Author: Dennis Ball

Intellectually Stimulating

I’ve waited months for this on-line class I signed up for to start.  It’s over at Coursera, (https://www.coursera.org/course/humanevolution), and called “Human Evolution: Past and Future”.  It’s one of those subjects that my grandfather got me interested in when I used to spend the summers with them.

At any rate, I was watching one of the introductory videos and this lady was stating how her field studies were “Intellectually Stimulating” by making her broaden her interests.  That’s when it hit me.  That is exactly what has kept me in the fishkeeping hobby all these years…  it is very Intellectually Stimulating. Continue reading Intellectually Stimulating

Spawning Plans…..

Leopard Danio
Photo by Dennis ball

There are just too many fish and not enough time.  I guess that’s why I feel compelled to put together a spawning plan every year of the fish I’d like to work with.  Going through the fish room it’s easy to rule out some of the fish.  The 046, 183 & 201 plecos are all too young to spawn yet.  I have plenty of Danio roseus, D. kerri, D. rerio var. frankei, D meghalayensis, Devario assamensis, and D. acrostomus on hand already. Continue reading Spawning Plans…..

Happy New Year!

SwissTropicals WebsiteWell another year is in the books, and what a year it has been. Back in February, at the GCAS swap meet, my good friend Stephan Tanner and I began talking about a website make-over for his http://www.swisstropicals.com website.  Ta da….. the new site when live today!  While I may be a bit jaded, I think it’s beautiful. The site is loaded with tons of great information, links to some of the best hobby related websites, and Stephan’s great line of products. Continue reading Happy New Year!

Snowy day and a cold water change…..

albino_coryLast Friday was a cold and snowy day with a storm front moving through the area. As the temperatures dropped, I thought I’d better drained down my rain water collection system to keep it from freezing up. Pumping the cold water into the fish room I thought it might be a good time to give the Albino Cories a cold water change to see what would happen. Continue reading Snowy day and a cold water change…..