CanadaquaBetween Pond and Tanks

Spawn

We have fish babies. The minnows downstairs have spawned again, and I keep siphoning those itsy bitsy eyelashes into the safety of the breeder inset, but the silly things keep swimming back out thru the slits to where the adults are waiting for a snack. We’ll see if any of them survive long enough to become too big at least to fit thru the slits.

In the big tank meanwhile I saw a single, I believe it’s a cory hatchling, since it hides in the gravel, and the cories are the ones who spawn frequently. I’m always surprised when one of the eggs survives despite the ever hungry tetras, and at this point I don’t think the hatchling’s chances are quite 50/50 yet. Nevertheless both the tiger and I keep peering in to see if we can spot it (we’re a talking about 3mm length here and the thickness of a sewing thread with a pin head attached) and we’re keeping our fingers crossed for it to survive past snack size.

Pleco update

All four wee ones seem ok this morning and are munching happily on every available surface. The upstairs pair is way more lively than the downstairs pair, but considering the difference in temperature I’m not surprised. Took me a while to find the two in the Minnow tank, they are perfect ninjas when they don’t move.

4C and pouring rain

Came home with treasures from the OVAS meeting.

I went for the socializing and to buy some fish food at the mini auction, but in addition came home with a potted Tradescantia  (thanks Bianca) and four little bushynose plecos, courtesy of Wayne’s breeding pair. Now, anyone who knows my tanks, knows I don’t really have room for four bushynoses, but so far they’re very wee (~ 1 cm). Two are now in the minnow tank downstairs, and two wiggle happily through the assassin tank, with Max the betta keeping a curious but not evil eye on them.

They should be good in either tank for a while, but the 5 gallon at least will become too small for them when they grow out. More reason to tackle the paludarium set-up, as soon as I’m done with my office.

Dominoes

Ok, that didn’t go quite as planned. Preparing to stain the shelf boards, I suddenly realized I’d have to move the 5 gallon tank first.

Which involved finding unwinding and pulling out all the cables, plus finding unwinding and pulling out all the cables on the big tank, reinstalling the cable chaos of the big tank in a non-chaotic way, and such that the little tank might be hooked up there too.

I then realized that the tank was too heavy to move. So, water out, move tank, reinstall all the cables, start to put water back in.

But there are cherries in that tank, and I took out about 2/3. If I replace all that at the same time, the cherries are gonna go belly up, so now I’m replacing a quart at a time.

I also realized that there’s condensation inside the glass of the heater. That can’t be good, right? I’d better look that up.

The good news is, most of the cable chaos is now under control and the 5 gallon tank has been moved to its permanent position.

The bad news: I haven’t even started on the boards yet.

Max loves chasing shrimp

Max

We have a new guy in the house. Meet Max, the betta:
Max

Moved some cherries into the 5G

New tank

This is the little tank we found at the Glebe garage sale. Set up for the Assassin snails to breed in:

Great Glebe Garage Sale

We came home with lots of goodies:


GGGS loot
Originally uploaded by hianja

 

And afterwards we rested our sore feet at the Mexi’s and relaxed with Margaritas and a nice dinner.

That morning Monique had picked me up in the van to go to a couple of nurseries. I have all the pond plants, lots of annuals and a handful of perennials I always wanted. I’ll be a busy planter in the next couple of days. Tomorrow we’ll start with spring cleaning the pond.

Minnow update

I fished the largest one out (about 7 mm), so he doesn’t eat the tiny ones (2mm) and plopped him in with his parents. He’s doing well so far. The others I’ll keep separately until they are bigger. They munch happily among the duckweed roots, and infusoria (well, as far as I can tell). So, I think/hope they’ll be ok.