Ok Canada… you guys can keep your forest fire smoke…

[Magnum Man]

So our Minnesota air quality has been poor, the last several weeks, because of Canadian smoke…

That stuff doesn’t normally bother me in the least… but there is a respiratory thing going around, several from our church have been to the ER lately… I’m sick today, and since it comes with a fever, assuming I can’t really blame you guys… taking something for the fever, and related muscle aches, and for the chest congestion, and doing my best to keep, keeping on…

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I live about 30 miles NNE of NYC. Last year the Canadian fires really impacted us. I needed to stay on top of the air quality to know how to deal with everyday life. There is one thing I used to keep me appraised of the air quality where I live.

The EPA has a site which is connected to a lot of air quality monitors all over the country. You can enter your zip code and it will give you the report based on the monitors nearest to you.

Go here and enter you zip code. Bookmark the resulting page and you can get the local quality with just a click from then on. https://www.airnow.gov/

The link also provides details about the nature of any pollution in the air. My quality right now is 30 and 0-50 is considered to be Good quality. the scale goes up to 300.

 

[MaloK]

You can view the forecast there:

Smoke Forecast - FireSmoke.ca

 

[AJ356]

I think Gary will be responding to you Magnum Man

 

[GaryE]

Where I am, on the east coast, we've had one morning of smoke from a local fire. Farther west, it's awful what's happening.

It's not my fault. I didn't use up all the water on weekly tank maintenance.

People with respiratory problems really have to be careful.

 

[Magnum Man]

Normally I have no respiratory problems… I think this is some viral thing, because of the fever… whatever it is, I can OTC drug around most of it, but even with a healthy dose of caffeine, my energy is just sapped, riding mower is about as much motivation, as I can muster… didn’t go see my mom, today ( which is my Friday routine ) didn’t think I should drag my sick butt you not a senior care facility

 

[GaryE]

I got one of the mutated to mild COVID strains in May, and big fatigue was part of it. I was dragging around for a couple of days. It didn't do much else, but. But if what you have is also respiratory - take care. People tend to dismiss things like that with smoke, but as a mild asthmatic, I still know when there's a local wildfire without seeing that sepia sky in the morning. It really irritates the throat.

 

[Essjay]

My son was recently off work for 2 weeks with the current variant of Covid. He was told by 2 different doctors and a nurse that this variant "knocks the stuffing" out of you. He may only have tested positive for the first of those 2 weeks but he was too exhausted to work during the second.

 

[Colin_T]

I bought a carbon air filter from a hydroponics store last year because we have bush fires around here and the place fills up with smoke. It works rather well and makes it a lot easier to breath when it's smokey outside.

 

[GaryE]

I'm tuned into pollution levels because I do have respiratory issues at times. I can remember one forest fire smoke issue in my childhood, and one when I was in my thirties. Now, it's an almost annual thing. I like my little house on a windswept coast, and wouldn't want a house nestled in the forest.
I get up very early in the morning and often see the sun rise over the Bay. You learn to recognize the different colour of the sky when there's a wildfire. You also see how interconnected and small we are, when you see how widely the smoke spreads.

 

[Lanpenn]

I know that this is related to Canada, but in the last few days, we had wildfires across São Paulo's state countryside... there was evidence that some of them were caused by criminals (and in the case of Brazil, there is a lack of enforcement), however, the Cerrado itself, a biome from Brazil, has natural wildfires. Usually, the winter season is dry.

 

[anewbie]

While an old thread it was not really necessary since one could huff and puff and blow the smoke back to where it came from...

Having said that Brazil is going to have serious ecology problems; i'm really dreading the number of species of dwarf cichild; some never seen by man; are going to go extinct. Wish brazil would at least export the ones that are still alive .... but i guess they figure if they can't have em no one can.

 

[GaryE]

I don't agree with the no export policy, but I also know from experience that aquarists don't do conservation of the ones that are exported. We consume them.
I don't know how many pairs of rare Apistogramma I sold or gave away over the years I bred the group. I don't think one of them was still in the hobby within 2 generations. Some may have been reimported since, but I see no signs of them. I don't know of any conservation breeders of Apistos, anywhere. I know killiekeepers who have bred wild caught lines for 30 years or more, but I don't know a single Apisto breeder 10 generations in.
To be fair, who is going to dedicate 10 tanks to one species, for a lifetime, while developing a network to keep it going? We can't even attend meetings to meet each other face to face in many places.
I'm as bad as anyone else - I don't have a single Apistogramma in my fishroom any more. They demand enormous resources to maintain, and private aquarists don't have that. Public institutions don't get funded for that, and corporate takes the forests out for profit.
Brazil is on its way to becoming the kind of ecology the USA, Europe or Canada have been for generations.

 

[anewbie]

I don't agree with the no export policy, but I also know from experience that aquarists don't do conservation of the ones that are exported. We consume them.
I don't know how many pairs of rare Apistogramma I sold or gave away over the years I bred the group. I don't think one of them was still in the hobby within 2 generations. Some may have been reimported since, but I see no signs of them. I don't know of any conservation breeders of Apistos, anywhere. I know killiekeepers who have bred wild caught lines for 30 years or more, but I don't know a single Apisto breeder 10 generations in.
To be fair, who is going to dedicate 10 tanks to one species, for a lifetime, while developing a network to keep it going? We can't even attend meetings to meet each other face to face in many places.
I'm as bad as anyone else - I don't have a single Apistogramma in my fishroom any more. They demand enormous resources to maintain, and private aquarists don't have that. Public institutions don't get funded for that, and corporate takes the forests out for profit.
Brazil is on its way to becoming the kind of ecology the USA, Europe or Canada have been for generations.

There are a few folks who do have a genetic critic mass but yes - while i keep a couple and do go to the effort to breed them it isn't enough genetic diversity long term. I guess we would need a nice amazon river that runs through the backyard to do a proper job; of course the cost of heating it.... well what can i say in that regards pleco are easier because you dont' need as much space though i doubt any breeder actually has enough for genetic diversity.