Daffodil Lane

June 18, 2008

I Hear You

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April 23, 2008

Hop...Pop...Hop on Pop

Little bun bun hopping along. He appears to be blind in his other eye so I kept the shots to his "good side", but he was hopping along rather nicely.

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April 13, 2008

I Guess It's Too Late For Him To See His Shadow...

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March 29, 2008

Amazing

Update: 4/3/2008: 11:16 am: Not as amazing I guess, but still kind of cool.

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Posted by: Qusan at April 3, 2008 9:23 AM

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October 12, 2007

Congratulations Mr. Gore!

(CNN) -- Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work raising awareness about global warming.

The Nobel committee cited them "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

"Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming," Ole Danbolt Mjoes, chairman of the Nobel committee, said in making the announcement.

"Thousands of scientists and officials from over 100 countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming."

The Nobel committee praised Gore as being "one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians."

He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted," said Mjoes

Congratulations go out this morning to Mr. Gore! Keep up the good work sir!

Found via CNN.

Update: 9:00 AM: See Mr. Gore's comments here.

Update: 4:21 PM: The MOMocrats have a nice suggestion for Mr. Gore as well! Check it out here.

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Posted by: Moni at October 12, 2007 1:38 PM

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January 5, 2007

Rare Treat

Apparently getting to witness a hermit crab actually changing shells is rare, but I just got to watch Triton do just that! He's a long little thing! It took him about 20 minutes to move the shell around and maneuver himself into it. Very exciting!

Yes...I'm a dork!

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January 2, 2007

Officially Fishless

The day before New Year's Eve we noticed that our angel fish Michael was swimming upside down and generally just listing about. Given her age (yes she's a girl...They both were we found out later though we had initially named them Michael and Gabriel) I was sad, but figured it was the way things went.

On New Year's Eve when I was taking down the Christmas tree I noticed that our albino catfish was out and about, which is very rare. We go for months with out seeing the little guy. Then I started thinking about it and realized I hadn't seen the Beta fish in a few days so I decided to do some tank maintenance and trim the aquarium plants and see if he rematerialized. The minute I stuck my hand into the tank the problem became immediately obvious...The water was cold!

Apparently sometime in the past week or so the plug for the tank heater had come unplugged and the temperature of the water had dropped to around 67. Michael died not long after we noticed this development and she was too big to flush so Jamison buried her in the flower bed and I moved the two little fish left to a smaller habitat, but the cold, along with the stress of the move did them in. I found them this morning in their new home both dead and Alexis and I had a flushy funeral.

So we are now fishless. We dismantled the tank Sunday afternoon after Michael died and we moved the smaller fish. We decided not to refill the tank because it is my greatest desire to move out of this house at some point this year so when we get a new house we'll set it back up. I think this time we'll do goldfish since Alexis loves them so. But for now we have only hermit crabs and the fish tank shelf has become a table for Alexis' toys and small easel.

No fish...Very sad indeed.

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November 27, 2006

A Whole Lot Of Shell Swapping Going On! Part 2

This morning we awoke to find that Triton had again moved into a new shell, though it took me most of the day to figure out which one. He had picked a rather large oblong shell with a pointy end that he could maneuver forward, but he couldn't back up with. I knew he wouldn't stay in that one long and sure enough by the end of the day he had moved into another smaller shell that Alexis picked out when we were in Ocracroke that is painted to look like a soccer ball. He's trying all of the shells in the thank on for size!

Vesta on the other hand appears to be staying in her own shell for now. But she too is getting bigger, though Triton is still the bigger of the two, so I don't expect her to stay in her shell for long. I'm not sure if this is Triton's last move either, only time will tell.

Who said Hermit crabs weren't interesting? ;o)

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November 25, 2006

A Whole Lot Of Shell Swapping Going On!

Triton moved out of his shell into a larger one sometime on Friday. Then Vesta moved out of her shell into Triton's old shell shortly after his initial move. Apparently this wasn't to her liking because last night she moved BACK to her old shell! And now Triton has moved BACK to his original shell within the last hour! There's a whole lot of shell swapping going on right now in the Daffodil Lane Crabby World!

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October 25, 2006

Crabby Pictures

Triton:

Pretty much the only time Triton ventures out of his shell when people are present is when a) he doesn't realize you're around or b) right after his "bath". Aren't his purple claws gorgeous?

Vesta:

Vesta is a little bit more social, or was until it got cooler outside and she began to hibernate. She's a lot smaller than Triton, but their shells match almost perfectly even though Triton was purchased in North Carolina and Vesta was purchased here in Maryland.

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October 19, 2006

Triton and Vesta

First let's give you a little background and then we'll get to the good stuff.

When we got back from the beach and I was reading up on hermit crabs I learned that they actually aren't hermits at all and need little crabby friends, so we purchased a couple more crabs to keep Triton company and dubbed them Neptune and Vesta. I know...I know, Vesta isn't a Water goddess, but I didn't like the Water Goddess names so I named her after the Goddess of Home and Hearth instead.

Not too long ago Neptune went to the big crabby heaven in the sky and we have yet to replace him, so now we just have Triton and Vesta. Vesta is the outgoing crab, whom Alexis adores! She usually skittles about all day, eating and playing and she doesn't fold up into her shell when Alexis approaches. She just does her little crabby thing as if Alexis isn't standing there large and noisily. Today however she's hiding.

Triton on the other hand has always been a hider, he was from the day we got him at Ocracoke. Where as Vesta will sit on your hand and look at you, Triton won't come out of his shell unless you're bathing him!

And now on to her conversation:

"'Trigon' where's 'Besta'?"

Triton of course just sits there under the edge of the shell that holds the sponges wishing she'd go away and stop making noise.

"Oh she's hiding" Alexis tells him, as if he had answered her question.

Again he draws his feet up tighter in his shell to get away from the noisy little one.

"Let's sing 'Trigon' and den 'Besta' will come out too!"

I swear he blinked his crabby eyes at her as she started to sing the ABC song. She finished her song and I heard her tell Triton:

"Oh well. Dat's just disgusting! You need to sing too 'Trigon'!" (Disgusting is her new favorite word that she picked up from me the other day when we were discussing things that varous animals ate during one of her lessons.)

Triton obviously didn't lift up his crabby lungs in song with my daughter so she called in to me:

"Mama! 'Trigon' won't sing with me!"

"Crabs don't sing Alexis!" I called back.

"Sebastian sings!" she told me indignantly.

"Sebastian is a cartoon sweetheart. Real crabs don't sing."

"Den I need a cat Mama! Cat's can sing!"

Well she's half right anyway! ;o)

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September 25, 2006

Dolphin May Get a Prosthetic Tail

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — The news from Indian River Lagoon was too familiar: another dolphin gravely injured because of human action.

But marine scientist Steve McCulloch immediately saw this rescue was unique. The baby bottlenose dolphin lost her tail, but perhaps her life could be saved.

McCulloch, director of dolphin and whale research at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, decided to channel his anger into a solution.

The solution for the dolphin — dubbed Winter — may be a prosthetic tail. If the logistics can be worked out, Winter's prosthesis would be the first for a dolphin who lost its tail and the key joint that allows it to move in powerful up-and-down strokes.

“There's never been a dolphin like her,'' said Dana Zucker, chief operating officer of the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, which is now Winter's home.

A dolphin in Japan has a prosthesis, the first in the world, to replace a missing part of its tail.

Winter was a frail, dehydrated 3-month-old when she came to the animal rescue center in December. A fisherman found her tangled in the buoy line of a crab trap in Indian River Lagoon near Cape Canaveral. The line tightened around her tail as she tried to swim away, strangling the blood supply to her tail flukes.

“It looked like paper,'' Zucker said of Winter's tail. “Bit by bit over the weeks it just fell off.''

Winter was left with a rounded stump.

A team of more than 150 volunteers and veterinarians spent months nursing Winter back to health. Zucker and her family cuddled with Winter and fed her a special mix of infant formula and pureed fish in the aquarium's rescue pool.

Winter learned how to swim without her tail, amazing her handlers with a combination of moves that resemble an alligator's undulations and a shark's side-to-side tail swipes. She uses her flippers, normally employed for steering and braking, to get moving.

Many dolphins are injured every year due to negligent fishing nets. The amazing part about this story is the fact that the small dolphin, even though losing her tail, was able to persevere and learn to swim anyway! Sure she's not the fastest dolphin on the block and never will be, but she gets it done! And if they can figure out how to do a prosthesis tail on her it will be interesting to see how that will affect her swimming too.

Thanks to Jamison for the heads up on this article! Read more at LiveScience.com.

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September 14, 2006

Meet Triton

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July 10, 2006

And Then There Were Three

When we had the water crash a while back, I didn't buy any new fish, because a) They kept dying even after I got the water issues worked out and b) I'm serious when I say I want to move out of this neighborhood, so it would be a lot easier to move sans fish, and a lot easier to find a home for a few fish, rather than a tank full. So for the past 5 months or so we've had 4 fish, 1 albino catfish, 1 angel fish, 1 male beta fish and 1 female beta fish. A few minutes ago I found the remains of the female beta fish (or I think it was her anyway!) so we're down to 3 fish. Very sad indeed.

Trinity in all her glory...You were very pretty Miss Fish!

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February 16, 2006

Now The Universe is Just Kicking Me When I'm Down

Gabriella, my female angel fish died. I know that is how it works in nature sometimes, but that sucks!

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February 14, 2006

Angel Fish Eggs

Apparently Gabriel is actually Gabriella! Look what I found a few minutes ago!

Lot's of tiny angel eggs! In roughly 3 days we'll have babies. I need to get the small tank set up and ready so I can take them out of the big tank when they hatch. Yipee!

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Posted by: ana at July 28, 2006 11:27 PM

Posted by: Dianne at July 29, 2006 9:42 AM

February 8, 2006

Fish Tank Update

Things are looking up! Other than the fact I haven't seen one of the female beta fish in several days (she's either hiding really well, she died and they ate her or she morphed out of the fish tank) everyone is doing well! They look better and they are acting much better! After a week of steady water conditions, increased activity and the return of fishy appetites I decided I'd risk adding some fish. It just looked so lonely in that big old tank!

Click on the extended entry to see some pictures. :o)

Jamison has forever opined that all I buy is boring fish! So this time I got him some bala sharks! 2 in fact! And they are so fun to watch! Much like you would expect a shark to do they swim all around very fast in a silvery flash of light!

One of the bala sharks

So Jamison my love I present to you these two bala sharks. What will you name them? ;o)

I also got a couple more angel fish because I just love them! While my other angels are yellow, the two new ones are silver and black. I'm hoping we have at least one female as I'd loved to see some angel babies! :O)

One of the new angel fish.

I also got a new plecostomus, but I didn't get a shot of him because he hiding. :o)

And last but not least the lovely Trinity, who is not new, but is just gorgeous so she gets to be posted anyway!!

Like I said, I haven't seen Niobe in a few days. I'm not sure what she is up to. Hopefully she's just hiding. What I find fascinating is how beautiful female betas are. When I first started looking for one back in the fall people at various fish stores would tell me they didn't stock them because "female betas are ugly and no one wants them"! Miss Trinity is not an ugly fish! And Niobe isn't either, though she is a bit lighter blue than Trinity, but she's just as pretty. Even the brown colored female betas are still beautiful. They are just spunky!

Anyway, so everyone appears to be getting along just fine and everyone appears to be adjusting well. That's what I like...a happy healthy fish tank!

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February 1, 2006

Fish Tank Woes

After a year of complete stability in our fish tank a month or so ago my fish tank started going nuts! At first it was just a pH issue and then there was an algae breakout and now the algae is gone because the water went nuts and killed even the algae! The pH went back down and the nitrate levels went way up! I now have the nitrate levels back under control. I was able to erridicate that issue, but the pH is still an issue although I'm working on that as well. I'm slowly raising it back to 7.0. I'm down to 7 fish...2 angelfish, 1 male betta, 2 female bettas, 1 albino catfish and 1 crab. Today things are looking up though. The water is still a bit cloudy, but the pH is finally up to a level that registers on the tests strip and the nitrate as I mentioned is completely gone. Let's hope the positive progress continues! All these fish deaths are breaking my heart!

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Posted by: dian at August 9, 2006 2:13 PM

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December 29, 2005

He's Back

Sebastian literally materialized out of nowhere. I'm not sure where he was hiding, but where ever it was it was a very good hiding place!

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New Fish Tank Inhabitant Update

The two female beta fish are settling in very nicely. The like to herd the rest of the fish in the tank, which is funny when you think about it because they are tiny and even the HUGE angelfish cower in front of them. The male beta fish doesn't know what to do with them. He'll show them his fins and they just look at him as if "So what! You're not all that!" Then he'll cower for a while under the rock sculpture and come back later and check them out again. He doesn't attack them though and the guy at the fish store said he might so that's a good thing. That means he's accepting them even though they aren't of breeding age yet.

The crabs are doing well too. The only issue with them is that I can only find 2 of them in the tank. Either Sebastian is hiding really well or he's gone on the lam. Xamot and Tomax stick together for the most part like glue. They are either a mating pair or they just like each other a lot. I thought I had the tank pretty well sealed off and I can't find him anywhere in the house or around the tank so maybe he's in there somewhere, or maybe he's transubstantiated, but as of right now I can't find the little bugger!

On a side note I must give props to the fish store where we purchased the fish. After getting sick of having fish die immediately that came from PetsMart I decided to try a local fish store I had heard good things about. So yesterday afternoon we drove over to House of Tropicals in Glen Burnie. If you're in the DC/Baltimore Metro area I highly recommend this place. They have a HUGE selection and their fish appear to be very healthy and spunky. They even have reptiles (shudder) and small mammals. They had a bunny I fell in love with, but Jamison said no. Anyway, check them out if you get a chance, I think you'll be impressed.

For now I'm off to see if I can find Sebastian. He's got to be around here somewhere. I'll keep you posted.

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December 28, 2005

Welcome To Daffodil Lane

We have 5 new arrivals here at the Daffodil Lane fish tank...2 female beta fish (named Niobe and Trinity) and 3 fresh water crabs (named Sebastian, Tomax & Xamot). As you can see Jamison had a lot to do with the naming. ;o)

Click on the extended entry below to see the new fish tank inhabitants.

Niobe

Trinity

Tomax & Xamot

Sebastian

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December 23, 2005

Michael and Gabriel

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Tiger Barb

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December 19, 2005

My Fish Tank Has Gone Nuts

For months my fish tank has just been going along, everything's been fine and all has been happy in fish land. A couple of months ago, out of no where, algae developed and it's been a downhill battle from there!

I've done everything under the sun to get rid of the algae. I've scrubbed, I've put in stuff that is supposed to kill it, I've changed water galore and the stuff is still there! I've talked to them about the algae, I've followed their advice and nothing! And since the algae has appeared I've been losing fish. Someone suggested getting some algae fish, but they died. Someone else said to get a snail...it died. My Plecostamus was supposed to eat algae, but he died...see a pattern forming here? I've tested the water and everything has been fine...pH, nitrites, nitrates, amonia, all fine. I had the fish store test the water in case my methods weren't working and they said everything is fine as well.

So tonight I went into super duper fish tank cleaning mode. We'll see if works. Also when I tested the water this evening for the first time the pH was way low so I treated that as well. And I found a couple of fish that had died that I hadn't realized were gone because they hide in the plants a lot anyway. We'll see what happens from here, but I hope this settles everything out and the fish tank goes back to carefree, happy fish land. Every time a fish dies it breaks a little piece of my heart.

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Posted by: cjmr at December 19, 2005 8:47 PM

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August 12, 2005

More Fishy Stuff

While we are on the subject of the aquarium here's a few fish pictures:

Angel Fish

Neon Tetras

Plecostamus

Black Skirt Tetras

Dwarf Male Gourami

Tiger Barbs

The catfish, zebra danios and the snail were being camera shy. Maybe I'll catch them another time.

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Kermit

A while back I was reading about Dwarf African frogs and it mentioned that they shed their skin. I thought that was odd because none of my frogs had ever done that, but last night Kermit decided it was time for some new skin! At first I thought something was wrong with him. I told Katherine to look at him because he was doing this weird movement that looked like he was trying to hop backwards and we thought he might be in throes of death, but then it dawned on me that he was shedding his skin! It was interesting to watch...it kind of looked like he was taking his pants off! Very neat indeed. I only wish Alexis had been awake. I think she would have gotten a kick out of the whole affair.

Shedding

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