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Hmm, well the other day I bought myself a hamster. Perhaps that’s another mid-life (heh) pet crisis moment. It’s not like I just randomly ran to the pet store to get the little guy, I did plan ahead, even ordered most everything for him online. It’s still a little random. I had given some thought to it, had this little “life is short, if you want one, get one… ” plus they have relatively short lives too, so it’s not exactly a huge commitment.

His name is Phineas. He’s what they call a ‘blackberry’ dwarf hamster, so really just a charcoal Campbell’s Dwarf Russian, with a cute black ‘racing stripe’ down his back. He’s so tiny, lol, a palm of your hand sort of pet.

Tonight I bought a little ball so he could run around in the kitchen. This also serves the purpose of allowing the ever-curious cat to inspect him without danger of Phineas becoming a snack. Even better yet, it’ll allow the also ever-curious niece to hold him without actually holding him. Gabbie (the ever-curious cat that we ‘rescued’ last year) wasn’t as interested in little Phineas as I expected, and actually appeared to become bored with him. It was still well worth the $4 for just those 15 minutes of playtime. :)

Unfortunately the Petsmart didn’t have any Angelfish really worth buying, all sort of the less than stellar ordinary ones. They did finally get a shipment, obviously, but either they’re dying in mass or that shipment was meager, or people are lining up to buy them when they open in the morning. Either way, another week, still no Angelfish. It’s pretty sad, really, I’ve been trying to get another Angelfish for about two months now.

Petsmart did have a shipment of Cardinals though, score. I found ten mixed in with some guppies, so I bought all ten. They actually had some other ones, but they were right next to the Neons, and well, the “jumbo” label is the biggest joke in all of fishkeeping. The little neons slide right through the dividers. Whomever labels those fish as “jumbo” really ought to come visit me… I’ll show ‘em what “jumbo” Neons (or Cardinals for that matter) look like. Perhaps I should refer to mine as “mega-gargantuan” or something similar? One of the little guys landed on the floor at the store, so I didn’t get him, poor guy, I think his brain liquefied on impact, or his swim bladder exploded, because he was being assigned his number, and it was next. I wasn’t really planning on buying $40 of fish, but… they’re pretty uncommon, and worth paying double for the 14 day guarantee.

The store (and these are the first fish I’ve bought there) has unbelievably hard water. I say that based on my TDS meter readings, didn’t actually test for GH or KH, so it could be other things, but still… The TDS in my 75g is around 200 or so, the quarantine tank has slightly less solids dissolved, but it’s still close enough to not get concerned about, about 170. The TDS reading on the water the fish were in was 10X the quarantine tank’s. I’m super glad that I have the TDS meter now, before it was more of just a toy. Though, it is interesting to note that my tap water is just 30ppm, makes me question the need of the RO/DI filter for topoff, etc, seems a bit silly now. Granted, there’s other ’stuff’ in the tap that I can’t test for.

Anyway, I dripped those little Cardinals for hours, with a drop of Prime whenever I’d dump the excess. It was getting to the point that I started to feel the process was taking too long to get within 10% of the tank, but I really doubt they’d survive going from 1700 ppm water down to 170ppm quickly. I did lose two of them during acclimation, hopefully the rest will be fine.

Oh, and my Zebra Finches, they’re going to be parents. I’m not thrilled with that realization, seeing a couple of jelly bean sized eggs in their nest, but it was pretty much inevitable. I should be discouraging them from nesting, but I gave them the nest and some Timothy Hay, and well, that’s what happens… eggs. The boy Society Finch has learned the song of the boy Zebra, it’s kind of hilarious, because I think the Society does it better.

Now that I have the 25g aquarium empty and removed from the office I’ll be able to finally finish laying down the floor that I started back in the fall. I’m not quite sure I’ll have the energy to do that soon though. It’s not so much putting the floor down, it’s more moving everything so I can actually do it.

I’m an uncle again, whee! Louise & Brother David’s boy, Gibson, arrived (was born, hatched, torn from the womb, etc) last week so I have a nephew now.

My nasty Angelfish Leonard squirted out eggs onto the aquarium glass this afternoon. That pretty much means he’s not a boy, doesn’t it? I don’t know what she was thinking, considering she’s been alone in the 25g for a while now. The eggs didn’t last long, those that didn’t fall off the glass were eaten.

I figured maybe Oliver would want to fertilize those eggs, but Leonarda was just as vicious as usual, so out Oliver went (again). When the lights went out I moved Leonarda over to the 75g. At this point if they want to kill each other, they can go right ahead. I’m not going to continue to keep them separated by running an aquarium just for Leonarda.

I bought a girl & boy pair of Zebra Finches the other day. Yes, that’s a totally out of the blue thing, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about it for a very long time, just finally actually did it.

That’s Ben, he’s a bit heated up in that photo. He’d escaped from the cage and flew around the office for quite a while, while I was trying in vain to catch him.

That’s the cage before I moved it into the office.

Oh, and another totally random thing, that’s the Beetle stunt kite I bought that arrived the same day as the bird cage. I’ve yet to fly it, but I look forward to finally giving it a shot.

I also find myself really wanting a ‘Black Bear Hamster’ …I must be having some sort of mid-life pet crisis.

Yesterday I setup/moved the filtration from the 25 gallon over to the 75. Once I had that running, I tore out the plants and moved the fish. Agh, catfish are so difficult to catch! Actually, those little tetras are pretty horrible to catch too.

Mostly my planting style is “plop where it’ll fit” …I need to give the plants time to adapt and become more ‘true to form’ and all that fun stuff. There are some that are floating around, but I’m a bit tired of having my arms shoulder deep in water.

Leonard, the angelfish I bought a year ago when he was the size of my thumbnail, has been ludicrously aggressive towards Oliver (older, original Angelfish)& Samantha (blue gourami). So, for now, Leonard is in the 25 gallon with only spare plants as his company. He’s a large and by that measure a valuable fish… he’s also a total jerk.

That’s the “wet side” of the aquarium stand. On the left, the square filter is my Eheim Pro II 2028, it’s the primary filter. Its output is piped up through a Hydor Eth 300w inline heater and then out through a spray bar mounted on the left of the aquarium.

The little cylinder filter is my Eheim Ecco 2234 (?) anyway, it’s the middle line Ecco. Its input is a Fluval surface skimmer, output goes out through a 25 watt Current USA Gamma UV Sterilizer, then out to my DIY “Rex” style Reactor, just a couple of minor modifications. The reactor takes in CO2 through the 1st Tee, the second Tee is plugged, but that’ll be for auto dosing and top off.

I still need to more properly secure some of the hoses, and also elevate the electrical cords. I need to have a decent amount of slack in some of the tubing, due to having to burp the reactor, etc. I do have some stick on cord holders, but they’re not sturdy/big enough for the super heavy duty cords from the UV and CO2 Solenoid. My CO2 cylinder containment system is lacking, while it’ll keep it from falling over, I don’t really feel it is secure enough.

That’s part of the “dry side” of the stand. I decided to go with Coralife’s “Aqualight” power strip, it was considerably cheaper than buying half a dozen timers… and then still needing a power strip. I have it set right now to flip on the first row of lights while also turning on the CO2, and turning off the Lunar lights and UV Sterilizer. That means, of course, CO2 is off during the night, but the UV is on. I’m giving that way of doing things a trial run. An hour after the first row of lights comes on, then the second row flips on too. The process then reverses, with the second row of lights cutting off an hour before the rest. Again, I still need to secure all the wiring.

That’s an American DJ power center. Most of the outlets/switches are unused at the moment, but if I’d take the UV, CO2, etc, off the timers they’d be plugged in there. Right now it’s just the filters and heater. It’s so very convenient to be able to press a switch instead of having to unplug that stuff. In the future my dosing pump and auto top off system will also be plugged into this.

That’s Henry, about a year old now (since I’ve had him anyway). Here’s a photo of him from April last year.

I stopped at this small independent fish shop in Hagerstown Saturday. I’ve usually been disappointed whenever I went there, more often than not horrified by the tanks of sick and dying fish. The fish looked relatively good the other day though and they happened to have Sterba’s Cories for $3.98 each. This is a very, very good price for that particular fish, so I bought all three they had. Like any independent fish shop, they have a wretched guarantee, three days for store credit only. Okay, well, it’s better than nothing. One died pretty much right away, so I was able to get my credit for that one; today another died, beyond the warranty period. I suspect the third will die also, usually fish act like dominoes.

I wish it was poor water quality, but it isn’t… agh, buying fish at independent fish shops really does tend to be like throwing money away. Maybe I’ll be lucky and the third will live, but I doubt it.

I bought an Angelfish at Petsmart Tuesday night, it was dead by the time I woke Wednesday, heh. At least Petsmart provides a two week warranty on fish, which is pretty much the primary reason for buying fish there. Now, any fish that can be obtained at Walmart, that’s the best… 90 days of warranty on all the fish! Usually they’re pretty sickly, but if you get there on the day, or the day after they arrive to the store and quarantine like should be done for any fish, it’s a good deal. Interestingly enough, the Walmart fish have been the most healthy of any. The downside is, of course, the longer the guarantee, the more ordinary the fish.

My plant order from Singapore arrived Monday. Thankfully it was mostly intact/alive. The only definite casualties were the Ludwigia ‘cuba’ and the Stargrass. The Glosso still doesn’t look so great, but since some of it survived I’m sure it’ll be fine. They wouldn’t refund my money for them, due to how I chose the wrong shipping method. I still feel strongly that they misrepresent their policies and hide the details in small text on a relatively hard to find page. At least, if I were to order again, they’ll give me replacement plants. I’ve given them plenty of feedback, some parts of the website have already been changed, so hopefully no one else will be in this situation again. Unfortunately though, it’s something like $32 shipping minimum to get my two plants for free, so… for free it isn’t, really.

I’m increasingly concerned about my plant order at this point. The process of shipping is apparently considerably longer than the company makes it out to be. Apparently my plants arrived in the US to the transhipper, the delivery infonote from the USPS says that electronic whatever was received this morning at 1:30ish… dear god. I was expecting to get my plants yesterday, so the process is several days slower than I expected it to be. Not only is it that the plants have just now been re-shipped, but they were re-shipped from Washington state… they still have thousands of miles to go before I get them. I think this was a mistake, and you can believe I’m going to raise a big stink vigorously pursue a refund, due to this whole process being made out to be quicker than it is… if my plants are dead and mushy. Overnight shipping from the transhipper is worthless, really, because they’ve already been in transit forever. I really do hope they arrive safely, alive, because boring plants that are alive are better than exciting plants that are more like boiled spinach.