The plan is to replicate a southeast Asian blackwater pool as    much as possible.

Plants & Fish will all be Asian natives, though they may not necessarily live in the same habitat (that would be a lot harder to achieve).

Decor: Live plants & Driftwood…the habitat is vegetation heavy, but has few if any rocks.

Water Coloration: Eventually, we hope to have nice tea-colored water that mimics blackwater coloration. We will achieve this by removing the carbon from the filtration system (which will not harm the fish), and adding peat to the filter. This will have the added benefit of lowering our pH which is a bit on the high side.

Substrate: Gravel (reddish stones), flourite and laterite mix. We are shooting for an ir0n-rich look, as appropriate for the habitat.

On Saturday, we arranged our substrate and driftwood, and on Sunday night, we began adding the plants. In a few days, we will begin adding our fish. We already have cycled media, and the plants will act as a buffer, so we can put in fish quicker than normal. Still, we will add them only 2 at a time, and watch the water parameters as we do so.

Tank Equipment:

200w Stealth Heater * 2

Eheim Classic 2213 Cannister Filter

96w Power Compact Lighting; 6700k

DIY CO2 setup

Background: Black

Current Status:

Concept: Southeast Asian Blackwater Pool Biotope

Future Fish Species:

Zebra Danio (Danio rerio)

Angelicus Loach (Botia kubotai)

Kuhli Loach (Pangio kuhlii)

Blue Gourami (Trichogaster trichopterus)

Decor: Live Plants & Driftwood; no rocks aside from the substrate

Substrate: Laterite & Gravel mix; we are going for an iron-rich look; the literature suggests this tank should have a iron-rich substrate, and that lots of laterite should be present…we’ll be mixing in smaller smooth stones of reddish tones

Current: Slow-moving; “pool”

All but 1 of the pods has sprouted.

The tomatoes shot up overnight! One day they weren’t sprouted at all, the next they are above the cover and needed their domes taken off!

The Italian basil is still doing well, and 3 of the 4 salad greens have sprouted.

Here’s a picture of Stacy’s Chicken Pot Pie recipe. I still prefer the more traditional style crust…because that’s my favorite part, lol. But this was a nice, very easy, warm winter recipe. We will make again!

Now, here’s some pictures of the 72g because it’s my baby…

Platy came up to check out the camera…

Bolivian Ram…

Overall view of the middle of the 72g.

This is the 10g in progress….I am trying to get the water clear, it will be a shrimp tank when all is said in done. However, I am thinking of keeping it free to house some baby Bridgs after they hatch.  Then it may hold a couple of the residents from the 20g until I redo that tank.

Progress on my 101:

Catching up on my penpal letters has been going pretty well. I am going to try to be completely caught up by this weekend. My stack currently has 7 letters of it, 1 of which I have already almost finished my reply.

My four purple bridgs shipped today Hopefully, they will arrive Wednesday…Thursday at the latest. They are only coming from PA, so I am guessing Wednesday. They will need to grow out a bit, but hopefully they will increase my odds of breeding…as well as add some lovely color and character to my tank! I love snails…I can’t wait for more adorable little faces smushed up against the glass. I will post pics when they arrive!!!

I have stuck with both the daily Wii Fit and Vitamin….and both of those will be ending on Saturday! Woohoo! However, I do have a strong feeling that I will be sticking with them on a permanent basis.

Since I will have some tasks completed soon, I took a look a what will be next on the list (based on the categories most in need of progress)…

#86) Go to the movies 3 times (if its while visiting home or in Maine it doesn’t count) (0/3)

#13) Attend 13 Toledo Metroparks Activities (0/13)

#74) Get $3,000 in the temporary savings account and start putting money in permanent savings

Oh, boo, I had more to type but Jimmy wants to go to sleep and is going to make me turn out the light. Maybe more tomorrow?

]]> http://opicana.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/aerogarden-chicken-pot-pie-casserole-and-101-update/feed/ 0 opicana 100_1807 100_1806 100_1808 100_1818 100_1811 100_1813 100_1809 100_1817 http://opicana.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/snail-sex-wii-fit-lettuce-and-lucky-stars/ http://opicana.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/snail-sex-wii-fit-lettuce-and-lucky-stars/#comments Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:43:11 +0000 opicana http://opicana.wordpress.com/?p=218 ]]>

I only caught the end of it…but there was definitely some mating going on in the tank! Woohoo! Now, if only she’d lay the eggs!

The next step is to make a list of ways I can encourage her to lay eggs, and factors that may be preventing her. Jimmy has a theory about it being too cold out right now. Brigs lay their eggs at night. We turn down the heat in the evening to 62. While the water temperature stays steady thanks to the heaters in the tank, Brigs lay their eggs ABOVE the waterline. So perhaps the air above the line is too cold? I have to research it more, but that is Jimmy’s theory anyway.

Sorry about the crummy quality of this picture- my camera doesn’t like photographing the TV set. Here you can see the main Wii Fit screen. The girl in the blue shirt is me, and the boy in the black is Jimmy. The graph above shows the relative changes in our weights since we started. As you can see, I was doing pretty well in the beginning…it was a nice, slow decrease, but I have recently encountered some set backs! I think my line got lonely so started gravitating upwards in the hopes of finding Jimmy’s line. Hehe.

Until I got the Wii Fit, I listened to what most fitness gurus tell you- weight yourself once every two weeks. With the Wii Fit, you do a daily body test. And I 100% prefer it. Sure, its a bit of a rollercoaster ride, seeing your weight rise and fall…but I am getting a much clearer picture of how my weight works. I know that my weight may be very different from the day before- more or less. If I only weigh myself once in those two weeks…I am making a huge gamble as to what type of day it is for my weight. It may be totally unrepresented of my weight and could leave me with the wrong impression. Have a chart like this, with daily results…you can see the overall trend of your weight, and you can see what causes shifts in your weight. See the spike on the 11th? Well, I worked out the morning of the 10th because at 12pm we started a marathon session of D&D…so I was essentially sitting on my ass for 12 hours. See the spike on the 16th and 17th (yesterday and today)- that’s from eating McDonalds for dinner on the 16th. As a scientist, I don’t believe anything unless I havea good sample size. Once every 2 weeks is NOT a good sample of my weight. Daily, is.

I am a bit frustrated though. The graph shows no real progress…unless you interpret the fluctuations to be the loss of calories, increase of muscle mass, and my body getting used to working out, combined. Here I am 1/2 way through my monthly Wii Fit goal. I have worked out now for 17 days straight…I am pretty sure I have never done that. I started out at 20 min. a day, and I’ve been doing 30 minutes a day for several days now. There is always at least one part of me that is sore (I do different exercises daily so that muscles have a chance to relax), I am definitley getting better at the exercises, and I am always exhausted afterward. When I started, I was only able to run the “short distance”….now I can do the “island lap” with out much difficulty. I had hoped after 2 weeks, I would see at least some small change. I set a goal on the Wii fit to lose 5 lbs w/i the course of this month. Here I am, half way there….and I still have 6 lbs to lose! Yes, I gained one!

This is the current state of the Aerogarden. It has (sadly) become a dusty shelf. Its holding 3 other plant-related items, and my vitamins. I hope to change that soon…perhaps even tomorrow or Monday? I am going to grow lettuce. While a bit on the boring side, I love having fresh lettuce available for salads. I waste lettuce on a weekly basis because it always goes yucky before we can eat it all. And after you’ve opened a bag of lettuce, you really shouldn’t eat it after about 3 days…it begins to grow stuff that you can’t see.

The Lucky Stars count is up to 217. Progress is much faster than anticipated!

Here is the book I am currently reading, I am getting close to finishing it…finally. It was really good in the beginning, but it has really tapered off and its just getting boring now and I can’t wait to move on to something new. Next, I will be reading either: In the glass darkly, or A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Gorgeous Lefty!

101 Things in 1001 Days Progress Summary: I still haven’t managed to COMPLETE anything…but progress is being made…especially in the areas of penpal letters (64%), vitamin consumption and the wii fit.

Meet Ebolavirus (Ebola) and Clostridium perfringens (Gengrene) they are going to be added to the Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium that currently reside on my desk at school. Adorable!

This is a Pomacea Bridgesii, also known as a “Mystery Snail” or an “Apple Snail”. Yes, I know its a snail, but you really can’t dis aquatic snails til you have seen them in action. They are my favorite inhabitants of the tanks! They are very active, very fast and such characters. They have made me a bit of an invert freak (I want snail-only and shrimp-only tanks in the future).  Anyway, breeding these snails is one of my goals on my 101 Things list…and one that I am trying to undertake right now. I have 2 snails currently, and they have mated…but alas, no eggs. Step 1 is to make sure that one is a female and the other is a male. Because if that isn’t the case, all the other steps will be pointless. I’ve looked at plenty of pictures and I know how to sex them, but actually doing it is an entirely different story. :p Tonight was my first attempt…and it was a failure. The blue one did the snail disappearing act (they love to hide)…and I couldn’t find him (I think he is the boy), so I pulled out this one. Unfortunately, the, hopefully, girl wouldn’t come out of her shell- so I couldn’t take a peak. I waited 10 minutes! And then my patience ran out…I will try again tomorrow.

This week, I am spending the majority of my time (sadly and painfully) trying to work on this [[insert favorite expletive here]] paper…yeah, some break. I haven’t really had a day to myself the whole time! I am actually looking forward to school…sigh. Anywho, my much needed breaks are either filled with cleaning the house or doing one of my Day Zero things.

Today, I counted my origami stars…I am up to 126. Not bad, considering I only work on them after I am done with dinner but while Stargate is still going.  I also finished a round of freecycling. My last pickup was around 8pm this evening. I freecycled 13 of the 17 items we posted. The remaining items will either be recycled or will wait til the next round of freecycling.

I remembered to take my vitamin with lunch today (not at 10pm per usual). We also exercised as normal, bringing both of the those things to a total of 6 out of 31 days. I have lost the 1 lb I gained during the first couple of days, and lost another .6 lbs. I set a goal on the Wii fit for losing 5 lbs in 1 month. So, only 4.4 more to go! It’s not much, but progress is still progress! I have felt my workout actually working…my legs, my abs…and I am enjoying it.

Another 2 penpal letters came in today, but I managed to write 4 letters (yes, another distraction from the paper). Which puts me at over the 50% mark! Woohoo! I am thinking this will be the first on my list I cross out!

I looked at the remaining Aerogarden kits I have left. I can either group: salad greens or international basil. I am pretty sure I am going to go with “salad greens” because who the hell needs 7 different kinds of basil??? If I had more than 1 Aerogarden, then yeah, sure why not, I like basil as much as the next person. But I only have 1 garden, so I would rather it be occupied with something I will get a lot of use out of (and not end up freecycling the majority of the clippings). I can never have enough salad greens, and having fresh lettuce growing in the house is pretty awesome (we grew some before, and it was pretty handy). In addition to the aerogarden, we are going to use the light from the aero to grow catnip…as long as Lefty doesn’t find it.

The sleep plan totally FAILED. There wasn’t enough days in between to get adjusted to the time changes. So, we have altered the plan. This week, we are getting up a 9am every day. Next week, we will get up at 8:30am everyday, except on days when class requires earlier. The following week, 8am, etc…

Tomorrow’s plans…meeting with Von in the morning about TAing Evolution, then back home for more yelling at excel paper writing and data analysis. Then baked potatoes and salad for dinner. Yum.

Above are two of my newest babies….two Bolivian Rams. I’m pretty sure they have paired up as they never leave each others sight. It’s quite adorable. They are both very peaceful fish, and they are very curious about humans. When I am sitting there, they like to slowly come up the glass and watch me as I watch them.

Here are more of the new occupants….the cat pack. A school of 10 pygmy cories. I had a very hard time getting a decent picture of them! They move so fast. They are probably the cutest thing in my tank. I expected them to be bottom-dwellers…..no, the whole tank is their turf. They spend just as much time in the upper areas as they do down below. They LOVE playing with the danios. They school with them often. They also are the only thing in the tank that chases the danios. Up until now, the danios have been the rulers of the tank kingdom (specifically Gertrude, my chubby alpha female). Well, the cat pack has shaken things up!!!! They have put the danios in their place- despite being only a 1/3 the size of a danio….lmao. It’s crazy to watch!

Sorry, I don’t have any new full tank shots. The tank looks about the same (scroll down). The plants are filling in on either side, and I have to trim them weekly (which is encouraging them to branch nicely) .

The next thing I am working on is getting the 10g setup so it can become a QT for when I am setting up the 20g.

They go in a somewhat chronological fashion.

I made some changes here and there and took pictures sporadically throughout.

So, the ones closest to the end are the way the tank looks now.

I added 3 new larger pieces of driftwood.

I have also moved around some plants.

Picture is fuzzy but that is a platy!

Some plants have been growing really well, others….not so well. The hornwort seems to grow drastically overnight, and it’s so pretty, it’s my new favorite plant!

I added some grass down in the sandy area.

It will take awhile for everything to fill in as this is a low-light, low fert., no CO2 tank.

I think we have arrived at the pictures that show pretty much what the tank looks like right now.

I added 4 new Zebra Danios, from my LFS. I wanted to increase the school to prevent aggression on new fish, so I settled for some more zebras. There is still room for the school to grow, though, if I do find some longfins.

My snails love the new driftwood. It’s like a snail jungle gym.

Current Tank Inhabitants:
- 7 Zebra Danios
- 1 Longfin Danio (she schools w. the zebras, in fact, Ethel is clearly the #2 in command of the school, just after Gertrude, the alpha female)
- 3 Mystery Snails: Bubbles- the Ivory Snail, a copper-stripped one, and a blue one
- 6 Endlers; 3 boys, 3 girls
- 3 Platies

Blue snail.

The next addition to the tank will be a school of Panda Cories.

I purchased some frozen Daphnia on friday. The fish all love me now.

I love this little cave.

In the back you see a male Endler. They are my new obsession now (thanks Mary!). I have another colony living in my 20g. More on them later!

So, what does everyone think so far? I think the scape is basically done. Just need for some plants to grow in, and to stock (which will take awhile)!

I started out w/ 3 adopted Shortfin Zebras who are getting kind of old.
I then adopted “Ethel”, the longfin Blue.
I am awaiting the arrival of 3 more older ones. 2 more zebras…one of which is war-hardened from a battle w/ a crayfish. And a glowlight.

I need to increase the school soon, to cut down the agression of the danios. I am willing to take any blues, golds, leopards, longfins, etc….just not standard zebras (I will have 5 of those, that’s 1/2 the school!). I went to my LFS yesterday….no luck. And they don’t know what they’ll be getting in and when. Ordering from an online store is out of the question…shipping is like $34. The fish only cost $1.49….that’s silly. I tried Aquabid, without any luck. So, I have e-mailed another store in the area. And I will start calling the others (no websites) as soon as I have time. Hopefully, I can get 5 more by the weekend.

72g:
12 Danios
12 Longfin Blackskirts
1 Pair of Bolivian Rams
10 Pygmy Cories
Endlers*
Platies*
10 Otos

* Numbers will vary as they are livebearers, the population will remain low by giving away or selling fry

20g:
12 Pristellas
8 Kuhli Loaches
1 Pair of Honey Gouramis

10g:
Invert. Tank!
Snails & Shrimp…and the overflow from the livebearers