Stowaways!

Sometimes aquarium hobbyists encounter plant stowaways in their tanks. It's usually snails, which can be a bonus or pain in the butt depending on whether the tanks inhabitants can/will eat them fast enough to quell the potential snail-splosion. 

I've also heard of hobbyists finding mystery fish fry in their tanks after adding new plants - fish often lay their eggs on plants which then hatch later in the new tank. If they survive (fry can be delicate) it's always fun to watch the fry grow up and see what they turn out to be.

Recently I discovered an entirely new kind of stowaway. As I was standing near the goldfish tank I saw what looked like a shrimp swim by, which is pretty strange in a shrimp-less tank. Upon closer inspection the shrimp turned out to be a tiny marbled crayfish, who was spotted again playing king of the castle on one of the moss balls! I hadn't added anything new to the tank for a month then, which means this little cray had done a great job of until it was no longer bite-sized to it's tank mates.

 Marbled crayfish, or marmokrebs, while common in the aquarium hobby, are unusual because they are parthenogenetic: they are all females, and reproduce asexually. She has been moved to her own tank where I can keep a closer eye on her and has already gone through 2 molts, almost doubling in size in the past few weeks!

Goldies

When people think about setting up an aquarium, their first thought is often goldfish. However, most people are drawn to tropical fish once they look to stock their tanks.

One may even go so far as to say that goldfish have gotten a bad rep in the aquaria hobby - often dismissed as as messy  fish that require a lot of space. I've always liked goldies, but hadn't seen healthy, high quality goldfish available locally.

Recently China's Finest Goldfish became a sponsor of my favourite local fish forum and started posting pictures of the beautiful fish they have to offer, showing us all how beautiful goldfish can be. I had a tank set aside for angelfish - but my angelfish plans were cancelled to add 4 of Kelvin's amazing goldfish to our collection! We have a panda butterfly tail, and a trio of orandas, a black and gold, a red-capped, and a chocolate. I highly recommend China's Finest Goldfish to anyone looking for top quality, beautiful, healthy goldfish - their customer service is excellent and I haven't seen more spectacular goldfish anywhere else!

So many boxes...

Our house contains many boxes. Some of these boxes contain the usual assortments of things that fill boxes; there are things that that can't be thrown away, things that simply don't have a place, and those that only have a place in their designated season.  Other boxes are filled with water - they are habitats for our wetter pets, small, mostly-rectangular ecosystems.

They say on the aquarium enthusiast forums that there is a thing called Multiple Tank Syndrome (MTS).. what happens is that once you get one tank, you want another, and another.. and so on. I thought this was just a rumour at first, but I'm afraid I succumbed to this syndrome fairly easily - perhaps having already given in to Gotta Get More Tattoos had weakened my defenses.

We now have more than a dozen tanks! In all honesty I say "we"  to make myself sound less crazy, but I'm pretty sure all of the tanks with the exception of 2 were exclusively my idea. Ideally, I would like to reduce this to 10- 12 soon.  It all started with a few bettas in small tanks and a great deal on a full 31 gallon setup. There were two things  that really got the MTS rolling. First, I found aquaria forums online and their wonderful members who not only dole out great advice, but also sell their used tanks and gear cheaply, and then some of our fish started reproducing!

Some of our tanks:

     

Apparently the next evolution of MTS syndrome is BTS, or Bigger Tank Syndrome, in which you are overcome with the desire to start swapping out your many small tanks for larger tanks, but I haven't seen any symptoms of this... yet.