Troll

Cleaned!

Dumped about 20% of the main tanks and they look great!  Let's stick with that.  No more or less.


Found 2 new clutches (+1 a few days old) in the main tank.  Moved them to a floating, paper-towel lined island in the 55G.  Should keep them warm and humid.

That last clutch we hatched outside the tank did terribly.  Won't get but a few adults from that one.  We'll see how these go, floating in the tank.

Still collecting numbers on E-Bay vs. Aquabid sales. We need to find other outlets FAST!  After we have a dozen or so sales we'll begin collating data on which sells the most.  Haven't hit the local pet stores yet.  We really need to dump unwanted stock on St. Francis in exchange for fish and goods.

I"m still thinking we need a big, nasty, 55G tank in the spare room for stock.  They seem to want room and food (any) to grow fast.  As always, getting the necessary filtration is the main obstacle.

Also trying to streamline our shipping process.  Shredded paper runs out faster than I thought.  Gonna load up BIG TIME tomorrow.  Also, the foam goes fast.  Think I'll start scraping foam core once I know what sizes to cut. Carol ordered boxes and has found a way to get automated pick-ups.  :)

I hate to buy more parts this soon, but we need filters, faucet-to-tank adapters, etc.  I did say it would take a year to get our shit together!  :)

Time to spend a little money.

Time to get a 30-60G filter for the 29G tank.  Tired of it being cloudy.  That will let us rotate a bigger filter to the 10G baby tank.

Long time....

OK, out the hospital for a bit now, time to get back to logging this shit.


Long story short:  We've sold plenty of Goldens on Aquabid and Ebay.  Seem to get more $ on Ebay.

We're gonna sell out of Goldens and focus on Ivory, Purple and Magenta.  I can't wait to get rid of all the Golden snails!  Time to focus on the money makers.

We have all the purple and ivories in the 55G and someone just laid a clutch.  The 55G is really healthy, especially with the fat filter.

We tried restructuring the 29G, preserving 75% of the water or so, but it was a complete failure.  We lost a few fish and a snail or two.  It's still cloudy, but finally has a proper gravel bed.  Gonna let it ride and hopefully balance out in a few days.  Plus, we're gonna drop an extra heavy filter on that tank next week.  That should finish that tank.

Started the 55G tank

The 55G tank has been cycling for several days now, with some media from the 29G tank to boost the bacteria, and we decided to start it up today.  Dropped a few snails and 3 tetras in there.  Good luck guys!

Upgraded ALL the tanks with bags of  carbon.  Hope that clears up the clouds.  Seems to be working so far.  Carol bought the full media pack for the 110 filter last night.  I'm bringing a carbon pack to the office tank Monday.  Let's hope it all settles out soon.

Fixed up the 29G filters some.  Have to make that last another two weeks until we can afford a better filter.

Dropped the first E-bay auction today 20 snails for $20 bucks or so, shipped.

New stock

Got the Ivories today.  They're not so hot looking and they were packed terribly, but they're all alive and cruising around.  The purple ones were professionally grown and packaged.  They were in great shape!

Finally got the 55G tank set up.  Needs more cleaning, cycling, etc., but it's gonna be beautiful.

Babies!

The babies are BB size or bigger, waiting till they're marbles or so until I try to trade or sell any.

Brainstormed on making an incubator with Carol.  We can use the empty 10G with a heater, half full, and an island to put them on.  Maybe a small air pump and filter to keep it clean.  I'll wait till I get all the aquarium stuff from Andrea and see what I have to work with.

Win Part II

Won 5 ivory snails for $16 (that included shipping, but ouch...).  That's about all we lacked.  Need a few black ones to breed with the one I have already.  Except for the Apple Snails, we now have (or will have shortly) good breeding stock.

Speaking of the black one, he's put on some SERIOUSLY black shell since we got him two weeks ago.

Getting the 55G tank this week.  I can't wait to set that up.  For sure breeding Apple Snails in there, along with one line (purple?) of the mysteries.

I only see one baby in the tank at work, but he's a monster already, fully the size of a bb, while his biggest brothers are only close.

Win!

Won the bid for the purple ones!  We should have them by the end of next week.  It seem that several of our current crop have the purple genes.  Waiting to see how they turn out.  In any case, more depth for the purple gene pool.

Pulled all the rocks for the 10G and the 29G and Carol moved the babies to the 10G.  Another mistake, don't use rocks in place of, or on top of, gravel.  You can't move stuff around without risking crushing the little ones.  Both tanks are a mess, but settling down.  Babies are spreading out everywhere.  It's Teh Great Snail Diaspora.

Lemon Drop had her second clutch and this one seems viable.  We put it in a tupperware container, with lid cracked and a wet paper towel inside.

Snail wars

Bidding war for purple snails coming up in 3 hours.  Must stay awake at all costs.  These guys sell for the $$$.  I was gonna start out smaller, but why not go for the power sellers right off the bat?!? 

Babies, babies and more babies

Dropped 3 little ones in the tank at work.  Looking good.  Found one in the main tank that's double the size of any of the others.

Thinking out loud..........

My best beasts are thriving in my 1G tank at work.  It's 72° or so, water changed twice a week (about half of it), there's sea shells in there for calcium, they get algae tabs and left over fish food.  Just upped the filtration with more air to the undergravel and in-tank filter via a double pump.

They're growing at an insane rate!   They seem to put on a paper thin shell, then fill it in from the underside.  I'll throw a few babies in there and see how they do.

Baby snails...

First rule of Snail Club:  Keep the freaking babies in a separate tank.  There's dozens of little ones cruising around the main 29-gal tank and we can't touch it without killing 6 of them.  :(  They're tiny and get smushed at any provocation.  Best to just leave them alone.

Plus, if you keep them in different tanks, you get to control the genetics!  This leads to keeping a lot of different tanks, but you get to control your breeding process.

Next clutch they're going in a zip-lock bag with a wet paper towel until they hatch, then into a small tank.