My Life Flows On

On the minus side:
The temperature is going down to 9F tonight.
Another one of my glow-light tetras is unable to swim properly. It's squirming around on its back.
I have homework to do.
And I'm running out of clean pairs of socks.

On the plus side:
I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho this afternoon. It's a lovely little story, not much more than a glorified parable. I highly recommend it.

Just updated my Flickr account with a few shots of my fish tank.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/firesong/

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to my aquarium lately, poor fishies. But I have realized that I haven't seen my Otocinclus catfish in several days. I'd stopped feeding them algae tablets in the past couple weeks, because green algae has been proliferating in my tank, and they're supposed to eat that stuff and keep my tank clean. I wonder if maybe I starved them and my japonica shrimp ate their dead bodies? Or maybe the shrimp ate them live? The shrimp don't look quite big enough to eat my fish, but they are the biggest animals in my tank. Supposedly the shrimp eat algae too, so I guess I need not replace the Otos. They were cute though, and I feel bad if I was a contributor to their demise.

One of my fish is sick: a cardinal tetra is severely bloated. This is the first time I've had a problem in several months.
For those who are interested in the nitty-gritty details, here are the contents of the lengthy post I made to Age of Aquariums.
( Read more... )

Reuters: Switching to vegetarian keeps weight down

[..snip..]
Researchers who studied the eating habits of 22,000 people over five years, including meat eaters and vegetarians, found they all put on a few kilos but meat eaters who changed to a vegetarian or vegan diet gained the least.

"Contrary to current popular views that a diet low in carbohydrates and high in protein keeps weight down, we found that the lowest weight gain came in people with high intake of carbohydrates and low intake of protein," said Professor Tim Key.
[..snip..]

I have given up meat for Lent, except on Sundays, as I have done for the past couple years. If it results in weight loss, I'll be pleased, though really my weight is less of a concern to me than being soft and squishy and tiring easily.

Yesterday was warm, so I went for a walk in the park during lunch, opting for a 10-minute circuit of the garden rather than a 25-minute circuit of the pond because I was short on time. I saw snowdrops, purple crocuses (an inelegant name for a dainty flower), yellow narcissi, white and mauve hellebores, sparrows bathing in a puddle, and a grey-brown cat without any attendant human -- I assume it was stray or feral. Spring is on the way....

I purchased three new cardinal tetras on Sunday. They are juveniles, barely half the length of the ones I already had and about one-fourth to one-third the size in terms of volume. This highlights how my older fish have grown: I used to have two runty-looking ones, but now I can't tell them apart from the "bigger" ones. I'm hoping the increased numbers will make the cardinals bolder. Ever since I added the black neons, the cardinals seemed to let the black neons rule the tank. I think they're a little more outgoing now, but I'm not sure.

I got some new fish last Sunday: three black neon tetras. All three seem to be doing fine. They're quite active, and what's more, the five cardinal tetras I already had seem to be more active since I added the black neons. Either that, or I just never paid enough attention before to notice how much they usually move around. When I approach the tank, all the fish hide. If I stand still for half a minute, they come back out, but until the addition of the new fish, I usually saw them moving at a more leisurely pace, except at feeding time.
( Read more... )

I got three new cardinal tetras Monday night. A day and a half later, they are doing fine. That makes five of them.

I turned on the tank light this morning and found one of the cory cats lying on its back, right at the front of the tank.

Other than seldom seeing both the cories at the same time, there were no warning signs. At least it expired in a conveniently obvious place. As Chris remarked at the time of the previous fish death, "I begin to see why people get frustrated with this hobby."

The last of the cories was still swimming when I left for work. I think he must be lonely and I want to get him some buddies, but I worry they may succumb to mysterious demises, too. Poor things. The cardinals are more active and much more colorful, but the panda cories have cuter faces.

On a brighter note, I was pleased to hear that the space shuttle Discovery launched without a problem yesterday.

I enjoyed my three day weekend. The kitchen was cleaned, a process completed in stages over all three days. I didn't do anything in particular related to Independence Day besides not going to work. I didn't want to stay up late when I had work the next morning, so that ruled out going to a huge fireworks show, and by yesterday afternoon I found that I didn't feel like going to a small, neighborhood fireworks show either, so Chris and I stayed in and played our Dungeons & Dragons game. (Melinda killed the "mad scientist" wizard and is now wanted for murder, so she fled the country.)

Two of the four corys did not survive the first week. Chris flushed one tiny corpse last Wednesday. Only two fish were eating their food, and I didn't find the other until Sunday, when I removed all the decorations from the tank. I have a colorful pagoda in the middle -- the single most expensive item for my aquarium, even more than the power filter. Anyway, as soon as I lifted it, the dead cory fell out. It's startling to have a corpse land on or near you, even when you're looking for said corpse. I disposed of it and continued redecorating. Most of the plants had come loose from the gravel, so I repositioned everything. There was a lot of debris floating around from all the disturbance, so I changed out a bucketful of water before I put the decorations back in, even though I'd just done a water change last Friday. The two fish were utterly terrified, but after everything was in place I dropped their breakfast in, and when I checked on them ten minutes later they were both eating.

The light fixture had been removed from the aquarium hood when I received it. After a trip to Home Depot, we got a light installed in the hood yesterday. Either the fish are more active with the light or I can see them better. They still dart for cover when I approach the tank. I hope they'll get desensitized to my presence after a few weeks. I may have to change my plans for tetras, because my tap water has a pH of 8 and I'm told that's too alkaline for cardinals. I'm thinking of getting glo-lite (glowlight?) tetras instead, since they're supposed to be more hardy. I was hoping to add them yesterday, but I decided it might be best to let things settle a bit, until this coming weekend at least.

( note to self: species that look good )

Am now thinking of getting gold and cherry barbs, but may just settle for platies and zebra danios.