I think we’re a bit overdue for another open thread for personal stuff. As per usual, no trolls, no flames, no being a butthead.
I’ll paste in some recent personal comments from other threads.
Categories
Open Thread for Personal Stuff: November Rain Edition
I hope your cat is okay, Viscaria! :{
I’m sure Bailey will be okay, but I’m glad you’re calling the vet. Cats!
This is the (warning: slightly gory!) aftermath of Hazel getting spooked by something and trying to escape by climbing my leg. Ouch.
p.s. It’s an awkward spot to bandage! Anyone have any first aid tips?
Hazel has been following me around ever since. I think she feels bad, poor dear.
Yeesh! Looking at that picture made me feel weak in my legs. X_X I’m sorry, cloudiah.
I think you should just get a few large band-aids – use only as many as necessary. Using something more than is probably going to make walking uncomfortable when you put on shoes (unless, of course, you use band-aids that are very thick.)
cloudiah — you need a figure 8 bandage for that (not a figure 8 puffer, mine’s a green spotted XD ) — http://youtu.be/HcfYYKglxrc
Use gauze instead of an ace bandage (obvious thing is obvious?)
“Argenti: “I won’t do swordtails, because they’re livebreeders”–do you mean you personally won’t do livebearers (because a bunch of babies are a PITA), or it’s a bad idea because of their biology?”
Personal preference, I can’t bear the thought of the fry being eaten. I like the whole babies thing, my cories babies are doing well 🙂
Well, well enough, the 20~ I counted one day 3~ seem to be down to a half dozen or so, but that’s not really surprising considering I counted them when so young and that breeders tend to “cull” the weaker ones while I refuse to kill them and let nature take its course. A couple are getting so big though, won’t be long before those two big guys get moved into the 55g with their parents!
As for tetras, I let my mother pick the fish for the downstairs 29g, with my advising what could and couldn’t work (my brother wanted a bichar!) — she picked some lovely uh, bleeding heart tetras?
And my danios have been known to try schooling with the cories and loaches (which school with each other and that is just hilarious). Loaches are amazingly entertaining little rascals, check out this silliness —
http://youtu.be/WB7NHXsnNqA
That would be the infamous loach dance. Oh, and if they’re like clowns you want 2 or 4+, 1 and 3 are out, 1 will be sad and lonely, 3 will fight for dominance // pick on the little guy (I have had 3 work when one was MUCH larger than the other two, but I don’t think kuhlis grow as slowly as clowns do)
Also, they make these silk (?) plants with sinking anchors, I love them and think them well worth the extra cost over plastic plants. Loaches will nibble live plants. (I’m not sure how they feel about plastic since I had a plec that flipped the fuck out over unnatural looking plants [I think it was more the texture when he sucked on them, but either way])
cloudiah: OUCH! I’d just make sure that was really clean (cat scratches/bites can get infected quick) and let it air-dry.
Ouch, cloudiah!
Argenti – does loaches’ dancing skillz mean they’re Proper Feminine Ladyfish?
kittehs – DAMN YOU IF I WERE DRINKING WATER I’D HAVE SPIT IT ON MY SCREEN.
Question. Can Feminist Cream™ be used on loaches?
Success!
A special FemiFisht variety is currently being tested. It will come in really small tubes.
Cream? Sorry, you’ll have to convert it to liquid form.
Argenti: I was planning on getting ~6 kuhli loaches. I’m not sure how similar they are to clown loaches–I know they’re a different genus–but they are social. The stuff I’ve read says “3 fish is the absolute minimum” for kuhlis. (Not sure if I mentioned before, I’m using “kuhlis” as a common name for anything in that genus, but I’m leaning towards getting Pangio oblonga/black kuhli/chocolate kuhli.)
I think I see some harlequin rasboras in your video! I haven’t kept them myself, but poking around the forum at loaches.com, it seems to be a pretty common fish to keep with loaches.
I think I’ll take my chances with live plants. I may not be able to have anchored live plants, but there’s always floating plants. (And I’ve read that kuhlis like floating plants.) I have a bunch of duckweed and hornwort and java moss, I can get some frogbit from my dad, and I’ll probably try anchoring a plant or two with a rock on top of the sand to see if it can make it without being dug up. If they eat the duckweed, good! That stuff grows like a weed. (Though if they just destroy it without eating it, it will be annoying.) If they eat a lot of it, I can farm it in my other tank and keep adding more. I’ll also try anchoring some java moss on driftwood. It also does okay as a floating plant, though.
I don’t feel too bad about fish that die because they’re being eaten by other fish, even though I’d rather not have to cull them myself. Even with snails (pond snail/no operculum type), I feed them to my jewel cichlid all the time, but I feel a little weird about just throwing them away. I hope my kuhli loaches will eat some of my snails. It’s hard to make sure the ancistrus/pleco gets enough food without also causing the snails to multiply really quickly; I can only feed so many to my cichlid.
I just spent about an hour sifting sand/gravel, so that they can dig in the sand. I used a colander with 6 mm holes to initially get the gravel (at a lake access/boat access area), then boiled it to sterilize it, then decided that there were too many big pieces and bought a colander with 2 mm holes to strain it again, after rinsing the dust/clay from it. I think I’m about 1/3 done.
Argh, the iPad ate my reply! Since I don’t feel like typing it all again, good luck with the live plants and check out — http://www.loaches.com/ — if you haven’t yet.
They’re amazing fish and I am getting more clowns when my fry grow up damnit!
Announcement time!
It looks like I will be visiting the US next year, prolly in your spring. That’s when my bff in LA would like to do it. I’m hoping for earlier rather than later, because I don’t want to be running into summer weather, crowds, or prices. We’re planning to go to Chicago by train. I don’t know how long the overall trip will be, but we’d be a week at most in Chicago. She doesn’t get paid leave, so saving up’s a Thing.
If there are any Manboobzers able to meet for lunch or something at either place, that would be so cool! My mate’s a feminist and a thrice-published fantasy writer (look up the Griffin’s Daughter trilogy) and a cat person AND a vet, so I reckon yez’d all get along famously.
PS I dibs the Encounters bar at LAX for lunch. Loved that place.
auggz — that would be happy fish being happy. Because yes, fish do have emotions!
Oh, idk if kuhlis do it, but clowns will “go grey” for a variety of reasons, mostly cuz they’re having a sad or cranky — if they return to normal in a reasonable time frame, don’t worry about it (seriously, I’ve never had any logical explanation for why mine have done it, my best guess at times has been dissatisfaction with the menu)
@kitteh
LA? So close, yet so far away. :{ I’d love to meet up with folks like you, katz, cloudiah (she’s in LA, right?), etc. But I live in the Bay Area, which is pretty damn far from LA, and at this time I have no good excuse for my dad for wanting to visit LA. Oh well.
Thanks, Argenti! Yeah, I spent a few days looking at loaches.com during slow times at work, they seem to have good info. I think I saw something about the clown loaches “going grey” thing, I think someone had taken a picture of their loaches after they had a little fight and said that their loaches would change color after they fought.
Gravel sifting is done! It is nice dark gravel that hopefully will make the fish want to have nice strong colors.
Ally: Getting away from your dad is the reason, duh 🙂
Kitteh: Let me know what your schedule is like.
Ally, what katz said. 😉
katz, I will!
Well, if I decide to move out before or during next spring, I might be able to take a bus or two down to LA. There’s certainly a possibility, although I’m not too optimistic.
The Bay area is around San Fransisco, is that right? That’s a hella long trip to LA. I wanted to do it last time I visited, but it’s about a seven hour drive, I think – too far.
Yeah, it’s a 12-hour trip from San Jose. o_O I love long train/bus rides, though.
I love long train rides, but not buses – too cramped and the drivers always have some godawful radio playing.
That’s about the same time it takes to get from Melbourne to Sydney by train. That’s one LONG trip.
And actually, now that I think about it, going far south where no one would expect me to be would be a wise thing to do for my own safety. It would be much more difficult for family members to track me down – especially if they don’t already know why I’m going to LA.
Are you thinking of living that far south when you escape? Does that mean uni will have to be put on hold?