He Said She Said
Monica and I have been hashing this over
for some time. I always wanted her to write her opinions and then
let me answer them. Well I guess that isn’t going to happen so I
will start this off and see what she has to say later.
The
Fish Room – We maintain over 4,000 gallons of cichlids and
plecos. When we moved in to our new house around 3 years ago, I
wanted to just have tanks above the waste all on metal stands. I
had brick and wood in the old house and all wood when Randy Hann
and I opened a second fish house.
I didn’t want to be crawling on the floor catching fish
which I had done for over 25 years.
1.Monica
said don’t worry about the tanks on the bottom rows, she would
maintain them and when it came to catching fish she would catch
the ones in the low tanks. I must have been insane to believe that
!!
Monica’s
response:
The
way that you exaggerate, you should be a trophy bass fisherman!
I maintain 80-90% of the tanks in our fish room above and
bottom row tanks.
Rick’s
response:
Ya In
her dreams !
2.
Monica told me I was a messy fish room keeper. Who comes to look
at the room anyways ? She said there was no way she would let a
fish room be as dirty as the last house. Granted I was not always
the best at keeping the room clean but at least I kept the tanks
clean ! Has anyone seen Monica catch fish ? By the time she is
done, the floor is a swamp and there is water all over every part
of the tank. Does she wipe the tank after catching ? No ! Every
couple of weeks I go by and clean the outside of most tanks. Have
I ever seen her clean the outside glass ? She says she does but
you couldn’t get me to believe it.
Monica’s
response:
Who
cares about the outside glass anyway?
I am most concerned with the inside of the tanks. I will give Rick that when we were first married catching
fish was not high on
my list of talents. Now,
I can catch fish with the best of them, after all, in addition to
keeping 400+ gal. of fish tanks, I am also from Minnesota. Get it?
You know what really burns me up about Rick’s fish room
messiness? Wet fish
nets that are willie nillie put on our glass fish tank lids.
Drives me crazy, it ranks right up there with wet fish room
towel being tossed everywhere.
3
SALT. I have always kept salt in all my aquariums. I think it is
very beneficial especially for Africans. In the old days, I can
say that now, we really didn’t have much medicine and salt was
the cure all for everything or so it seemed.
I think salt also aids body slime on fish, therefore
keeping them healthier. To this day , I still believe salt is
great to have in your tanks. When Monica first saw me add salt to
the tank she was amazed that I never measured anything. I did a
water change and threw a handful of salt in. One day I came down
to the fish room and there was a container of salt with a teaspoon
in it. She said why don’t you use 1 teaspoon per 10 gallons of
water you are changing as replacement ?
Monica’s
response:
Mind
you, at one time I was more anal about adding salt to my tanks.
In Minnesota, I kept 1200 gal or so.
Since incorporating 2 fish rooms I now add handfuls of salt
according to tank size. As
a matter of fact, the teaspoon has been missing since Rick last
had it, haven’t seen it in 2 years or so.
4.
HATCHING BRINE SHRIMP. Well
here I go again with the salt. To hatch brine shrimp, I would grab
4 small handfuls of salt and throw it in the gallon jar and pour
some eggs in. I am going to go off the track a little here and
tell everyone exactly how I hatch baby brine and have done so for
over 30 years. I use a gallon glass jar. I don’t like plastic. I
make sure the jar is cleaned and dried with a towel. If you
don’t use a towel it seems that all the previous slime is not
eliminated and the hatch isn’t as good. I add water from an
aquarium to the jar and add the eggs with heavy aeration in the
jar. I think the more movement the better. Notice I said I put the
eggs in before the salt. I think this helps to “crack the
eggshells” for a better hatch.
I then add 4 small handfuls of salt and a little Epsom
salt. The eggs start hatching in less than 24 hours and we usually
get 3 or 4 feedings from a hatch. To get the shrimp, I take the
air off the jar and let the orange baby brine settle somewhat at
the bottom and siphon them off in a baby brine shrimp net. Some of
the nets they sell today are too big to get the babies, so make
sure you get a net that will do the trick. There are many ways
people hatch shrimp but this is how I have always done it. Monica
didn’t like how I was doing it and got her teaspoon and salt
out. She also said she used cold water from the tap. I think I got
her on this one as she now follows how I have been doing it, with
the exception of the handfuls of salt.
Monica
says:
Since
Rick lost my teaspoon 2 years ago, I just dump the eggs and salt
in. My brine shrimp
hatches beautifully.
Well
this is a start. I have not seen Monica’s response yet and
promise not to change anything she says before sending this in.
Hopefully she will have a couple of things she says that I can
respond to.
Monica’s
turn:
As mentioned in some retorts to Rick’s
claims, I did admit that sometimes I can be somewhat anal about
the fish room. What
really corks me though, is it ALWAYS happens that after I have
spent one day in the fish room partialing tanks Rick feeds that
night and overfeeds. Drives
me crazy. He denies
it of course, but considering that we are usually
say the only two people here who feed who could have done
it? Our dog Stretch?
Rick
says: The
plecos eat the excess. Otherwise they might never get
anything.
If you aren’t bored to death by now,
there is ONE itty bitty thing Rick does that really locks my jaw. I know that the ladies out there who are reading this will
appreciate it, if they are living with a man.
My jaw is hurting even before I tell you what it
is…….the thing is that Rick always looses things.
Doesn’t matter if it is in the fish room or not, but
since this article is about couples in fish rooms, I’ll stick to
that. Rick needs reading glasses, many people do, no biggy.
But now here is a man, a well educated one at that, who
will ask me “ Have I seen his reading glasses?”, I swear to
you this has happened. He
will be looking right at me and his glasses are on a fish tank,
one foot away from him. You heard he and I mention that pesky
teaspoon, I’ll bet that I find it in his reading glass case,
that he put in the freezer in the fish room.
Rick
says:
Like Moni says there are only two of us.
Things don’t move on their own. She has to be so neat I can
never find anything. Today I asked where my glasses were and she
said “ I don’t know” ! They were 2”s away from her and her
crossword puzzle. Big help she is. Why do I bother asking ? I must
be a glutton for punishment!
Monica
says:
We
won’t air all of our laundry in one article.
There is plenty more where this came from for future ones.
Give me strength.
Rick
always has to have the last word. Not this time! When I said that they are his reading glasses, I mean just
that. Since when do I
have to keep track of HIS glasses?
