I know this chick that has a chain going to her tongue. when she talks it sounds like she's got a mouthful of cutlery. =D

Clackity-clackity-clack! LMAO!

Could be worse.

Going to her tongue from where?? Her lip or...?

On the other foot...gymgymgymgymgymgymgymmmm...

Ear. It looks kinda alright, but sounds weird.

If I had a puppy I'd name it Goobersmoocher.

That's about as nothing as you're going to get out of me today.

My cat walked up to me kinda funny. Her little round ears laid back against her head she stood there staring at me with a funny look in her eye...

I noticed that her posture was "off" a bit... her back wasn't arched enough to be expressing out right anger, but her head wasn't up enough to show me she was ok.

So I reached out for her slowly. She did not back away.

As I picked her up, I noticed one of her front legs was unusually stiff. I looked down at her to find that she had managed to get one of her front legs through her "necklace".

All of that surreal ado about nothing.

Store might be shut down in around a month, or two, so I think I might try and get a job as a waiter.

By necklace I hope you mean collar? Either way, if a cat can get it's leg through a collar and get stuck like that, you should get a better fitting collar. Getting legs stuck in collars like that can cause some absolutely HORRIFIC injuries to pets , which are notoriously hard to heal because the huge gaping wounds are invariably in the armpit so to speak, which is a very awkward spot to treat.

Does anyone (I'm looking at you Honey) know how to properly care for freshwater plants? We didn't really think about it when we got a couple for our turtle's tank other than making sure that they would get enough light, that the temperature was okay for them, and that they were okay to have around turtles, but I just realized that since we don't have any fish (and just the one small turtle) that they may not be getting nutrients that they may need.

You can buy liquid fertilisers for aquarium plants, Excel and easy carbo being a couple of the common liquid ones, but usually fish waste ( or turtle waste in your case ) will feed them. I wish you;d asked me before getting the turtle really because I would have said to put a 1 cm layer of basic pond soil under the gravel or sand ( or whatever substrate it is ) . You could still do that but you'd have to re do the whole tank ect which would be a pain.

A lot of planted tank keepers will insist that all plants absolutely require dosing and CO2 ect ect. But the basic ones absolutely don't. I can prove it.

I do not dose with any liquid ferts, I just have pond soil capped with 2 inches of sand and my main tank looks like this


http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...10-09_1919.jpg


My betta tank also has no ferts or anything, and is just black gravel. It looks like this

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...uff2987954.jpg




I would say your substrate needs to be a couple of inches deep, and a photoperiod of around 10 hours is usually sufficient for most low light plants.

What plants do you actually have? If you don't know then post pics and I can try to identify them for you.

They're Java ferns, which we were told would be fine in just gravel (I did think to find out about that) and are supposedly pretty hardy little buggers.

Well whoever told you they'd be fine IN gravel has no idea what they're on about. Java fern is not supposed to be rooted in substrate at all. Ever. It has a rhizome, like a long bulb type thing which the roots emerge from. If you bury that rhizome in the gravel, it will start to rot in time and the plant will of course die.

Java fern needs to be tied onto rocks or wood. You can use fine fishing line to do that. Make sure you tie it firmly, but don't have it so tight that the line cuts into the rhizome, as that will kill it. The roots will hang down and trail about, and will get their nutrients from your turtles waste. You could also go and buy a liquid fertiliser too if you wanted, and simply dose as instructed on the bottle. Java ferns will do absolutely fine withhout that though, and they are indeed quite tough.

Does your turtle eat plants? This may be why Java fern was reccomended as it's a really tough leaved thing and most fish at least, don't like to eat it so I would presume the turtle would find it unappetising also .

Well then I'm really glad I asked (I knew I shouldn't have gone to petsmart), Jake usually has some fishing line in the car (I have no idea why) so I'll do that when he gets home.

Bilbo doesn't quite seem to know what to make of the plants and they haven't been there long so we will see what happens when he grows accustomed to them.

Haha! Well I can say with all honesty I've heard nothing but bad reports of Petsmart from US users on the fish forum. Often about poor advice, and also the state of some of the fish ( usually the bettas kept in cups <_< )

There's also another plant you can tie onto wood and rocks that shouldn't get eaten, which is Java Moss. You can see it tied onto the wood at the mid-left in my betta tank.

Again, it'll grow with no ferts ect, just tie it on and leave it to grow into a big bush of greenery. If it reaches the surface just give it a haircut and transfer what you cut off to a bare patch on a rock or other bit of wood ect. Really easy.

Yeah, I usually go to a local pet shop but I needed to get something from the shop right next door so it was kind of on a whim. I think the real problem with them is that they act very knowledgeable and give very definitive answers, the answers just happen to be wrong.


Oh and Honey I know this will make you sad but about 95% of pet shops in the US keep betas in those containers, they hold about a pint of water, the poor little fish always look so depressed.

It's true. Even pet stores where the staff are pretty uniformly knowledgeable, they put the betas in those tiny little bowls. Even a friend that I knew once that owned a pet store thought it was okay.

I always wondered about that, and your posts (honeythorn) previously on the subject made sense to me. Since so many places do it that way in this country, I think I just won't ever have a beta ... like refusing to buy a dog from a puppy mill.

Once we saved betas from the science lab at my university after they were done experimenting on them (I have no idea what they did, but the gill area always looked bigger and weirder than it normally does), but I felt bad afterwards because everyone who took one kept them in bowls. My ex roommate had one and she'd go a long time without cleaning it, but scoff at putting a beta in a tank. One of our dorms would hold beta fights too >.< We didn't let anyone from that house take one.

Speaking of animals, I found Prudence! I put her back in her cage.....and she got out again. But I caught her easily this time, she was in plain sight and she just hopped right into her wheelie ball when I held it out to her, it must be true about mice having a compulsion to jump into round spaces. I still don't know how she gets out, I took the cage apart and reassembled, the only thing I can think of is if she is squeezing herself through the bars somehow. So I put her in a terrarium this time and tomorrow I'm going to get her a new cage. Maybe one that I can hook up tubes to so she can explore more.

i have caught her eyes.
I have captured her heart.

now all i just have to do is grind them
and turn them into meat balls

-by Shakespeare

that's why i so love him like how i love my pink tie

Oh I know the cup method is very common, a lot of the members in the betta section are US based and all complain about it. Sadly they also think a 2 gallon container is a great home because it's bigger than a cup, true but it's still a severely unsafe amount of water and should be utterly avoided for all fish ( shrimp and snails are fine though so those tiny tanks do have some use ) Even in their native Thailand, the breeders and owners of the fighters keep them (when preparing for a fight ) in a small clay pot of water in the dark. It's traditional sure, and the fish can certainly survive due to it's labyrinth organ, but traditional doesn't always = humane.


5 gals minimum for a betta. No less, and more is even better ( Bronson is in a 12 gallon ) Heavily planted, filtered with a slow flow (essential!! ) and heated . And that particular opinion has actually almost got me banned a few times on the forum because I refuse to back down from it.

Some members there do of course work in fish stores, mostly chain stores like petsmart, pets at home ect, and even though they do know what to do and how to keep various species, they actually aren't allowed to give the correct information on the fish and it's needs !!! , in case the customer is put off by the work involved and decides not to buy ( for example, a pair of fancy goldfish require at least 40-55 gallons, and common types around 70 gallons or preferably a pond, plus big external filtration! ) .

Fucking insane. I know it's a business and needs to make money but not through cruelty. That's just wrong.

I know people probably think I'm really sad/insane for getting so worked up but it's just one of my absolute dealbreaking bugbears.

Some guy just got proper upset and bwaaaaaahed all over my facebook because I said Lee Evans isn't funny, then resorted to being borderline racist about a friend of mine.
NICE.

Yeah, it's funny the number of people there are on the internet that overreact to things. Plus, prejudices abound. Well, did you kick it off your Facebook page?

I was toying with the idea...
Then this happened
Scroll down a couple.

Ha ha ha ha ha! I'd have still kicked it out, but that's pretty funny!

Nah, one below that.

Did he run away and take HIS Facebook home! Holy crap! He kicked YOU out of HIS Facebook! LOL!