Snails

Got some aquarium snails in the mail on Friday, and they are eating/laying eggs like mad crazy.  They are cute little striped things, but really, too many is too many.  So I now have my morning rounds with the turkey baster removing extra eggs.  I am hatching some for Byron and some to try and trade in at the fish store, but we shall see, and really, I don't need THAT many snails.  I'm removing like three or four clutches EVERY DAY.  That would be lots of babies!

Elspeth loves the snails, she always wants to hold them which worries me as they are fairly small (size of a nickel), and I'm afraid she might mush one even with strict supervision.  So, we are thinking of getting her a haustrom, they sell them at one of the local fish stores.  These puppies get the size of a tennis ball, so there's no way she could hurt them.  They are plant eaters though, so it would need it's own tank.  I am thinking a 20 long (we could put it on the Abomination aquarium stand, it's not so bad now that it's in Elspeth's room), with just a filter.  Also a rainbow shark for Mark (he REALLY wants one) and maybe some brigs for me, just to fill it up.  So, if anybody wants to contribute to the coolest birthday present for Elspeth ever, let me know.  ~_^

Announcements = sent

They are all in the mail.  Apparently quite a few have already arrived, which is nice.  If you still want one, and have not given me your address, there are still quite a few more, so send me a mailing address!

In other news, Elspeth rolled in the dirt at the playground today.  Then she poured ketchup all over herself (and Mark's laundry, groan).  Then she found jelly beans and chewed them and spit them all over the house.  She was one sticky baby, and I am one frustrated mommy.  Gave her a bath though, so at least she's clean.  I am still finding jelly beans.  >.<

Addresses

I am sending out the first wave of Emersen's birth announcements.  Anyone who wants one, who HASN'T sent me their address within the last month or so, please send me your address now.

Busy day

First of all, the plants got here, so I spent about two hours stuffing them into the 20H.  It was SO MUCH FUN.  They sent me so many extra plants, and they were all perfect, even after getting stuck in the post office over the weekend.  Elspeth was my little helper, she did a good job with the string and small rocks.  Unfortunately though I kind of forgot about lunch, Elspeth was ok because I always have crackers and cheese and raisins out for her (some days, it's the only way she eats), but I was kinda woozy by the time I was done.  Low blood sugar is NOT fun.  I am hoping the crypts grow in quickly, when they do this tank is going to look AWESOME.  There will be pictures.

Today is also the first day of the Freedom Festival on Center Street, we went to that after quick dinner at Guru's (mmm, tasty noodles and rice), and we got to hear Moosebutter.  Elspeth loved it, which made Mark proud, I think.  Also, Elspeth saw an enormous tortoise, and was a little scared of it.  If it was far away, she wanted to look, but she did NOT want to get close!  She was very cute.

Kamikaze fish and shrimp eggs

Francis the betta jumped out of his bowl yesterday while we were out.  I forgot to put the lid back on when I changed his water.  Mark found him and thought he was dead.  Fortunately he landed ON his lid, which made him easy to pick up.  I flipped him back in and now he's swimming around like nothing happened.  Bettas are tough.  One of our shrimp has eggs, too, so hopefully by this time next month I'll have a bazillion tiny baby cherry shrimps swimming around in there.  We have completely given up on the red claw shrimp though, and have put our smaller gourami male in the old ten gallon, so that Talbot will leave him alone so he'll color up.  Got one more female too, so we have four females and two males.  The plants were supposed to come today but didn't.  They sent me a bunch of extras to make up for not shipping them sooner though, and they will get here for sure on Monday, so it's ok.  Disappointed though, I had been counting on spending my evening planting plants, not sitting around doing nothing.

In news that people other than me (and apparently Byron) care about, we went to the pool today and had lots of fun.  Got a little sunburned dispite the frequent slathering of sunscreen though.  At least Elspeth seems to be burn free.  Me and Mark though are definitely lightly toasted.  Apparently I look ok in my swimsuit though (a relief, I don't think I've lost much of the weight from Emersen yet).  Also, Mark got called as the move in specialist in our church.  Which is funny, because our other calling is as cochairs of the new member committee, so the two sort of go hand in hand.

Ninja shrimp

Well, I can't find mama redclaw shrimp ANYWHERE.  It's only a 10 gallon tank too, either she climbed out (unlikely, I would have found her) or she's a freaking ninja.  Not finding any babies in there either.  I'm considering just getting a bunch of red claw juveniles from a dude I know in Payson, and growing them out myself, as I went back to Animal Ark and they appear to only have females... that also makes it possible that mama shrimp's eggs weren't fertile in the first place, so boo.  I did find a baby cherry shrimp in the other tank though, so at least one made it, maybe more.  I have a huge hair algae infested ball of java moss in there, if they climbed in there I'd never find them.

In non-shrimp news, Elspeth now says "yokai" when I tell her to do things... whether she does them or not.  Silly baby.  But she is learning Japanese, which I had been starting to wonder about.

Stressed out

We have been having a hard time.  We went to visit my family in Colorado for a few days (my mom got a 56 gallon tank, and didn't know what to do with it, which was more than enough to lure me out).  Ended up staying a bit longer than planned because Mark got sick, high fever and headache.  Setting up the tank was lots of fun, but we were sleeping on the fold out in the basement, and Elspeth decided she was afraid of the basement, so not much rest was to be had.  When we got home on Monday Elspeth's schedule was all off.  She was mostly on by Wednesday, but then she had diarrhia and diaper rash.  That's about when I discovered that she had cut two more molars too, explaining why she'd been so dang cranky.  Then on Friday Mark decided we HAD to have a better stand for the shrimp tank (the one we made is an Abomination), and so he got one that would hold the 10 gal for the shrimp plus and additional 20H... yay!  But just when we had the shrimp tank settled in place, Elspeth wonked her head on it and cracked the glass from top to bottom.  It's ironic that the tank took so much damage as Elsepth doesn't even have a bruise, but if I had to choose I would indeed pick the broken tank.  So we were at Petsmart as soon as they opened to get a new tank, which I spent the rest of the morning moving my shrimp into.  The worst part is I'd just had a hatch in there, and I don't think any of the milimeters long babies made it into the new tank.  I TRIED, I really did, but they are just too tiny to find!  It looks like we'll have more eggs within the week though, so everybody pray for my shrimp tank... we don't have many shrimp left, and I don't think I can handle anything else dying on me right now.

In good news, while we were at the LFS in Orem looking for plants, we discovered that they currently have red claw shrimp... and one was pregnant!  I totally had to buy her, so I moved all the fish into the new 20 gal so she gets our original 10 all to herself.  She's gorgeous too, a good three inches long with very nice markings, and very active.  So, hopefully I will have baby macros soon too!  But in the mean time I'm changing water like crazy, because the nitrate levels in that tank are much too high for babies!  Maybe I'm being paranoid, but it's giving me something to do, and at this phase in my life, that's a very good thing.