(no subject)

New Thing(s) I Learned:

Those drawings of embroyos in Biology textbooks showing early embroyos of distinctly different vertebrate species as being nearly identical in their early stages are based on work done in the late 1800's that has been known to be significantly falsified for nearly as long. I distinctly remember receiving such as a handout in a general biology class only 4 or 5 years ago. Ooops.

Day 2	The tank almost immediately developed some green water algae. Added more Water Wisteria as it seems particularly happy.
Day 4	The hornwort was not doing well and had algae growing on it and the tank still had green water. I did nearly a complete water change. The fish are still breathing fast and have seemed distressed since they were reintroduced. I traded in two clown loaches to reduce the fish load. I bought a pH test and tested the water and it matched the lowest reading on the test which is 6.4. I added 3 tsp of baking soda which raised the pH to 6.6-6.8, and the fish seemed a little happier. I also added a bunch more hornwort, two Aponogeton species, and some Valisneria.
Day 5	Fish still have issues. I added another tsp. of baking soda this morning. Next I'm going to increase the surface agitation to see if lack of oxygen is their problem. Don't really have any good info about balancing the oxygen needs of the fish with the CO2 needs of the plants. I probably need to reduce my fish load more than I have :P

I've encountered prime examples of my two big aquarium-keeping cliches in the past couple of days. Cliche No. 1: The Blue-Collar Male. He keeps large, aggressive, piscivorous fish because it complements his machoness to feed them live food, ditto for when they kill one another (if the water quality doesn't get them first, the frequent feeder-goldfish gladitorial extravaganzas are generally not accompanied by frequent water changes). I was chatted up by one of these as he waited for his feeder goldfish to be bagged up. He seemed nice enough as he talked about his cichlids and oscars and tinfoil barbs. "I've been thinking about getting some Jack Dempseys, they're pretty cool." Really, I would never have guessed. Yesterday, I observed some prime examples of his female counterpart, Cliche No. 2: The Mallrat, rhinestoned tank tops and all. One of them was using a juvenile red-tailed constrictor as a fashion accessory. The clerk kept saying things like: "What other fish do you have in your tank?" and "If you're going to have 3 rainbow sharks in the same tank, keep an eye on them because they will pick on each other." (The reality of the shark situation is more like the Highlander scenario, they will worry each other unto death until there is only one in the tank.) Whenever the clerk was occupied with their selections, The Mallrats would complain to one another, while the poor, stressed snake kept trying to disembark. "She keeps asking me questions... like she's not going to like sell it to me or something... geez!" I wanted to smack them around (quite) a bit, but let me state here, for the record, that I wasn't much better at their age. I distinctly remember adding a baby oscar to my community tank because I thought it was cute.