Cory Run!

Today, we unloaded our children on their grandmother. It was glorious. We headed up to South Hills for, you guessed it, a Wet Pet fish run. (And a Flamer burger.)

I was waited upon by my buddy Sheldon, who sold me the rams last time. The first thing I saw was the tank of Bolivian Rams that they ordered specifically for me. Oops. Oh well. I like my balloon rams. Anyway.

We took a peek at Shawn's new favorite: the dwarf puffer. Someday. I showed Shawn the kribs, too.

Then it was on to cories. They had four pandas and two juliis. Sheldon told me that the cories don't care what other kind of cory they shoal with, as long as there's another cory. So I got all six. Little buggars were damn expensive, too.

I spent some time thinking about rummynose. I didn't get any; there's no more room at the inn. (I did consider the idea of trading my congo tetras for rummynose, though.) It's something to think about. Right now I worry that I may be in over my head with my stock. The 29 is full, period. I'll soon be taking out the angels and putting in the other 3 skirts.

29 gallon: 8 cardinals, 6 corydoras, 5 black skirts, 1 gourami

That leaves in the 55 gallon: 5 loaches, 4 congos, 3 rams, 3 guppies and 2 angelfish.

If there would be aggression with the rams, I'd have problems. One might have to live in the 29. I dunno. I know one thing: no more fish. No apistos.

As we were ending our visit, Sheldon showed me what they called a Mexican Lobster. It's a bright red dwarf crayfish. The coolest darn thing ever. I would have taken him in a heartbeat if he hadn't been twenty dollars. I asked about shrimp and they had only ghost shrimp and mandarin shrimp, and the mandarins were so tiny. They'd be gobbled quickly by the angels or the skirts. It's a shame. One of these days I'll get cherry shrimp.

I talked to the ponytail guy about DIY CO2. He told me he runs it himself. I was concerned about diffusion. He told me the best way to do it is to make sure that he CO2 diffuses into the filter intake. It'll be spit out in fine little bubbles from the outtake. The only thing they weren't able to give me was a valve that adjusts the flow rate. Maybe I can find one at Petco. He made it seem like even an idiot could do CO2. So, given that I'm an idiot, I should give it a whirl.

I also picked up another bag of flourite for the 55, Seachem Flourish Comprehensive and Seachem Flourish Iron. I'm not ready to try CO2 on the 55 gallon yet, but if the 29 experiment goes well, maybe it'll be worth a shot. If it's as easy as it *seems*.

the two julii cories

panda cories