Tank Inventory

I was told by a loyal reader (yes, there's one) that I've been slacking on my posts--guess that means I have real work to be doing...bummer. Today it was taxes, but that has nothing to do with this blog. Except, that I have to report what I learned when I used the Turbo Tax "It's Deductible" deduction finder for donated items (remember we gave several pick-up trucks full of items to Goodwill in prep for the move): a donated automotive Dancing Hula Doll is worth $5.00; if it's considered High Quality (aren't they all???) it is worth a whopping $11.00! This begs the question of how to determine the condition of said Dancing Hula Doll? Really, I had no Hula Doll to donate, but some tire chains I needed the value of, which I couldn't find listed. Oh well.

So the real purpose of this post is to provide an update on the state of the fishies. Sucksmuch (Gyrinocheilos aymonieri) and the 10 tetras (5 Lemon, Hyphessobrycon pulchripinnis, 5 Head-and-Tail Light, Hemigrammus ocellifer) were joined by some new 'terygiis (bad ichthyology slang) and some flora a few weeks ago and the tank is looking good. Unfortunately, fish move a lot. Photographing them in their "environment" is a nightmare--so I have lots of blurry pictures, but none worth posting.

We picked up 2 new sucker-dudes: a Borneo sucker (Beaufortia kweichowensis) and a clown plecostomus (Panaque maccus)--they're hard at work keeping the rocks clean and providing some entertainment. The tetras were joined by two more of their kinfolk (Hyphessobrycon colombianus)--they're a bit bigger than the others, but they don't seem to be bullying anyone and their red fins look cool. And then there are the two German Blue Rams (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi)--these guys are cool. For those not in the know, these are South American Cichlids, though I'm pretty sure these have been raised in a tank somewhere, judging by their horrible feeding efficiency. The have a reputation of being kind of finicky, but these two (dudes) have settled right in and they keep us amused with their constant battle for dominance over the few hiding spaces, getting all puffy and brightly colored in an attempt to out-do one another. One of them was out to an early lead in the top-dog competition, so he's now called "Alpha." The other one, well, he's just not so smart--dumber than a sack of hammers, we're pretty sure, so he's now called "Sack of Hammers" or just "Hammers."


For flora, we picked up some Ludwigia sp. and Vallisneria spiralis neither of which seems to be doing all that well--we'll have to work on this.

Happy Birthday, Chuck!

Image from Shimer
http://www.shimer.edu/admissions/dialectic-natural-sciences.cfm

Dear Charles Darwin,
Thanks for your contributions to science.
You are the bomb!
Without your insights, I probably wouldn't have been contemplating the phylogeny of fishes and seagrasses this week. Heck, we'd probably still be trying to figure out how all those animals fit in that damn ark...and what the hell did the fish do once they were nestled in their staterooms??? Poor little guys. I know you weren't so popular in your time for the views you expressed, but how right you were, and are even more so today. Thanks for your keen eye, meticulous observations and notes, and ability to weave it all together.
Happy Birthday!
Cheers!
The Saline Canine and Friends


For more on Darwin and his observations of nature, try "The Google" or start with Olivia Judson's editorial.

And for those of you still trying to cram every species onto the ark, I (with the help of the editors) offer up these 15 Evolutionary Gems for you, from Nature (they must be serious, they made it free and accessible!)--happy reading and let me know if you see the light!

Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii

More Microbial Pals and Some Vertebrates Too

Judging from how we've spent the first few weekends of 2009, I'm thinking it could be the Year of the Microbe. Thankfully, we've yet to be hit by the nefarious types, but we have been palling around with a lot of beneficial ones!

Emmalou has come into her own as a bread starter, getting turned into a lot of variations on the rustic bread theme, including a most delicious ciabatta last weekend. She continues to enjoy being fed, although she mostly just sits on the counter and bubbles away--not exactly charismatic. The bread has been tasty though (outside of the times we failed to add salt and the times we overcompensated for the salt exclusion by doubling down). I can see this hobby sticking around for some time, as raw ingredients are considerably more cost-effective than loaves of inedible grocery store cardboard and it makes the house smell really good too...plus, what's a better lunch...and snack...and dinner than fresh baked bread? (And this is where we raise our middle digits to the Atkins fad as well.) We're developing some technique and have yet to strike upon abject failure, which seems to be the key to maintaining interest in any subject!

In the second week of the year, we chose to divide and conquer with the man's work focused on creating a backyard composting system and the woman's work endeavoring to produce some homemade yogurt--these would be the next microbial forays. Yogurt making was a piece of cake--if I hadn't bought the auto-shut-off heating pad it would have been seamless! Ooops. So much for "letting sit" for 8 hours! The compost system, after much sweat and muscle strain, seems to be coming along, although not as quickly as hoped. It was a challenge to find the proper starter ingredients this time of year, but after mixing several bags of manure with all those damn leaves we raked a few months back, it seems like it's on its way. Thus, Oscar was born.

Next on tap for the microbes is brewing. It's been a few years, but it seems like a good time to get back into it, so hopefully, coming soon to a refrigerator near us will be a nice batch of porter. We tried to find a recipe for Black Butte Porter while we were at the brewing supply store, but had no luck with the books they had. A quick search of the InterWebs turned up several, which I've filed away for next time...we'll see how the first one goes.

Now for the vertebrates...after 15 years of being fostered by the parentals, my aquarium has found its way back into my life! I could probably attribute my start in professional fish wrangling to that aquarium, but truth be told, I like my professional fish endeavors to fall in the marine and the tank is set-up for freshwater...so it's not a perfect match, but suffice it to say, I've been mesmerized by fish for years. Actually, I got my first fish when Grampy took me to the "Polish Picnic" 'round about 198x (? I was but wee) and I won a "goldfish" in a bowl from a contest of some silly nature (I'm sure Grampy actually won and I just reaped the reward). As it turned out, the goldfish was a platy (Xiphophorus maculatus) and this free gift turned into a small investment "opportunity" for my loving parents, who dutifully marched to the pet shop and got all the necessary equipment to rear the lil' fellar'. This spawned (hehe) a whole series of tropical fish tanks and their inhabitants.

The present model was purchased as a graduation gift...then I promptly moved to another state. But at long last, we're reunited. After a bit of cleaning and some overhaul, we salvaged the one lingering fish, a loach of some sort, who is no doubt the latest in a line of tank cleaners my brother and I named "Sucksmuch" only to be told by my mother that it was an "inappropriate name"--the funny thing is, upon recounting this story to the newly (self) appointed Fish Tank Czar, he said the same...harrumph. I will still think of it as "Sucksmuch." So, after getting everything settled we added a few new pals to the tank and now have two schools of tetras cruising around. The plastic scuba diver was banned by the FT Czar, but I will survive, content to watch the little dudes hang out in their new home.

Hyphessobrycon pulchripinnis, www.redorbit.com