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so, adam clean up the 30 gallon tank we had purchased a couple of months ago, and now Puppy is happily swimming in a house more propper for it. This left the 10 gallon tank empty and lonely, and i decided to give it a few plants to play with. So far, i have aquired water, water-pump/filter, fertilizer and 4 bulbs (the latter happily swimmin in the watter). I also inherited some gravel and small rocks. Weee! Next on my list is a trip to Home Depot to aquire some lights, sockets, plexiglass, vermiculite, iron suplement, sand and topsoil. These weill provide a) sufficient light for growing my bog and b) sufficient root burrowing matterial to server the same cause.
but now it is bedtime.
next partially planned trips:
- Providence
- the Old Sow Whirlpool in Maine
- The Harpoon Brewery, Boston (st patty's festival is March 3/4, see you there)
- wherever our feets take us.
i briefly updated the site engine and am back in business... cause i had forgotten to do stuff here due to business...
so, a quick catchup:
- in September i attended a Photochop conference, right here in Hynes Convention center.
- in October my mom and dad made the trip from Bulgaria to Boston, stayed at my house for a months, and we travelled to Dallas and Fayetteville. Mom made tasty foods and Dad made me a pretty floor. Adam travelled from XNA to Chicago to Dallas to Chicago to Boston in one day. (more about different travels, read the Travles sections :)
- in November, we had a fabulous vegan Thanksgiving dinner with bunch of friends, as the official kickoff of the Adam and Iova Potluck Happenings. (for future reference, see the Happenings" section). i have also in mind to start a aquatic garden, and have a basic setup, still need lights and some clayish substrate though. (for more, read the The bog section)
and that's about it.
things happen.
i put them here.
my coputer decided to be the a bitch today, and the screen started swaying this awy and that. Made me want to puke. I fled. told my boss i would like to work on something that did not involve staring at a computer screen for a while. all three looked at me as if i had lost my mind, and grudgingly pointed me to the model making room. i win.
The Last week has been a big jump for the bog.
Substrate:
After an unsuccessfull trip to home depot in search for Vermiculite ( i was planning to use the Jim Kelly's method of substrate handling), imagine in the off-growth season Home depot just doest not have vermiculite or topsoil for that matter, in my local hardware store i found a 8 qt bag of Vermiculite for $4.99 and a bag of potting soil, (they did not have top soil either). made it home and mixed up most of the Vermiculite, a bunch of watter (Vermiculite is funny; it take a lot of watter to make it even remotely wet, and then gets runny) and a healthy amount of the potting soil. I emptied all the watter out the tank, keeping as much as a can, layered the substrate mix in the tank, making it a bit tall in the back, about 3 in, tapering to about 3/4 in to one side. placed my gravel and rocks in. added about 3 in of watter back in, which made the watter increadibily murky. (i only have about 1/4 in of gravel :) rather than the reccomended 1-1.5 in.)
the bog seems to be doing well. one of the bulbs that i got from PetCo has sprouted leaves that this morning broke the surface of the water. that's one week worth of growth. 10 in. wow.
my watter was with slightly better makeup today,
NO3 = 40ppm
NO2 = 3.0 ppm
GH = 75 ppm
KH = 80 ppm or 4.48 Degrees(German)
pH = 6.2-6.8
Which brings my CO2 to about .. oooh.. let say 30 ppm. which is not possible without a bubbler present. Le sigh. I need to get a potassium tester, i guess and a more aqurate tests for each chemical, not the little hobby all in one strips.
I am not sure if the addition of Adam's watter did the trick, or i misread the strips yesterday (or today, or both). My CO2 bubbler has not started bubbling yet... Sad.
on the up side, my plants seem to be doing great, i have a lot of new growth on at least a couple of the spieces. My moss is still covered with algea though. I'll try to borrow a digicam from work and take a few snapshots.
btw there were a lot of updates, most of the data from the old site is now here, with new additions to come. Bear with me untill i get all the templates straght.
N03 : 40
N02 : 3/0
GH : 75
KH : 40
pH : 6.8
my lilly blooms!!!! it's awesome. from bulb to 5 full leaves and a bloom in less than 3 weeks!!! i like it. the blossom is kinda ugly, though. looks fairly alien. in other news at least 2 snails have survived. the bubbler is bubbling!!! (i really need to change the juice...), and Chris has been commisiioned to build me a randomised regulator for my watter pump.
As a side item, Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares will be in Acata (3/11) and SF(3/17) during our possible visit, so.. who wants to go? Acata is WAY! out north though...
so... Adam has been toting arround a single set of a fork, a spoon and a knife. they purdy. He's been saying that he will eventually learn how to make silverware so he can complete the set, since he has not been able to find them for purchase. weeeeeeeeeeeeee! i did, I WIN I WIN I WIN...
so this is it. i have been officially overun by snails, copepods, and annelid (segmented) worms. THEY SO KUTE!!!! arent they though? the mook says i also have have some "Daphnia and other zooplankton like guys". they eat floating algea and are in turn food for the fishes. my hank is getting to be a regular o'l lake bottom. And just about when i was ready to tear it down and start over. (my grren plants are doing very poorly. th reddish ones are much happier.)Let me first say that there are people out there who can't take a joke. for real. Someone (i will not name names) posted the the Companiata yahoo group a chain letter to stop the inhumane torture of kittens. At BonsaiKittern.com lives a very funny site, fairly convincing if you just glance at it. Oh, but read the text, it is hillarious.
so i have spent the entire day playing GuildWars. Made it to War camp with Roaming Free, and graduated and fully equiped my pretty new mesmer, Party Member. Also walked Adam's warrior to Lion's Arch. That only took 4hrs, really good time, all things conscidered.Back on the topic of pretty mesmer, clicky bellow, she's got some moves!
ahem.
but there are LOTS of snails in there!
I will give the water a test and fill-up tommorow and maybe go to petco and get a couple of mollies to work on the algea problem. and give the filter a rinse and a new carbon cartridge.
yeah, that is the plan, at least :)
Also during the latest visit to Petco two balloon mollies were purchased, a white one and a black one. they were promtly called Pijo i Penda. Since they are a boy and a girl and all that.
weather permitting, imma gonna get some days at the beach for my b-day!!!! yay.
The schedule pretty much does not allow for San Fansisco area visits, but i think we'll survive. there is a bunch of peoples to go see in the Los Anheles area, so we'll do that.
