# Missik's Journal



## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

So, some of you might know me, some of you might not. 
I've decided to start a journal.. well because I can.
This is mainly for rants and ramblings, notes to myself, and updates.
I'm not a terribly social person, but have been starting to get more active here. I used to live in california but moved over a year ago to illinois.

I have a 10g running with my only betta atm, and a keeper that has MTS breeding in it. 10g has a hob filter and a sub heater, keeper has a sub heater. I made a temp hide for my betta by floating a cleaned and sanitized small generic drink mix container in with him. It floats by itself, and I checked to make sure the material was safe beforehand.
10g is bare for the time being. Current lease technically does not allow aquariums, and I'm planning on moving fairly soon so I don't want to scape a tank just to have to tear it down if I move or the landlords decide they want to check in.
I also have a 20L, a 22L, and a 17.5 sitting in my closet. I'm also waiting to (hopefully) pick up 4-5 tanks (20L, 2 20H, and 2 "less than 20g but more than 10g") from someone local for free.
I'm planning to divide and plant most of the tanks, one will be used to grow plants and be a community tank, a couple will be used for breeding. These are rough plans until I move. I also have 4 kritter keepers and 3 1.5g-ish glass bowls I use for qt purposes.

I did not plan to get any bettas again until after I moved, but one late night at walmart with a few roomies changed that and we came home with an itty bitty BF CT who was terrified of everything at first. Since he is blank and white, and we're all kind of nerds here, he was named Venom. Eddie for short (kudos if you get it). He spent his first week alone with me, then was introduced to the household. He was super tiny, making his small 50w heater look like my big 100w. He was super flighty and flared at anything that moved for the first couple weeks, but slowly he started attaching himself to me as his momma. Now he is about 2 in long entirely and has become quite the needy brat. He likes to flare at all the guys here, but loves to flirt with me if he catches me looking at him. If I look at the tank and he sees he will dart to the front and beg for attention (and food) and will flare at me if I don't immediately baby him. He now enjoys when I poke my finger in and touch him or play with him. He also enjoys the snails when they are in the tank with him. he will use the ones climbing on the glass to rest, and will lay on the floor and you can see his little eyes wiggling around looking at them. He liked laying on top of the bigger ones, and for the first few days of them together I would find smaller ones stranded in his floating hide. Currently his hide is ziptied to the back left corner above the dial end of his heater. I currently also have the snails out after a episode where eddie blew out his caud from overflaring at me because I was fasting him. I kept them in a keeper and now they are having fun breeding quietly in their own space. A few are white, a few are clear, and one is an interesting off-white to orangey-red ombre. My loose plans for eddie after I move is to set up one of the bigger tanks and heavily plant it and get him some mollies for company. A lot better than the cat for company. If I find a good female then he will be considered for breeding as he's really not that bad looking form wise, just some bad fin regrowth from his walmart munching days. 

I wish this cold weather would let up. I'm quite desperate for plants atm. Most of the LPSs don't want to carry any actual fw plants. Petsmart has marimo though, and the LPS down the street sells moneywort for a painful 5$ per strand. Never have I wished for duckweed so much. the LED's on the 10g are a bit harsh, eddie really dislikes them so he's been getting sunlight from a window that is nest to the tank, but clipping up the curtain lets in a draft that has been making the water not heat evenly since it chills the glass side closest to it.

Guess it's cold out, eddie is sleeping like a log on the heater..


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## Tress (Jun 6, 2014)

Following <3


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## Greenapp1es (Dec 4, 2014)

Too bad I wasn't able to send you the duckweed I had. It's......just been so freaking cold lately, and most of it turned to sludge in the bag. No point in sending at that point. :-(

I'll definitely keep you in mind for any other plants I randomly end up allergic to though. Or, if I end up getting overflow from the ones I've bought.

And I'll go on record in front of everyone saying that I'm jealous of the free 20gal tank situation. Not that I actually *need* more tanks right now, I've still got empty ones as it is. But....you know.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Greenapp1es said:


> Too bad I wasn't able to send you the duckweed I had. It's......just been so freaking cold lately, and most of it turned to sludge in the bag. No point in sending at that point. :-(
> 
> I'll definitely keep you in mind for any other plants I randomly end up allergic to though. Or, if I end up getting overflow from the ones I've bought.
> 
> And I'll go on record in front of everyone saying that I'm jealous of the free 20gal tank situation. Not that I actually *need* more tanks right now, I've still got empty ones as it is. But....you know.



Actually all I paid for any of that stuff was 35 for the 22 and 17 as a pair, and then 20 for the 20 from petco. everything else has been free from people dropping out of fish keeping around here.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Hopefully going to pick up the tanks today or tomorrow. Never seen someone so eager to get rid of tanks. Then again he is dropping out of cichlid breeding and offered me his fry.
On the list of things to do today is clean up the snail keeper a bit and reintroduce them back into the 10g to run around. Suckers are surprisingly fast.. Eddie is looking a little bloated so I ended up feeding him only one pellet and plan to fast him for the next couple days. 

Time to go cut up some veggies and bug the guys to get the tanks. I'm glad the 20L is coming with a stand for free too. Did I happen to mention that? No? Ah well.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

So after about an hour of being stuck on ice in a big truck, I have 5 tanks and a stand sitting on my porch, with misc decor and gravel and filters and whatnot. It decided to rain yesterday so now everything is covered with a thick sheet of ice. I'll be bringing them up in a bit and taking pics after I get back (from the video game store >_>). Hopefully it will warm up some and I can get around to cleaning them. The guy who gave me the tanks offered me a bunch of free cichlids, and a bunch of free bristlenoses. There is also a local guy who is offering me free assassin snails. Le sigh~ Long day.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Got around to measuring the tanks I just got.
2x 20g reg
1x 15g long
1x 10g reg
1x 35g reg

The guy couldn't have been more happy to get rid of them.


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## Axeria (Feb 6, 2015)

Subbing  congrats on new tanks, hope you get them up soon


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## KitDewStein (Jan 20, 2015)

Subbing! Wow that is a lot of tanks accumulating


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## Fenghuang (Dec 28, 2012)

Congratulations on the new tanks! Be careful with them if you leave them outside in the cold. I think the seams of one of my 10s cracked because it was left outside and then we tried to fill it with water too quickly.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Fenghuang said:


> Congratulations on the new tanks! Be careful with them if you leave them outside in the cold. I think the seams of one of my 10s cracked because it was left outside and then we tried to fill it with water too quickly.



I pulled them inside before too long and left them in the living room to warm up. Still need to clean the suckers. I sit right on the mississippi and the original guy filled them all with gravel from it. I can't count how many clams hells there are mixed in.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Dang. Lost my scrubber. Also out of vinegar. Looks like I'll have to wait for this weekend, when I am doing the rest of my shopping. My cat, Mr Tenji, is having the time of his life right now jumping around in the tanks skipping around a spongebob decor across the rocks. I have to shake a bag at him to keep him out now.


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## Tress (Jun 6, 2014)

Oh Tenji xD


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Woke up at 4am today and decided to set up a keeper for some ES treatment for eddie. He's been a bit too bloated for my comfort for too long even after daph and fasting. 

I snuck into the living room and started pulling the misc things stuffed into the 35g to try and make sense of what I was looking at. A few random hoods and lights, one of the hoods has a cracked glass panel. Tossed the lone heater because it was fractured too. Moderate size bag of fake blue aquarium gravel that I will clean and find some use for. The decor though, total score. After I let my old phone charge up I'm going to get some pics of everything. 

Eddie you little bugger! Don't think just because I'm across the room I can't see you knocking the snails off the cucumbers.. sigh. Back to my toast before getting to work.


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## Greenapp1es (Dec 4, 2014)

Maybe Eddie is supplementing his meals with the snails?

I understand the concern with the bloating though. After losing Ophion, I'm going to be paranoid with bloat for quite some time.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Greenapp1es said:


> Maybe Eddie is supplementing his meals with the snails?
> 
> I understand the concern with the bloating though. After losing Ophion, I'm going to be paranoid with bloat for quite some time.


I wish he would eat the snails.. But no, he adores his precious snails. I've caught him with tiny babies hitching rides on his rays before them dropping off randomly around the tank. He'll even let adults crawl across him if he is too busy being lazy and not wanting to stop his cucumber fort naps.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

*oh eddie.*

*looks for food*


"Woman I see no food here, feed me please"


"What? What do you want from me?"


*gets close and wiggles beard at*


"Seriously though, wheres the food?"


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

*taaank steeerff*

Color me tired for dragging these things into one place.

I pulled a mostly emptied 20 into the closet to sit with the other tanks while I keep emptying gravel.


The other 20 is full of things.


So is the 10.


10 in the back, 35 left, 20 right, 15 in front.


Posting the better decor in a moment.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

*woop woop*

I got a big reefy thing! I like this big reefy thing.



Also got a large corner cave. 



The fronds are silicone.


The treasure chest is not safe for betta use, there is holes in both sides of the chest itself with "broken" wood pokey bits. The holes themselves are only big enough for a small betta to fit through.
The other bit is actually dusty as **** volcanic rock.


The rock has a natural dome area under it that almost could be made into a small cave. I could fit my finger under it without it lifting from the floor.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

On closer inspection the gravel in the 35 is actually "natural look" store gravel. will probably try to salvage it and put it to use, much to my snails delight.


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## Axeria (Feb 6, 2015)

Wow! You got alot of stuff! I like the big reefything also! And the corner cave


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Axeria said:


> Wow! You got alot of stuff! I like the big reefything also! And the corner cave


I think I want to try getting moss to grow on the corner cave.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

This guy might have had a snail problem.. 2 of the tank bottoms are like this.


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## Axeria (Feb 6, 2015)

Ooh! That would look awesome!  I think the fish might like to relax on the roof then 

Edit: Are those a bunch of mts shells?  wow!


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Things found in the wild gravel:
Glass shards
Plastic toy parts (action figure arm anyone?)
Wood chips
Small toys/ charms
Tons of clam (and snail) shells
OH! And some kind of a tooth.


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## Axeria (Feb 6, 2015)

Hahaha! Quite the collection


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Axeria said:


> Hahaha! Quite the collection


I just found a small purple glass dolphin :3


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## Greenapp1es (Dec 4, 2014)

It's like a treasure hunt!

At least the stuff isn't going back into the tank though.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Oh look.. Mollies just magically appeared.. >_>

The white-ish ones are actually a silver with black grizzle. difficult to see.


4 Females. 1 dalmatian, 2 silver grizzle, 1 white with orange splotches and a large black splash. All Lyretail. Also have a pure black male, normal tail, with some nasty ammonia burns. One female looks quite pregnant, and another looks to be in early pregnancy. They are super active and been chewing at the cucumbers I have in for the snails I missed pulling out (sneaky buggers) when I was changing tanks around. 

On a side note, Eddie has been quite happy in his hospital tank and has been working on a few bubblenests in his quiet time. 
I've actually been working on a faux moss hammock with some crafting mesh and spawning mop quality yarn. Time consuming, yet totally worth it. Also working on a breeder box with attached spawn mops for the mollies because I have nothing better to do. And because I'm procrastinating cleaning all those new tanks.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Small update on what I've been up to lately.

I had previously made an ad on craigslist offering no questions asked betta surrender. Since then, I've gotten quite a few free things (including all those tanks) and have had a few local people ask to be considered as adoption homes for any bettas I rehab. Today someone sent me an email asking me if I would take 2 bettas ("one orange, one purple"). The guy got them for his kids for christmas and long story short, they are collecting dust up on a shelf. I responded and am waiting for a reply while I work on that hammock. I'll give an update if I can't get them tonight, or pictures of I can.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

I was just informed that the man went home to grab them, but was informed by his wife that she had gotten rid of them while he was at work.

:/


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## Greenapp1es (Dec 4, 2014)

"Gotten rid of them?"

Poor little guys...I hope she gave them away instead of flushing them or something.


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## Tress (Jun 6, 2014)

;-; lets just hope they found a good home.


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## LadyNightraven (Jun 30, 2013)

Subscribing. 

I love your idea of offering on Craigslist to take in bettas "no questions asked." I only hope the bettas the man was going to give you found good homes. :/


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

LadyNightraven said:


> Subscribing.
> 
> I love your idea of offering on Craigslist to take in bettas "no questions asked." I only hope the bettas the man was going to give you found good homes. :/


 Thanks! And yeah, me too.. Poor things.
I was actually unsure if the ad would get me anywhere since this seems to be a betta dead zone. Once I'm settled here I'm going to see if I can breathe a little life back into it.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Decided to take some pics of the female mollies, since the male is a standard black. I really need to name them. 

First is the smallest girl. She doesn't have a weird body, she's just angled weird and is quite small still. She has a pale gold tone to her. (Yes, she is pooping a little. She just had her fill of her favorite red flakes.)



Second is the second largest. She has a white belly but a grey top under her spots. She is really shy still.



Third is the big mama. She is larger than the rest by quite a bit. She was more interested in behaving for food. She is a random grizzle, but she has a large tail compared to the other lyretails I saw.



Last but not least is this pretty girl. She is easily my favorite of the bunch.



She actually kept giving me trouble. She wanted to look at me, and I kept having to turn her to the side.



(Don't mind the cat hair on the glass, Mr Tenji was repeatedly headbutting me in the face because he wanted the attention)

*I used my CLEAN hand because it helped focus the camera, and also it was the easiest way to keep them still and separated since they just sit in my hand.


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## Tress (Jun 6, 2014)

Your mollies are gorgeous hun <3 I love the last one especially :3


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Tress said:


> Your mollies are gorgeous hun <3 I love the last one especially :3


<3 
She actually is very bonded to the biggest girl. They are always paired up and swimming around.


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## Tress (Jun 6, 2014)

Aww <3 That's adorable :3


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## Greenapp1es (Dec 4, 2014)

Such pretty girls! <3 I really like the last one too. I'm still trying to figure out what magical corner of existence they all appeared out of though - maybe I can appeal to that corner of the universe for some! (I kid...I kid.)


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

Greenapp1es said:


> Such pretty girls! <3 I really like the last one too. I'm still trying to figure out what magical corner of existence they all appeared out of though - maybe I can appeal to that corner of the universe for some! (I kid...I kid.)


Rofl. I've been feeling the rumble of the mystery corner again.. Maybe I should see what it wants..


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

So large "lumpdate":

Cleaned the 15 and the 10 i got, waiting on the 2 20's and the 35 until its warm enough to let them dry outside. 

I may or may not be getting 2 female betta surrenders sometime, though i will be paying 26$ for the "full" (by full I mean light/hood, heater, filter, gravel) tank setup with a spare heater included. The person is incredibly iffy and I'm trying to be nice enough until I can get a hold of them and not scare the lady off.

My oldest grizzle gal finally passed. I went to walmart (yeah, I know) and asked the lady who hangs around the fish from last time if she remembered the grizzle girl (when she was bagging them, she thanked me for taking them out of the bad store tanks). She was polite and I found out that it was actually her favorite, and it was there for over a year (and she was an adult when she arrived). I ended up spying another dal lyretail, and a black lyretail.. I also ended up with a pretty swordtail who was being bullied since she was in a big crowd of neon orange swords. The newbies are quite young and have developed a tight knit group so far, never more than an inch away from each other.

I also had to replace the standard black molly male I had, as he was literally banging everything to death in the tank. After 2 days of being separated from the others I met up with someone local and we traded boys. Her mollies were exotic and beautiful, but one of the large males was being a lazy breeder, so we switched. He's a chocolate blond marble sailfin, and he has red pupils like an albino. 

Also, to my utter confusion, the mollies have decided that one fry is enough. I literally have just one fry free swimming in my tank, and the ladies are still heavily pregnant. The teeny thing swims out in the open and pays no mind to me having my hands in the water. I'm assuming it's a marble.

I also picked up some plants. The LPS that was selling them had them in bundles because they were too lazy to remove the rubber bands and metal clamp ties from the bulk plant shipments. Too bad for them, because if they did they would have found all the other plants that were tangled inside najas and hornwort I bought. Instead I got about 6 baby java ferns (lace and reg), a wad of java moss, and a few strands of bacopa. 

Next month I should be moving to a new house, so I'll finally be able to set up my tanks and breeding setup, once I get the remaining pieces that is.

Even though I am sick as a dog, I feel a little more complete.

New fish pics to follow.


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## Missik (Jan 21, 2015)

I really love this coloring on the sword




I also really admire the coloring of this guy.




BEBBEH >3>




This baby is the first officially named molly. This baby will be kept permanently, and is now called Highlander.

Welcome newbies as part of the family. You all are adorable <3


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## Greenapp1es (Dec 4, 2014)

Daaawwwwww... Baby molly is adorable.


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## Tress (Jun 6, 2014)

Itty bitty baby ;3;


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