Saturday, October 29, 2005

Dealgaeficationism

As Elspeth mentioned previously, we have the pleasure of having nothing specific to do this weekend. It is entirely welcome, as I'm having a frustrating week or two at work (more may follow on this, if venting is required). We;ve both been busy all day, but there's nothing we had to do, which makes a huge difference!

I have taken the opportunity today to have a good clean of the fish tank. The major contributor to its previous dirty look was algae: all over the rocks, wood, plants, and probably the slower moving fish. So I've taken all of the furniture out of the tank, given it a good scrub to get rid of the algae, cleaned up the gravel and plants, and rearranged it all to give a different feel to the tank. Think Changing Rooms without the power tools. I'm really happy with the result - the tank looks much cleaner and more interesting.



Taking pictures of shoals of fish is even harder than of single fish. These are 5 of my half dozen penguin tetras - resident since last weekend. These are one of the fish that I've always liked back in the days when I used to spend hours in fish shops dreaming of my own tank! I especially like the way the black stripe goes right down the bottom half of the fin, and their swimming position which is much more 'head up' than most other fishes. It makes them always seem inquisitive to me, which I like! We bought these fish from the garden centre which Elspeth and I frequent more and more regularly. Recently they've had some lovely fish in, including some torpedo barbs which Elspeth ahs her eye on (although these would be a more significant outlay than on any other fish to date - they're £10 each at the moment). They also have some upside down catfish which I've only seen once before, and are *very* tempting. One of the guys that we play badminton with happens to work in the aquatics department there, so it's nice to know one of my stockists quite well!




The new tank setup has more hiding places than the old setup, but at the same time these hiding places are more easily visible from outisde the tank. This is one of my female platies with the alpha male. They seemed to be having a nice intimate moment, and I confess that I felt a bit voyeuristic taking the photo. Maybe they're making some more babies. I realise I never really updated you on the story of the baby platies. I just found the picture of them when there were two and they were tiny. This isn't the case any more - there's only 1 left but he's really grown up. I always said I wouldn't be bothered, but there's something pleasing about knowing that this fish was born in my tank and doesn't know any other home. Bless. I'll try and get a photo for next time.

Oh, and that happened to be the 1000th picture with our digital camera. How have we found 1000 things to take photos of in the last 6 months?!



Mr rainbowfish. He was the only one not moving at the time, so you have a picture of him. He has settled a lot since last I blogged, when he was terrorising everyfish. I suspect this is with the influx of more fish so he doesn't feel quite confident enough to try and be king of the tank. This title could potentially belong to the sole remaining tiger barb (following a disease outbreak a few weeks ago which wiped the other 5 out - quite a sad occurrence as I really liked the barbs and I'm worried about getting any more). Anyway, he seems fine, is clearly a hard fish for surviving the illness, and was the only one not to run away and hide when I was chucking stuff about all over the tank.



One of the secondary reasons for the tank clean was to see how many corys I had left! They're very shy (at least during the day) and I can't remember the last time I could spot all four that I started out with. They are still all alive and kicking, and I hope I haven't scared them too much with today's activities - hey didn't seem happy about having their hiding places removed. Hopefully now they will feel safer with more spots to hide in and we will see more of them.

The census did reveal that an oto has gone missing, presumed eaten. Or it's exceptionally good at hiding.

Friday, October 28, 2005

A long birthday

Well my birthday has lasted just over a week this year: I had cards and presents last Wednesday, drinks with work on Friday and a meal out with Tim last night. We tried out a very nice Italian restaurant in Bedford - definitely a good choice!

We've both been rather quiet on the blog front recently, not through lack of things to write about, more through lack of time. We had Hannah come to visit a couple of weeks ago as our first proper weekend guest. Chris has already updated us on his failed attempt to visit, but Rachel David and Samuel did manage to arrive and stayed overnight last week. The spare room is now usable as a guest bedroom and we'll be glad to welcome visitors!

We're looking forward to a relaxing weekend at home - Tim's planning a major fish tank cleaning session and I'm sure I'll end up in the garden again :-)

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Hooray!

Much excitement in the Mosedale house this weekend, as we discovered that the birds are finally eating the seeds on our bird table. If we stand in the spare room we can watch them - so far we've seen a large crowd of sparrows, the odd starling, and some king of tit, either blue or black we're not sure. Plus, I was out in the garden this afternoon and spotted a robin watching me from next door's tree - word of our table is obviously spreading!