So I will spare you the photos, which, I posted in the war room of my forum. If only to freak out my mother if she looks.

But, I was working on a 2 gallon fishtank, that needed re-sealing. I had to remove the rim and then strip the old sealer off. That went more or less well until it came to rinsing the remover off.

for some reason, I misjudged where to grab the tank and ended up putting the top of my knuckles on the rim. I was well aware of the sharp nature so I did my best to avoid it.

So above the main knuckle in the middle finger, I got a rather large and deep cut that bled like a son of a cessna.

So I am standing in the bath tub holding my hand yelling for Caspar. He comes in, I look at him and I tell him, think it needs stiches? I open my hand and it resumes its bleed. argh

So we rinse it, which hurt like hell. Then we wrap it up in somr gause and bandage it in an old worn out tensor.

Next question... how to get to the hospital....We opt for bike. Riding 1 handed would pose a problem normally if I did not have the new bike. Only my left set of brakes work on my beater. My new bike is pretty light and is easily managed with 1 hand.

So we get to the hospital. they toss out my nice tacky old bandage, toss out my stickless gauze. give me a cotton gause that sticks as often as it can.... then after an hour, decide it was time to sew it up. I watched the proceedings. facinating

I had a tetnus shot.

I WISH....I WISH it was frozen now... because I can't sleep

So I got 3 stiches.

- Sunstar

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Last week I had a horrible situation, which after reading responses to my post of dismay on other fish forums, it appears all too common.

What happened was a heater I had, albeit one of my older ones, broke down. Only it didn't stop working. It continued to heat without stopping, cooking my fish.

I admit, I was quite upset because I had a group of very special fish in that tank as well as a very loved betta. All of my fish in that tank perished and I was just beside myself with upset.

Tarn was a beautiful Red Cambodian Veil Tail betta that I had rescued and given a second chance. Unfortunately, he didn't have much chance. The others were some beautiful red danio.

This evening, exactly a week after the incident, I looked in the tank and spotted a little sliver of shine darting around. I held by breath...could it be? Sure enough, the sliver was infact a baby danio, spawned just prior to the disaster in my tank. It appears this fellow is the only one I have. They will grow fast if cared for very well, so I will give it all the TLC I can give it. perhaps when it is mature, I can put it in my main tank.

My betta fish spawned, and the fry are 2 weeks of age, but look somewhere between 3 and 4 weeks judging by growth. They are doing so well!

- Sunstar

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Betta Spawned.

I have a few bettas, three males, one female. The female is called a crown tail for her crown like tips. In males this is a pretty handsome feature. My males are all veil tail, so the fry, should I get some, will not show any crown tails. I could be wrong.

Chances are quite high I won't get anything out of is spawning, but if I do, and anyone is in Burlington Ontario, wants a fish, let me know.

The spawned bettas are: Pion, a mostly pink, with blue lower fin, veil tail, I think combtail. He was rather agressive toward the female. I guess making up for his pinkness.

The female is Perihex. I had a girl called Polyhex, but she died of dropsy a few weeks ago.

Wish me luck on getting some fry, I think Perihex was having a good time snacking on fresh eggs. Pion was busy trying to put them into a nigh non existent bubble nest.


Baby Gecko

I got one of these last week when I was out looking for venus flytraps. He was running around the green house and was captured. How he is on my desk in a reptile keeper getting fed on young crickets. I hope he does well, the creature is as cute as a button!

Celestial Pearl Danios...

they aren't breeding as I don't have anywhere to breed them at the moment. The tank I would be using has been used to quarantine new fish as well as house my battered female Betta for recovery. I really desire to breed these as they are exceptionally pretty.

Holy crips platy...Condoms...

I have dozens...and I don't jest. What was rainbow platy, have bred into a different strain. They seem to have stripes. Zebra Platy?!

Cherry and Ghost shrimp...

Cherry shrimp breed easily. I had issues with a tank and them dying off, but now it seems whatever ailed them is fixed because most of them have eggs. My fish will get fat.

Ghost shrimp, the ones I had raised from babies myself have had their first set of offspring this week. I am impressed.

Chase the pigeon

Built himself a nest and is sitting on what he thinks are eggs. They are, in fact, the ball from a computer mouse.

ZOOOOOO I have lusty creatures everywhere...

- Sunstar

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Wonderful....I notice them about two weeks ago after a discussion on what could cause fish to slowly waste away and die. Hard to see an intestinal worm when it is inside. However, I have had all the signs from day one of my setup. Two platy died mysteriously. I could not determine why. They simply wasted and keeled over.

I was reading a thread on the toronto aqaurium forum (GTAaquaria). One of the guys I often get stuff off of, was trying to help diagnose someone else who had fish waste away and die off. he suggested camallanus worms. I looked over at my tanks and said, HMM then googled it. Actually it had more M's in it more like.... HMMMMMMMMM.

As I often do, I sit for an hour and stare at the fish. Checking their overall health. I do this to ensure that I catch things. I am often looking at their butts. Apparently I am not the only one who studies that end of the fish. I am looking for stuff like ich, gill flukes, anchor worms, those horrible hydra and other things that may make my fish and shrimp unhappy. Heck, I am looking in the moss to see what might have been born or spawned...primus knows my creatures keep doing that.

But there we go, I spot it. a couple small red things poking out the rear of the fish. I google the worm thing again, and it looks just like that. I roll my eyes and sigh. Issue of the week is Camallanus worms. I guess I had it easy for a few weeks with no real issues.

What kills it? Fenbendazole treats it, apparently. My research suggested. I had that stuff from my hydra issue back in August. I mixed it with a posh dish of sea scallops mushed with peas to make the ultimate medicine and fishy laxative. (peas are a laxative to help against constipation) Fish can be picky, especially if their food is tainted with meds. But these guys didn't care. They ate it right up.

Unfortunately I do not know the right dose for this and the medication had little to no affect. I contacted Ameekplec who had offered the medicine and also works in a lab. He's not a vet, but he had the medication, which cannot be found in canada. He offered it free just cover shipping. I said fine, lets do it.

He told me I would have to do every body of water that contains fish. Oh great! I have 4 Aquariums with a total of 42 gallons between them, two vases with about 1 litre each of water (the new betta has not been in contact with any sick fish) and a 5 gallon bucket of baby zebra danio keeping warm in the bathroom (I kinda lack in heaters at the moment.) I am looking at over 47 gallons total.

I realise I do have a touch of a multi-tank syndrome (MTS) as we call it. Okay, I like pets. I like fish, I like animals. Fish are interesting because I can plant the tank and make it look awesome. It's my green space, something I need to keep sane....

So Levamisole has been given to me. It's has to be used very carefully, which is why Ameekplec has measured it keeping in mind bodies of water. Its medication that is given to horses and if done low enough, can be fine for the fish and not harmful to the shrimp (they're the creatures that make it hard to treat a tank because they are sensitive to virtually everything.)

So I have dosed my tanks. I have them in a blackout with towels and tea cloths draped over them. 24 hour blackout is needed. Apparently fish can be highly stressed out by this medicine. All carbon from filters has been removed and ditched. I got scrubby pads working in their place to filter out crud. Scrubby pads are awesome for that, btw.

So no lights, no pressurised co2, maybe feeding them, they can survive a day without food....I mean, they're pigs.

Tomorrow no fishy watching. Thursday back to water change, vaccuming up the crud, and then I do this all over again next Tuesday night. And finally my last dosage is Christmas night (the 25th). Merry christmas fish, you are going into another blackout.

My major concerns with this is my snail, particularly a giant MTS (Malaysian trumpet snail) (yes mts means two things in the aquarium hobby) and my zebra nerite snail. I think I killed the last two nerites with fenbendazole when I went after the hydra. Both nerites died mysteriously. I will say that they are Fantastic algae eaters but tend to lay hard little white eggs everywhere. They won't breed in fresh water as their eggs need salted water to hatch.

Anyway, I mentioned a betta. I got him recently and he's a male betta splendens (sort of common type) pretty blue with reds. Almost like a peacock feather. He's sort of a picky eater, liked blood worms, looks at me with disgust when I try to slip him a pellet. He's not stupid... he spits it out. Seems to disdain mysis shrimp and adores sea scallops. He also appears interested in my cherry shrimp. Live food.. yum yum?

I named him Kaon. After the Decepticon city of course. I was thinking of getting a female and calling her Polyhex. I have boiled oak leaves in his bowl and he seems to enjoy sandwiching himself between two. Strange animal.

I am working on tank 5 which was actually a tank I was going to use but a crack became pretty long. I am building a foam rock wall and using that to brace the crack, sealing the shit out of it and hopefully it will not burst. 4 gallons should be fairly safe to do this with. Making the rock wall on three sides with driftwood embedded in it, various mosses growing on it. Oak leaves or sweet almond leaves on the bottom, cave... should be nice place for Kaon. Perhaps a female, if not a female can hide in one of my other tanks.

I am strongly considering removing most if not all of my platy. I may keep three males. I would like to get the celestial pearl danio, which have another name microrasbora galaxy or something to that effect. I fear looking in my tank after blackout. My platy look like they might explode shortly.

Anywhoo.. that is my ramble. My fish got butt worms... isn't life wonderful?

- Sunstar

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Okay, I admit, I got some creatures here that are breeding with relentless ferocity. My platy won't stop having babies and I am literally swimming in the things. I finally realised I better liquidate my platy and get a different less prolific species. I was thinking Micro Rassaboura Galaxy (Celestial Pearl Danio)

I have a female that looks like she is about to EXPLODE She is so fat with babies, I fear looking into the tank tomorrow dreading that I am gonna find 10 more of the little critters. They say you should have X inches per gallon in a tank, OH I have exceeded that number by at least double.

So yep, they're tribbles.

- Sunstar

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Burlington