Busy busy busy

[altivo]

At least the clouds cleared up by afternoon. After finishing the grocery shopping, we took Gary's mom to Woodstock so she could see the weaving and spinning show, then had lunch at a place there in town. She had a gift card for Barnes and Noble, so we went on to Crystal Lake so she could use that. Then stopped at the Petco so I could price fish tanks. Now that the Pearl Danios have eaten all the baby Platyfish, we want to set up another tank for the adult platies so they can breed unthreatened (except by themselves anyway.) I found a reasonably priced complete kit for a 20 gallon high tank that will fit on the bookcase in my office at home, so I got it. Now I'll have to make a trip out to get 20 gallons of bottled drinking water, since we've learned that our well water kills fish. Once the tank is set up with bottled water, it's not so bad to maintain. We just replace four or five gallons of water every month with fresh bottled water (40 to 50 cents a gallon) and things have been thriving. It was tougher choosing a tank than I expected. Originally I'd planned on a 10 gallon, but the fish expert who does our tanks at the library thought a 20 would be better. They are similar in cost, actually. Still there were a lot of choices that never used to exist the last time I bought an aquarium (decades ago.) The old rectangular glass tanks still do exist, but all plastic tanks in a variety of shapes and sizes are clearly the most popular choice now. They even had tanks that hang on the wall. I was tempted by a 28 gallon bow front (the front curves outward to give more capacity and more viewing area) at the same price I ultimately paid for the 20H. It didn't include a tank heater, though, so I'd have had to buy one separately for it. Our house is not warm enough in the winter for the fish unless a heater is provided. As it turns out, sticking with the traditional 20H was a good decision. The bow front was 16 inches deep. The bookcase on which I wanted to place the tank is only 15 inches deep. The standard 20H is 12 inches deep and fits very nicely.. I'll probably go into Marengo for water tomorrow so I can let the setup run for a day or two before moving the platyfish into it.

Tomorrow the show comes down, and I have to go back into Woodstock to pick up my entries, as well as a friend's (she's out of town this weekend.) After that, a mad crush to finish editing the manuscript for Taking Flight before NaNoWriMo begins on Thursday.

Comments

[saythename.livejournal.com]

A B&N gift card is great. Its giving the gift of
browsing, and thats a good thing. ^_^

Fish tank stuff is a pain, and the reason we don't "do"
fish anymore. Or lets say I don't "do" fishtanks
anymore because I got tired of all the cleaning and
draining and upkeep and moving.

Good luck at the show!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Moving you don't want to do. That's a drag.

Cleaning is minor now, with modern equipment for filtering etc. Water changes I mostly don't have to do. I buy the water, Gary does the swap. But it's no biggie really.

Unfiltered.

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

I thought of a weird "sad fates of baby fish" story I can relate... I once- several years ago- had a tank which had guppies and a few swordtails. Anyway, at one point in time I discovered the guppies had bred, because one monring I found a baby desperately swimming to stay out of the pump's intake hose. Upon removing the pump I found three more live guppy offspring trapped inside- assumably, they had been living off the debris and algea in the intake tube- and one dead one, whose broken body had been mangled by the pump mechanism. I was touched at how the one's sacrifice had spared all of its siblings untimely deaths.

It's a bummer my novel is nowhere near finished, but I've got bigger things to worry about right now- best of luck on your work- they do that thing every year, right?

Re: Unfiltered.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

NaNoWriMo runs every year for the month of November, yes. Participation is free, and you don't even have to use a computer except to sign yourself up and report your progress. If you choose to write with a pencil on the backs of old bills, it's allowed.

To do 50,000 words in 30 days means you need to average 1667 words per day. Not a whole lot, actually.

Yeah, baby fish do end up everywhere, and in the filter isn't an unusual place at all. They have huge numbers of them because only a small percentage will survive. That's nature.