What's made your day?

[honeythorn]

The gravel does need cleaning, and you can get small gravel vacuums for that.

A cheap way to do it is to just get a flexible length of clear hose/pipe about 4 feet long , stick one end in the tank and swirl it about just above the gravel to stir up any crap.

Suck sharply on the other end of the hose to pull the water in and start the flow, and very quickly point that same end into a bucket to catch the dirty water.

Keep the end that's in in the tank swirling all around over the gravel, and this will suck up any bits of crap and empty them into the bucket.

Be careful not to suck your fish up the tube.




Make sure you're not overfeeding your fish. If you are and he's not eating all of it, you will make more work for yourself and pollute his water even quicker, because the uneaten bits will sink and rot on the bottom.

I feed mine every other day in small amounts, once in the morning and once in the evening.




To be fair, the main bulk of bad information with regards to bettas on websites, is in three areas. Tank size, heating and filtration.

Many will reccomend that you keep a betta in a couple of gallons because they still believe that bettas live in puddles for most of the time and that they don't like big spaces. Utter bullshit of course.

Many will also say that as long as you keep the room warm the tank doesn't need a heater. Again, utter bullshit. Unless you actually live in Thailand where the heat is pretty constant most of the year, your betta absolutely needs a heater. It's a tropical fish and needs a steady temperature.

And of course, many say they don't need a filter because they can breathe air. Those two things have nothing to do with eachother. They need filtration to maintain a steady biological environment in the tankwater. The bacteria inside the filter process the fishwaste and do that for you.

The breathing air thing is a survival mechanism for when their water sources in the wild dry up and heat up, making the oxygen levels in the water too low for normal breathing.





The care of a betta is exactly the same as any other basic tropical fish . They are anabantoids, and are closely related to Gouramis.

Simply look up basic tropical fishtank care. It's just a matter of weekly water changes, check all equipment is working, check all fish are alive and healthy, feed everyone what they need feeding when they need it.


They all need the correct size tank to keep a stable environment and have plenty of space to swim, they need the correct temperature provided by a heater, and they need filtration and weekly water changes to keep the biology of the tankwater stable.

Doing all these correctly will give you a healthy fish and tank.




Here is a website listing tropical fish diseases with pictures.

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/fish_...cation.html#TB

Whitespot, otherwise known as Ich, is a very common one, and very easy to identify. Given good tank care, your fish shouldn't display any signs of disease, though it is very possible he could have developed or caught something in the store.

Don't medicate him unless he is showing definite signs of illness or disease. If he's swimming and eating, and not lethargic and hanging in a corner or the surface all the time, he should be fine.

Some bettas are more active than others, they all have different personalities. Some are very territorial and flare at their reflections all day, others are really lazy and chilled.

[MissCheyenne]

Ran two miles in 25 minutes. The last half mile done at full speed as I was being chased by what I can only assume was one of the hounds of hell. It had evil in its eyes, I swear it did.

[vindicatedxjin]

[Versus]

Apparently, Bin Laden is dead.

[Murder.Of.Crows]

Originally Posted by Versus

Apparently, Bin Laden is dead.

yup, pretty cool. The news made my day as well.

[Annihilation]

Learnt Stabwound on guitar. The solo and everything.

[Ben Lahnger]

.

According to an article published at Gizmodo, as news of Osama bin Laden's death broke last night, someone at The New York Times actually had to yell,

"STOP THE PRESSES!"

.
__________________________
.

Also, this was tweeted by The Batman:

"And unlike comic book super villains, Bin Laden will STAY dead. Nice work, SEAL Team 6."

.

[Fruitbat]

I didn't get sea sick on the boat.. woohoo...love my sea legs

[Murder.Of.Crows]

I might have a job tomorrow. I'll be a cowboy.. lol.

[Fruitbat]

Originally Posted by Murder.Of.Crows

I might have a job tomorrow. I'll be a cowboy.. lol.

A gothic cowboy?

Congrats.. what are you going to be doing?

[Murder.Of.Crows]

Well just taking care of horses, goats, and cattle until the owner's arm heals.

[Fruitbat]

Originally Posted by Murder.Of.Crows

Well just taking care of horses, goats, and cattle until the owner's arm heals.

Sounds great! Hope you get the job... Wings crossed for ya.

[Ben Lahnger]

Reading Terry Pratchett's mini author bio at the back of his first Discworld novel, 'The Color of Magic':

Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very Strong Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions?

Ha ha ha ha ha!

[carakitty]

Hey MOC that sounds like a great job, but hard work! If you get it, don't injure yourself in the process too!

My day was made by a bike ride. A nice gravel trail along side the nature reserve. The prairie dogs talked to me and I did talk back.

[Fruitbat]

Originally Posted by Ben Lahnger

Reading Terry Pratchett's mini author bio at the back of his first Discworld novel, 'The Color of Magic':

Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very Strong Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions?

Ha ha ha ha ha!

^ this.. thanx for sharing Ben

[Versus]

Fooly Cooly is on Netflix.

[Solumina]

It was slow enough at work that I got to go home as soon as I wanted so yeah I was there for 30 minutes and I got to come home and take an amazing nap.

[Ben Lahnger]

I have my Nintendo DS XL tricked out with an AceKard 2 and a 16 GB micro SD card, so besides having the rather robust, native Opera internet browser (which works with Wi-Fi) on board, I also have loaded it up with 105 Nintendo DS game roms, a media player with over 26 hours of video and 125 MP3's (I don't listen to music on it much) as well as 100 classic books. And it still fits in a pocket and holds a battery charge that will keep me entertained on the go for 6-8 hours at a pop.

Yesterday I found a comic book reader, so I've loaded up some of my favorite digital comics and graphic novels. Now it IS the ultimate portable entertainment machine!

[vindicatedxjin]

Hah! I just did that myself. Except I have the R4. I'm having some difficulties using language patches though

[Ben Lahnger]

Yeah, that's why I have the AceKard 2i instead of the R4 ... no patching.

[PorlNecklace]

Ooh, while I own an M3 and 12 gigs worth of games on it. Plus 10 and a half more worth of oldies on my computer, consisting of everything from Atari to the Genesis and PS1. Literally thousands of titles..Almost 6000 files worth 0-0. But am considering to start a legitimate, physical retro game collection additionally. Already have a head start with my old N64..., and a basement crammed with enough cyber-goodies to last my entire lifetime.

[Ben Lahnger]

I hope you and your Timex Sinclair will be happy together, fool.

[Fruitbat]

I'm shopping around for an editor for my books... Now I just have to finish my edits. Looks like I'll be getting 3 hours of sleep again... sigh.. maybe this is not making my day anymore

[MissCheyenne]

The kindness of virtual strangers has made my day and also restored a little of my faith in humanity.

[Ben Lahnger]

This ^^^^^^.