Think Fish Keepers Daily News. [2016-2019]

Nerite eggs are unmistakable. They look as though someone has stuck sesame seeds all over the decor, the glass, other snails.....

For a reliable weather forecast, use yr.no
A Norwegian site, you can put it into English. Then always go for the graph view... best way to view the weather and their predictions are more accurate than most.

Slightly disconcertingly, I've been increasingly fascinated by my 3 nerites this week - unsure how much time has been spent watching their antics!

Mr (orange, 14 mths old) & Mrs (new, red) met one another on a piece of wood a few days ago. He slithered around her on contact, then departed. Mrs spent the following day indulging compulsively in Snail Stixx food, not moving more than 1cm from the bowl that I now feed this in; Mr came and joined in during the evening and there were soon pieces of Snail Stixx food being thrown up a few cms as a consequence of the rummaging, and which one of the harlequins availed of. Mr then moved up tightly alongside Mrs, both went motionless for a minute or so, before they resumed eating. Yesterday, I got rid of the Snail Stixx to allow them to earn their living by eating algae in the tank - Mrs seems to be enjoying working away on the two pieces of bogwood which I'm grateful for as Mr had never really touched them; at one stage, Mr (whose tentacles are now ~4cm in comparison with Mrs' <0.5cm) set off at speed and with purpose, then did a u-turn, stretched and hoisted himself up onto the branch and pushed himself up against Mrs for a minute or so, before departing the scene. Whether or not he's being territorial in what has been exclusively his tank from a snail point of view, or whether this is mating behaviour (as unclear which sex either is), I don't know. This morning, he has been perching majestically on top of the filter outlet at the water surface, as though surveying his territory - like a scene from The Lion King.

As for Baby, Mr located him a few days ago, pushed him up against the glass, then continued on his merry way. Unfortunately, I've had to rescue Baby twice in the past 12 hrs as he was found lying on his back, clearly having no idea what to do as his tentacles and innards are too small to be able to rectify his position. I had been considering corydoras habrosus as a possibility for the new fish but I would worry about them or indeed any bottom feeders inadvertently poking Baby if he were vulnerable on his back and so this has almost cemented my final decision as either microdevario kubotai (most likely) or ember tetra (second choice).

Oooooh - I assumed they'd just clamber over the top of him, poke him to try to eat him, but cause more problems than good. If, however, they might actually help him, then that's an entirely different matter and they might go firing to the top of my "contenders" list. Anyone else have any experience of such situations?

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly and how much fish will eat.
With the sunny weather I've had containers on the windowsill to grow algae on rocks. I will admit that I'd kind of forgotten about them, and the rocks had grown a thick coat of algae, along with some fairly large clumps of longer, fluffy algae. I put the rocks in the river tank yesterday evening, and they were very quickly located by the gobies, who ate until they looked as if they were fit to burst. The panda garras then had a go, quickly followed by the hillstream loaches and bulldog plecs. Within less than an hour I could see the original colour of the rocks in patches.
Came downstairs this morning to find both large rocks completely clean. Less than 12 hours to eat several weeks worth of algae...good job I've put more containers of rocks onto the windowsill.

My snail that died recently didn't smell either. Like you I found it on its back and turned him over, then it didn't move for several days. I also put it in a separate container - at this point if I pulled the trapdoor with a finger nail it was pulled back in slightly. But after a few days of no movement in the tub, I tried the trapdoor again and it just stayed pulled out. But still no smell, which is most unusual.

I have no idea on your last question 

I know that it is said that the way a shop handles the snail can affect it. If a snail is ripped off the side of the tank that can damage it. When I take a snail off the glass I gently slide it up and down till it lets go. Though if you got this snail from somewhere like Proshrimp, they should know how to handle snails.

Since you've reminded me, I've just looked at snails on ProShrimp, and then shrimps. It it usual for them to be out of stock of everything except assassin snails and snowball shrimps?

Maybe it's just someone who usually gets the stock in is on holiday 

A notice has just come through the door from the water company. They will be cleaning pipes between 7 August and 22 August.

I'll definitely do a water change on Monday 6th, but I can only hope that the following one on ~ 16 August isn't affected by cloudy water  I don't have enough buckets to run 85 litres water before I start removing the old water.

(Yes I know that's 10 days apart but my husband won't help me do them every week for the next 4 weeks, just every 10 days)