppers, and some flowers. Because of my short growing season, I'll get them into the unheated greenhouse when it warms a bit more to have a head start.

It's very pleasant to stretch and look at the sun bringing around another Spring and summer. We had a harsh winter with a lot of storms, ice, snow and cold, and we're due for some warmth. It's still relative - the nights are below freezing. We're about 2 weeks from Daphnia hatching in the vernal ponds, and in my culture tubs. The fish appreciate Spring too.

 

[Back in the fold]

Today is a day of aquarium maintenance / water changes and a thorough feeding of all the aquatic life . As dry as it’s been here I’m going to schlep the buckets of old water out to the rhubarb plants that have appeared and my lilac bush .

 

[anewbie]

It occurred to me that if all fishes were the same species like all humans are the same species then we would only have human problems with fishes.

 

[GaryE]

It occurred to me that if all fishes were the same species like all humans are the same species then we would only have human problems with fishes.

Tell that to the Bonobos and Chimps. They have human problems galore. Wait, all other animals have problems with us. We are one nasty species.

 

[anewbie]

Tell that to the Bonobos and Chimps. They have human problems galore. Wait, all other animals have problems with us. We are one nasty species.

I guess you are saying the world would be a more peaceful place without humans.

 

[GaryE]

It would have a different type of peace, for sure. Territorial fish would still fight, but they'd be a lot less likely to go extinct early.

 

[anewbie]

It would have a different type of peace, for sure. Territorial fish would still fight, but they'd be a lot less likely to go extinct early.

If only they knew they were endangered of going extinct; maybe they would fight less.

 

[jaylach]

I guess you are saying the world would be a more peaceful place without humans.

Yes, it would. There would still be conflicts but they would be natural conflicts, not conflicts of greed. With what we do to our planet I find myself just about ashamed to be a human. Look at what we are doing to the rain forests...

 

[GaryE]

I had a guy contact me in November, saying he would like to try a pair of killies. So I offered him a pair, for free, and told him that applied only to the first pair. He vanished. Now in April , he just re-contacted me and said he has time for them, and could I deliver these free fish to him?
I pointed out his house seemed to be a 40m minute drive each way and he agreed. That's why he didn't want to drive and wanted me to deliver to his wealthy suburb.

Umm, yeah, right.

 

[anewbie]

I had a guy contact me in November, saying he would like to try a pair of killies. So I offered him a pair, for free, and told him that applied only to the first pair. He vanished. Now in April , he just re-contacted me and said he has time for them, and could I deliver these free fish to him?
I pointed out his house seemed to be a 40m minute drive each way and he agreed. That's why he didn't want to drive and wanted me to deliver to his wealthy suburb.

Umm, yeah, right.

Yea. Kind of sick isn't it. There was a lady (teacher) who was asking for a donation for a class trip of several thousand dollars. I offered to make up the difference between what they collected and they needed. She had me drive to her house and i discovered it was in a very wealthy part of town and a million dollar plus home. I didn't walk but decided i wouldn't do it again. She could have covered the cost and only neede dto chip off a fender from her very expensive car to cover it.

 

[Back in the fold]

Kinda wiped out today . I rode my three speed 52 miles in the wind on a hilly ride through the local American West yesterday . It was great but I bit off just a bit more than I could chew so I’m resting up today . The hills and rollers were more than my three gears could handle efficiently . I need a proper road bike with more gearing options for these lengthy voyages .

 

[Lanpenn]

@Lanpenn nice pics! My husband took scientific German so he could translate chemistry papers. His intro book was "Wie Gehts", I think we still have it.

Thank you!

Well, a few days ago I went to the public hearing regarding Córrego Lambari's pollution and bad smell. I have asked a few questions about water analysis and, and also, in the final interview after the hearing, I talked a little about what I thought about the discussion and the times I went close to the water stream last year. Unfortunately, however, it is in Portuguese:

I am considering creating a map of the Córrego Lambari in Google Earth Pro, but I am still undecided.

 

[anewbie]

So I did a 200 gallon water change on my 600 - i don't do these very often given the raw amount of water but perhaps not surprising my clown loaches were very impressed:

They haven't done this in a while - not a great picture - i took a better one but i won't post it today. This is 11 of the 13 members of the group - the other 2 are a bit smaller and tend to do their own thing - the largest one is somewhere between 6 and 7 inch and i've had it for around 6 1/2 years now. So still young. Oh well they will love things when i move and i change 10 or so gallons an hour.

 

[gwand]

So I did a 200 gallon water change on my 600 - i don't do these very often given the raw amount of water but perhaps not surprising my clown loaches were very impressed:

View attachment 379804

They haven't done this in a while - not a great picture - i took a better one but i won't post it today. This is 11 of the 13 members of the group - the other 2 are a bit smaller and tend to do their own thing - the largest one is somewhere between 6 and 7 inch and i've had it for around 6 1/2 years now. So still young. Oh well they will love things when i move and i change 10 or so gallons an hour.

When you move will all your tanks be on a continuous flow and drain system or just the tanks with the largest volumes?

 

[anewbie]

When you move will all your tanks be on a continuous flow and drain system or just the tanks with the largest volumes?

just the 4 or so large one - one for clown loaches, one for dwarf cichild, one for west africans and one for discus - the geo tank will probably not be but there are details. A lot of this is predicated that the water recycler works as expected. About 8 months before i move i'll build a prototype to test the control logic.

Right now the plan is 12x4x20 for the clown loaches, 12x5x18 for the dwarf cichild, 8x5x18 for west african, 8x3x20 for discus, 8x3x18 or 20 for geo. A bit depends on how large the cf winemilleri get - i don' tthink they are closely related to winemilleri and will be quite a bit smaller than 12 inches but it remains to be seen. I've been talking to someone who has some older ones from the same region with similar markings. The problem is he thinks his batch might be stunted by mistreatment as they were held for some months in very hard aklaline water by the importer so it is hard to tell but i will know before i move.

The clowns really enjoy clean water more so than the discus or geo i have - or at least they react to it in a more obvious visible fashion. I might just drop the idea of keeping discus - they are very well trained and well behaved but in the end they are also a rather predictable boring fish. While not as pretty i find the chocolates i keep with the clown loaches more spontaneous and less predictable. The biggest problem i have with the discus is their extreme timidness and lack of curiousity to change.