Adding Salt to a Freshwater Aquarium

(Last post of the year!  Happy New Year!!!! I hope 2009 brings health, happiness, and security (in many forms) to everyone.)

The other day I was researching how much salt to add to our main freshwater aquarium containing an adult Black Ghost Knife fish (1/2 teaspoon/gallon or a little less for an adult) and remembered a common mistake people new to the hobby tend to make. (Yay! Something to post!)

Common Mistakes (in no order):

• Using the wrong salt
• Adding salt to the tank the wrong way (directly to a filter or dumping in directly all at once)
• Adding too much salt after a water change

What is creeping and crawling on the sides of your tank?!

Mint Tea: Grow Your Own

Last update: Oct. 30, 2008. Pictures added.

Do you love mint tea or mint in your tea? You can grow and dry your own very easily. You can then have ready, good quality leaves for a nice hot cup or add some leaves to other tea that you are steeping for a hint of mint. This is also good for people who wish to be sure their tea is organic or pesticide free.

Juggling and Some

This blog is mostly links dedicated to juggling. It is especially heavy on how to juggle for both beginner and experienced. I also have information on making your own props. To go with some links I added files and photos so this will not just become another links page. This page is constantly in progress so do check back often. I have most of this together at another place already, I just need the time to move it here. Most links can be found through searches but I hope to save you from having to plow through the less useful ones.

 

 

Build a Strong, Inexpensive Aquarium Stand

Welcome!!

This is my most popular post. Thanks for visiting!

Most recent update: March 2011. An idea for hiding cords and a suggestion for leveling the tank has been added. The bulk of this was written a few years ago.

Fish keeping can get to be an expensive hobby. I recently, at the time of this posting, had to upgrade to a 55 gallon aquarium on a very limited budget so I needed an inexpensive stand. For my smaller tanks, I managed to use furniture on hand but this was not possible for a large, heavy tank.

I looked at stands for sale at pet shops and was horrified by the quality of the stands for the price that was asked. They did not look like they would last long. After checking out reviews online, it turns out many of them do not if they should get wet.  If you are like me, I tend to get sloppy during water changes no matter how hard I try to keep the water where I think it should be. Also, any doors and other accessories tended to come apart with regular use.

I decided to look into building my own.

Note: I do respond to comments on old posts. 🙂

How to Raise Meal Worms

Update May 15, 2009: I added a quick note on raising a smaller amount of worms at the very end as well as a precaution against moths and mites.

Meal worms are handy for feeding a variety of animals. I feed meal worms to my fish and to wild birds at outside bird feeders. Other people use them to feed pet reptiles, skunks, sugar gliders, and so on. If you use very many, it can get expensive buying them from a pet shop or wild bird store. Raising them is an easy option not only for less expensive worms, but also to ensure healthy, gut-loaded worms for your pets. Some people also like to eat them (not me-no way!) since they are a healthy protein source.

This picture shows a very full container of medium sized worms.  The bran is about to be refreshed. The clumping of worms is where there are pieces of carrot.

There are a variety of ways to raise meal worms that you may read. There is almost no “right” way to do it. You just need to find what works for you.

In this blog I will attempt to explain a method that has worked for me for nearly a year.