Moose Bones

A rather unusual picture today, Dals chewing on a moose bone. Since moose can be 8 feet tall, they have some mighty long legs! Bet Armani (Watson son) and Arya (Josie daughter) are impressed!

Enough Holiday Spirit, OK? I held up well this year and really enjoyed the holidays, but am relieved to get back to the old routine today. At least I hope it will be the old routine and nothing majors comes along to screw it up. Between car accidents and family health issues, I've had more than enough stress for THIS year at least. Got my insurance premium notice on the 24th (Merry Christmas from State Farm Insurance?) and was relieved to see that I still get the "accident free" discount despite a far too eventful year. My agent assured me that if my accidents were the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, rather than errors in judgement on my part, that my rates would not go up. He was right, thank goodness.

This will be a fishy sort of week as I am redoing some tanks and making room for my new fish who should arrive on Wednesday, assume the PO gets things right. I'll have them held at the PO for pick up so they don't have to ride around in the delivery vehicle. That normally works fine and fish generally ship well in the winter. Billy has shipped many many fish over the years and packs them well with no over-crowding (in their fish bags) and with heat packs that work. Shipping fish in the winter is a bit of an art, but we've generally had very good luck when dealing with experienced shippers.

I purchased a lot of fish food in bulk several weeks ago, and repackaged and froze a lot of it yesterday. Like any other kind of animal chow fish food should be fresh as the nutrient value gets depleted over time. I keep out smaller portions and freeze the rest in resealable bags. Color flakes and veggie flakes, sinking pellet for catfish, sinking cichlid pellets, and very tiny "golden pearls" as a brine shrimp substitute for fry (baby fish). I used to raise baby brine shrimp to feed the fry, but it's one more chore that I don't have time for and all the baby cichlids are doing fine on brine shrimp substitutes and very fine flake.

The Thorichthys meekei (Firemouth Cichlids) have spawned again in the tank that also contains Angelfish. The fry I siphoned out last time are growing well in a tank of their own, but of course the ones I left with the parents all got eaten. I've taken the 5 large HRP (Honduran Redpoints) babies out of the parent's tank, but the other HRP spawn is still in with their parents who are doing a great job. I suppose I need to pull some out as I suspect if mom & dad spawn again they will wipe out the previous batch of youngsters. Need to raise up enough to sell at the upcoming fish club auction. The 5 larger older fry will be BAPPed at the next fish club meeting - auctioned off to club members with the proceeds going to the club. They will earn me 10 more BAP points towards the next Breeder Award level. I'll also have some albino Ancistrus sp "Mato Grosso" to BAP, but the Firemouths and the A. compressiceps will need another month to grow.

Time to feed dogs.