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

DC Happenings

The juxtaposition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and tomorrow's Inauguration of Barack Obama has the media swirling. While ordinarily I'd be prone to thinking there's a lot of overkill happening, I admit to being captivated by a number of stories. Many of these stories have made me realize that while to me the sea change signifies the hope and change in direction our country drastically needs, to many people, Obama's election and ascension to the Presidency signifies a moment they never thought they'd see and one that's been too long coming.

These stories deserve to be told. One that had particular affect on me was an interview by NPR's Michele Norris with Lynwood Westray, a former White House butler. Mr. Westray had so much dignity in reflecting upon his years in the White House it made me smile just to know he would see Obama take the Oath of Office. Another story was portrayed in an interview with Rep. John Lewis conducted by (the often overly dramatic) Brian Williams--Williams captured Lewis' absolute incredulity that he would witness a black man as President, reading Lewis' comments from election night, when he was overcome by emotion. Lewis has a long history as a Civil Rights leader and has suffered many times for his beliefs and actions; it is hard for me to imagine the emotion, resolve, and pride he must feel on this historic day.

While I don't have such a compelling personal story, I am nonetheless hopeful about the direction we're headed and once again will look forward to traveling abroad without having to steal a Canadian flag for my backpack! I won't be able to attend the inauguration (duty calls), but I've got my finger on the pulse and some "contacts" in the field (hope for a guest post).

And for a turn to the lighter side, I have to mention one of the not-so-trumped-up inaugural events happening in DC (though kudos to Rachel Maddow, see below): the saging of the White House. Fantastic! Whatever we can do to get the bad juju out works for me.

Of course this event brought out some characters to Dupont Circle and even provided the chance to throw a shoe (a la the Iraqui journalist) at Bush! To paraphrase my friend JD, "You know we've all wanted to be that shoe at some point over the last 8 years!"

Sea Kittens or Chicken of the Sea?

Oh my!

PETA has introduced a new campaign to call fish "Sea Kittens"--this apparently gives them the charismatic megafuana entitlement they deserve and leaves those of us in the fish world shaking our heads and ordering up another plate of freshly hooked salmon! Really? According to the PETA website, "People don't seem to like fish. They're slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least." I beg your pardon. Fish are fascinating, most of them do not slither, and while they may be slimy, they are better off for it! And, apparently the PETA authors haven't seen a Shortspine Thornyhead (Sebastolobus alascanus) because their heads are anything but pointy.

Shortspine Thornyhead-NOAA-AFSC

The absurdity of the sea-kitten premise aside, I cannot believe how utterly juvenile the website introducing this campaign is. Who is PETA trying to reach? Perhaps it appeals to squeamish 7 year old girls or maybe I'm overestimating the intellect of the average consumer, but it just seems...well...stupid. And besides, I'm just not a cat lover, even in their cuddly juvenile form!

From the Sailboat Astarte

Guest Post from MKH:

I am trying out Kathryn's blog (which I understand only has three readers). I am her uncle and will be cruising on a sailboat and need to post to a blog from some different web situations. My system doesn't work. This is actually a test to see if I can post the way I want. Shameless promotion: If any of you three readers want to follow our trip check out www.sailastarte.com. We will be leaving Florida February 1st.

Thanks Kathryn, let's hope this works

Emmalou

We've got a new pet...actually millions of them! Collectively, we're calling them "Emmalou." Around Christmas, my family was handing out starters for some Amish Friendship Bread that I was quite certain wasn't Amish (the inclusion of Instant Pudding in the final recipe was a dead give away). Anyway, I was intrigued by the bag I was told to "mush" every day and feed every 5. It wasn't that the bread turned out bad, just very sweet, kind of heavy, and not exactly the stuff you want as your daily bread (and okay, I was weirded out by the instant pudding necessity). So, I decided to start experimenting, cutting back on the sugar and milk it said to feed it. A few weeks later and I've got a starter that's bubbling away like crazy!


I was feeling like I was doing a pretty good job nurturing Emmalou (who was named while listening to "Red Dirt Girl" but got a slight twist, in deference to the artist--who knows, perhaps she'd considering having yeast named after her to be an honor). So, today was the true test--could I actually produce a reasonably tasty sourdough-type loaf of peasant bread with the newest member of our family? After all, we're missing Pane D'Amore so much---what we would give for a chunk of the cranberry-walnut bread or a slice of Pane d'Oro slathered with fresh butter! Yum! So, it seemed fitting that an experiment in baking might be in order for the new year. Besides, if you get the cogs turning correctly, homemade bread fits nicely with the graduate education-induced austerity program!

So, Emmalou gave a piece of herself to the bowl along with a bunch of flour, some water, and salt--so simple! We had put half of Emmalou in a separate jar to bubble away more slowly in the fridge for future experiments and took the part that wasn't used for bread and fed it for use in tomorrow's breakfast: sourdough pancakes. We'll see.

After letting Emmalou's progeny go to work for 5 hours or so, other projects demanded some attention, so with the bread-stone warmed, into the oven the boule went. 40 or so minutes later, out the boule came looking like true honest-to-goodness artisan bread. Amazing! I slid the baguettes in for their go in the oven and celebrated my success with a delicious Old Thumper.

Another half hour or so and out came the baguettes looking impressive in their own right. Amazing x2. We waited for it all to cool before diving in for a sample, and while not exactly award winning, I had custom-crafted some pretty yummy bread! It lacked the true sourdough flavor I was hoping for, but was definitely more than edible and bordering on pretty darn good. I'm sure Emmalou will be happy to give some of herself up for another experiment next week...for now it's on to sourdough pancakes in the morning!

P.S.
This is what our Saline Canine looks like when celebrating her birthday with a delicious homemade carrot and peanut butter cake...in tribute to Max.