Stronkey Kong

Welp... it looks like I have a teaching side hustle lined up for the spring semester. We just have to nail down the schedule details and get the paperwork moving.

And here in indiana we have a town called Avon that has no rivers within or touching its borders. 2 creeks, but 0 rivers.

Oh! I forgot to update on baby fish! I have five remaining of the leopard danios, and they are doing well. Getting big, and they are swimming around like real fish not just flitting around randomly. The CPD fry in my soul tank are still doing well. Had probably six, and they are surviving right alongside the adults no issues. I've also added a dozen emerald tiger rasboras and half a dozen cherry red shrimp to that tank a few weeks ago actually. I have a berried (aka gravid) female so baby shrimps are coming. Then i've got CPD fry in the spawning tank I set up. For about a week I only saw about 5 or 6 in there, then a couple days ago I saw a couple dozen new little guys. Then, the angelfish. Over the last week I saw mold grow over the egg patch. Then a small mowed the mold down ands I didn't see any wigglers except for one, then it disappeared. I removed the brick the eggs were on with a sigh ands lo and behold in the back corner of the tank I see a school of 2-3 dozen free swimming fry. Then I got an order of chili (red) and kubotai (green) rasboras.... 9/12 chilis died, 9/9 kubotais survived so far. And I got a dozen Malaysian trumpet snails. And one of my female apistos died. 🙁 Bur birth rate exceeds death rate, lately, so I'm moving in the right direction. Addit: And my blue mystery snails laid a clutch of eggs in the baby danio tank.

I need to go for a walk tomorrow morning. I'm feeling way too lazy, and just gross and kinda stressed just blech. While on that walk I need to think of a really easy daily workout/ stretch routine, something super sustainable. Covid just ruined me of three weeks of decent health habits ands my stress levels have been way up the entire time. Not that i've been especially stressed, but it's just the effect this disease has... it just makes everything harder on you. I want to make sure I take our easy bur keep moving and not take it to easy or do something I can't sustain. Tomorrow is my interview for the teaching job. The position is at a little community college in a quaint little town. They have a district that is all little colleges including satellite campuses of the bigger state schools here. There's likely plenty of adjunct teaching work at all three of them... ands the idea of moving to that quaint little town and teaching full time among the different schools is tempting... very tempting... idyllic even. But not realistic at the moment. The other job, if I got it, would easily pay the money I want. And then some maybe. Could probably pay off all the debt in a couple years then be few to do whatever. I could stay the course, in my current role. Adjunct on the side. I'd be making a good bit of extra income, and gaining that experience and paving the road to teaching full time. And yes. Getting through interviews and gathering all the info ands seeing what feels right is a given. <smsmh>

Sounds good. I definitely get the frustration and taking breaks are good so long as you get back to it.

Although, thes a good chance this new opportunity won't be as soul sucking. It's a medical device company. My current company does some medical, but mostly aerospace/defense... which means time spent making things that save/ improve lives vs. time spent making things that rain death and fire rain from on high so the military industrial complex can profiteer on fear and foreign conflicts (I mean there is a legit need for defense and I'm proud to help with that often, but still...). And that pay bump... I could pay off my debt in a couple years then go do what I want... or spend it all on fish tanks. <smh>

When it rains it pours. I got contacted by a recruiter about a job in my current field that'd be a promotion and a big bump in pay. And the age old battle rekindles... money vs. satisfied soul.

Applied to two Adjunct faculty jobs over the weekend. I'm already setting up an interview.

RIP Yukiko... one of my platinum parrot cichlids, she was the adorable little runt of the batch, but she was doing nothing but hiding and not eating. I moved her to her own tank so she didn't have to compete with the mollies and other bigger fish for food, and she hung in there for a week, but now she's gone. <sigh> But, this morning I found that my pair of angelfish in the 40G laid a bunch of eggs on a brick in the tank. So I removed the whole brick and put it in Yukiko's old tank and I've already got wigglers (eggs just hatched, but the fry just sit there and wiggle their tails while they consume their yolk sacs). And I was looking around in the tank next door to that and saw some CPD fry from the spawning setup I did last weekend... even after I accidentally left one of the females in there for two days, unfed and she probably ate some eggs. <sigh> But there are at least four fry in there, and they're already pretty big, almost as big as the big batch of bonus leopard danios. My covid might be rebounding. I've had a lingering cough all week. Then today I was stuffed up again and running a (very) mild fever, like barely 1 deg F. But it could be something. I was supposed to host coffee hour at church Sunday, but I just called it off because of this. Priest told me to rest up and they'll find someone else to cook. So with that, no workouts this week. <sigh, cough> And I'm working on an application for an adjunct teaching job at one of the community colleges in town. I just have to write my cover letter and send everything in... BTW online job application forms are the absolute worst. In the past, I have definitely given up on applications because of how buggy and clunky they are. Then the auto-completion where it tries to read your resume/CV into the form and it never gets anything correct. Why not just take a resume as an attachment? Do these serve any purpose other than to test how bad someone wants the job? And I know there's a lot of high applicant job and they need to filter, but this particular one is not even capable of collecting that type of data. So stupid. But I want the job so I gotta.

I'm thinking I want to grab an adjunct teaching position at a local college and just teach one biology class on a Friday afternoon for a while. 🤔

Well... I'm back to work. After a week of rest and a course of paxlovid, I'm like 95% better. But fitness goals are tenuous at best. I'll be glad if I can get a couple walks in. And, yeah, i've gone too far too fast in my fish breeding goals. Saturday the were still probably 100 leopard danio fry. Sunday there were maybe a dozen. So weird that they'd all die of like that. Ammonia and nitrate are both near zero. <smh> Bad genetics? (What I get trying to breed fish from petsmart.-- Tho, I wasn't actually trying so- meh). I'm pondering some big tank moves. I currently have like 3 dozen other danios, and ones that some stronger current, so i think I'm gonna try and set up a high flow tank for them in my 40gal, and move the apistos, guppies, and angelfish elsewhere.

I'm gonna do a detailed tank roll once everything is established, but my main goal right now is to get my celestial pearl danios going. And after cleaning some algae off the glass in their tank I noticed some fry swimming in there, but only a few, like half a dozen. There's a slight chance some of my leopard danio fry hitched a ride on a turkey baster between tanks, but i've got my fingers crossed that they're CPDs. And I separated out the females and put them in their own tank, with them plan of feeding them well and getting them fat with eggs, then adding the males in for a big spawn. Then i've got leopard, pearl, glowlight (not to be confused with glofish) danios and micro tiger rasboras aka emerald rasboras... which are actually danios. My apistos are getting settled. My endlers are getting settled still. I definitely want to get a cory going. <smh>

Okay. Bad news: it's covid. Good news: I'm through the worst of it, i've got paxlovid, and plenty of time to take naps and tend fish tanks.

Alright flu... Let's see what you got?! <coughs>

Dude. Here's the tank situation. 1x 40 gallon breeder 1x 40G high 2x 20G Long 6x 10G 4x 5.5G 2x 2.5G 6x 12G Tub* 8x 37G Tub* *Plastic storage bins repurposed as grow out/maturation tanks. Glass aquariums upstairs. These are for spawning, raising fry, and a couple for aquascaping and personal enjoyment. They are close and accessible so I can watch them closely etc. Tubs are in the basement. These are for growing up fry to market sizes. More space. Less looks. Mostly go down, check on them, drop in the food and go. This is madness.

More like...

Yesterday was good. I slept in but it felt needed. I went to the fish store. It was a very nice, little store with a ton of tanks loaded with plants and colorful, manageable, hardy fish. Great little store. AND! They favor buying fish from local breeders, so they will probably be one of my best customers. Then I cleaned up the house a bunch and my sister came over with my nephews. And they went bonkers over all the fishies... and everything that blinked, wires, hoses, and ir turns out the little one is quite a climber. So that was fun and tiring and I'm a little more aware of the exposed weaknesses of my tank systems. Oof. I also introduced my three year old nephew to Mario kart. He gets it, but he needs to work on holding down the A button. I slept in again cuz, yeah, toddlers plus fish tanks. I was up late taking inventory of this little operation of mine. I need 1 more 10 gal and 2 more 5.5 gal tanks and I'm set.

I have extra wide feet. I'll second NB, never tried skechers, and I'm currently wearing some Brooks extra wide casual walking shoes that are nice.

I did the things yesterday and this morning. Tho, this morning I opted for a walk instead of a kb workout. The mid September, fall is coming weather is too favorable to pass up. Tomorrow, more of the same, but for my day off I'm gonna visit an aquarium store across town i've been meaning to check out.

Did the things this morning. I was actually awake before 8 a.m. and got up promptly when the alarm went off. Did my prayer, made coffee, KB workout (was short but it happened), fed the fish. My little fry are growing up fast. They're gaining shape ands size and substance and swimming more confidently, ands they've leveled up from nothing but fry powder food to including some micro worms. Got to be at least 100 fry in that little tank, I'm sure not all are making it but I see no evidence of a big die off.

Nice! I wanted to do MacMasteries in one of my tanks but my water isn't right for them. They'd survive but probably wouldn't breed. They're gonna look great in there though. My cat could not care less. Though I lost a betta once to a former roommate's cat. Kids are the bigger issue probably, but get a couple guppies and teach them about responsibility and boundaries etc.

I've got an order of endlers coming tomorrow. 4 different lines, and I'm gonna try to create a few of my own by crossing them. Then i've got 2 more endler lines, a couple more danio species, and some A. cactuoides double red breeding packs coming next week.

Fish tank pics?

Allow me to introduce: Yukiko, Mothball, Sugar, and Boo. My new platinum parrot cichlids. The plan is to grow them up full sized and sell them full grown. Right now they're the size of mothballs, hence the name, but I'm gonna get them to baseball size and sell them. Maybe breed them if I get a reliable pair. If I don't fall in love with them along the way. Love me some derpy cichlids.

This morning was good. I woke up later than I wanted, but I got all the things in. Including my usual 1 mile walk around the neighborhood. I talked to the manager at the pet store nearest to me. He said if I can get the CPDs grown up, he'd give me $1.00-1.50 per fish... this is a good deal and about what I was expecting. He wasn't interested in the leopards (the fry I have), but in also not 100% sure we were talking about the same fish, common names and breed names get mixed up and shuffled around. So if I get a couple dozen I'll just bring them in with me and see what he says. I definitely have eggs collected from the CPDs, I just need to see if they hatch this week. In any case, I think I'm going to focus on rare danio breeds. Tomorrow I need to repeat. Hopefully I can get up on time and get a kb workout done.