What are you doing today?

I decided to pop into the pets at home @ Handforth Dean today since I've never been in that store before. It's a very small store compared to others I've seen/been to. I was surprised to see a range of healthy fish and clean tanks (apart from a dead dwarf gorumai lodged in the filtration inlet 🤦‍♂️). Plants were on my list so I was surprised to see they had an offer for 3 for £10 for Tropica blister packs. What confused me was that plants that I consider harder to grow/keep such as Monte Carlo, were cheaper than easy-to-grow plants such as Limnophila sessiliflora and Hygrophila species that were £6.59 a pot!? I just got them from my LFS instead for £3.50..
 
Scraped front glass of 2 abandoned tanks, to see what's going on inside.
 
Got a 2002 f150 last week.
Before compounding. The whole truck looked like this:
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After:
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Keyholes are here! They got their first feeding this morning. It’s so strange to have a fish with some intelligence to it. They are still getting used to their new life—they get spooked every time I approach the tank to watch them. They also push around the leaves like puppies. One of them has two spots on one side, which is pretty unique. I have heard that this species doesn’t have a good visual marker to determine sex, but one of the group seems to be more authoritative/flashing its fins, so I’m guessing that’s a male.

I think I’ll get a school of neons for this tank. I like these glowlights (I only bought 4 of them for cycling so it’s not a big deal to take them back), but since the keyholes are also quite subtle-colored I just want something else to add pop to the tank.
 
Back to singing with little kids today. Learning some songs from Australia, which should make @Colin_T happy. Kookaburra, Tie Me Kangaroo Down (which ends with a joke that is completely sick and wrong, and thus is a huge hit with my fourth graders), and we're just starting on "Waltzing Matilda." Haven't figured out how to work any Colin Hay songs in yet, but it might happen.
 
Yesterday we had a real, live GaryE fish in the store!

That looks to me to be the 'gardneri gold' linebred morph. It's a colour mutation, and a nice fish. I had a friend who was crazy about them and bred them for years. His fishroom was out in a village in the woods, north of northern Maine and far from any large place where he could get fish. So he got killies by mail and ran a full fishroom, with water from a spring beside the house. It was a cool set up.

I'm dog sitting a big retriever mix who is turning out to be quite easy going, once you establish boundaries. Both she and my dog send good wishes to that poor wounded pup.

And keyholes? They were the dumbest Cichlid I ever kept, but you have to love them for it. They are so easy going, bumbling and peaceful. They used to lay eggs, guard them like hawks for 23 hours and 50 minutes a day, but always go on a parade-like walk for 10 minutes and return to total confusion as to where their eggs went. Their tankmates thought the world of them.
 
What i did this morining:
fed the frys bbs (a. sp bluketi)
fed the other frys bbs (a. wolli)
fed the other frys bbs (a. winkie)
check on the m.e. eggs.
fed all the other fishes (a. birtiana, keyholes, b. cupido, chocolate, m.e. m.f. geo d. clown loaches, a. winkies, ...)
try to get the discus to eat some raw salmon (they said no thanks)
did water change on the 29 (a. wolli)
did water change on the 29 (scratch tank with some c. eques)
did water change on the 20 long (a. sp bluketi)
did water change on the 20 long (c. hastatus - lots)
did water change on the 65 (a. sp ipiranga)
did water change on the 65 (ib and a. sp lasidalo)
did water change on the 40b (a. sp lasiadlo)
did water change on the 120 (krobia and angelfishes)
put together the stand for the new 29
glue the verticals in the new 29 for the matten filters (ok i haven't done the gluing yet - will do it in an hour).
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Later today i get to feed everyone dinner.
 
I'm in the "egg layer" wait. I set up 2 species to spawn. Looking at the females before and after, I think the deed was done. They spawned over an egg protecting set up, but I can't see eggs. Both species are supposed to have tiny eggs, so that means little. By today, they'll have hatched, and the larvae will be hiding. So now I enter the phase of feeding microfoods to... maybe nobody. They're tetras, and the young may be harmed by light. It is possible. Neither is a well known species, and I don't have a ton of info on that.

Were the eggs fertile. Do I have one fry? One hundred fry? No fry?

I feed for 2 weeks and by then, if anything is moving, I should have seen it.

Meanwhile. my Parananochromis brevirostris are guarding hatched larvae. How will that go? Will they get though that phase, to freeswim?

This isn't a hobby for rigid, results oriented people.

I lost a bunch of Microctenopoma congicum fry, which I expected, but I still have a lot more than I know what to do with. If I can raise 20, that's good.

But, my Chromidotilapia nana have paired for sure. Now they need to breed.
 

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