Think Fish Keepers Daily News [year 2020]

[Had been thinking a while back that the original Think Fish Keepers Daily News thread was fit to burst at 193 pages of posts, so have split the topic and started this as a new thread denoting the year. Moderator FCMF. Sue's post below is the first in this new thread.]

Yesterday I did a water change on the main tank. I took the filter off the bracket to clean that too, only the bracket came away with the filter. Yes, the suckers were rigid rather than flexible. So I tossed the bracket in the bucket, filled it up with water and took it outside where I tried to get the suckers off. They were stuck tight. Luckily I have a spare bracket so I put new suckers on that and finished emptying the tank. But before refilling I used a stanley knife to cut the suckers off. The first one went fine - sliced the flat part off, then cut the neck away from the bracket. The second didn't go as well. Instead of slicing the flat part off, the blade slipped, cut half the flat part off then embedded itself in the pad of my left index finger. One temporary dressing later, my husband had to help me refill the tank. I went to the chemist this morning to buy a dressing more suited to the end of a finger, she looked at it and told me to go to urgent care because it was so deep. I only waited 25 minutes, I've waited longer at an appointment with the GP. My finger is now dressed with suture strips and a bulky dressing and I'm on a course of antibiotics. If I'd gone yesterday they could have glued it together but today they had to leave ventilation holes.
Apparently I'm the first woman they've had with a stanley knife injury. Men yes, lots of them, but no woman till today.

The moral of the tale is - leave using a stanley knife till after you've refilled the tank, then go to A & E/urgent care straight away.

Congratulations on your "first woman" title Sue.
I hope that your finger heals quickly & neatly.

I managed to clean the betta's tank this morning, with a bit of help. I used a large size Aldi freezer bag secured round my wrist with sellotape which kept the dressing dry. And my husband held the 'colander' (yogurt pot with pots of holes) while I poured the new water through it. I couldn't use the same freezer bag as I'd never hear the end of it if I touched the tap and kettle with fish tank water.

When I feed bloodworm, I feed half a cube and put the other half back in the freezer. With the half I use, I then slice thin slivers off about half of it before thawing and putting it all in the tank. This means that about half of what goes in the tank is large pieces of blood worm and the other half is small bits of blood worm for the small fish.

Good to hear from you, @apache6467 - sounds like lots has been happening ie you're off to uni now (where and what subject?) and have got new fish. Sounds good!
 

Congrats! I did wonder / had hoped you might have gone to study a subject like that. Great! 
The new fish will be lovely for you to enjoy while we're in this situation for the next while. Ember tetras were next in my own stocking plans but, for various reasons, that plan is on hold. I currently have 2 tanks on the go - the main tank and a care home tank for elderly fish who need a gentler water flow from the filter and therefore some relative peace and quiet at this stage in their lives.


 

Hi @apache6467

Good to 'meet' you. I will know who to go to now when I have questions about freshwater biology. Excellent!

JPC 

Hello to you all  Glad to hear you are all doing well! All the new fish are settled and feeding, although I definitely need to get some more pygmies as the 2 I currently have is definitely too few, although they are often swimming all over the tank without a care at the moment 

Given these unusual times, I have taken the opportunity to write a bit to do list and there are a few things on there from a fishkeeping perspective... cutting my own hair was also on the list and this was a disaster so fingers crossed for more success with the things I’m more experienced with!!!

So I cleaned out the pond filter yesterday. It always surprises me how much mulm collects in the bottom of it which is suspect is explainable by leaves which enter and decompose in the pond among the other usual things. I have an oase filter which has a sponge you can squeeze with a little handle on the outside of the unit without opening it which I had been keeping reasonably on top of - diverting the dirty water onto the garden and allowing the pond to refill naturally in the rain. With the dry spell we’ve been having it needed a bit of water adding this time. It was the crud in the bottom of the canister though which was more surprising... it’s quite well designed in that it can collect there without impacting things too much but I suspect this is a job I need to do more frequently - opening the lid and siphoning it out... eugh there was a lot of it, though it was not particularly smelly or anything, and hopefully the grass appreciates it! There is lots of frogspawn and frog activity at present so I was uncomfortable doing much more in the way of maintenance at this point.

There is a mouse which lives in our garden, regularly going from near the pond across to our shed in search of anything edible (including seeds) and bedding (including the car washing sponge). It has been hard at work digging an extension and some of the builders rubble that resulted has slipped down the slope towards the pond so I will target that for removal once the system has topped up a bit in the next rainfall.

The weather has been so nice recently we’ve taken full advantage and sat out to eat with our 9 month old (significantly less floor cleaning required!!) and have been looking after the garden which is springing into life now and looking great. We’ve been running the waterfall on the pond too which has been lovely.

It’s time to do the canister filter on the community tank soon too and I have a bit of an ich to do a bit of a rescape, not sure if this will come to fruition but will keep you posted of course if it does...

The heater bracket, taken out for a clean. Clearly a favourite spot for my snails!