Please answer in the form of a question.....

Still waiting. This is actually not so bad - the fish are happy and cavorting around, and I don't have to do hardly anything. No wringing of hands, no anxious examinations of potential signs of illness, nobody off their feed, no algae, no cloudy water, just status quo. When the Africans come in it will be a different story, and I will be Nervous Nellie once again, but for now we just test the water and wait.

My husband had a suggestion, and it really demonstrated how much he has learned about a hobby in which he takes ZERO interest, and often seems to baffle him. He wants me to put a rock or two in the 150 from another tank, or run one of my many duplicate filters on the 150 for a little bit and try to jump-start the bacterial colonies. What brilliance! I have been avoiding doing this very thing (I have not cycled a tank the old-fashioned way in YEARS!) but I was actually wanting to see how it went, rocking it old school, so to speak. I just think it shows that some of this stuff is really sinking in with Rick, and I was very impressed that he came up with this (so was he).

Anyway, I decided to humor him and I put in two smallish rocks from the 40-gallon leopoldi tank and we will continue to test the water, and Rick can see for sure what affect this will have. I was a bit leery about moving these rocks, since this tank has quite a few Malaysian Trumpet Snails that I don't want in the 150, but I scraped everything off the rocks that I could see. Likely as not the 150 will become infested with MTS anyway - such is life with this particular snail species. I don't have any other large rocks that I am willing to move that might have less potential for transporting vermin. I mean snails.....

I could move the large glass chunks from the 37-gallon, but they do not have very much surface area in spite of their size, being completely nonporous and smooth, and also the leopoldi pair in that tank has just now started coming out into the open since being moved in there a few weeks ago, and if I go rummaging around and removing structures they will take to hiding again, and I hate to stress them. Wild caught fish have to be handled with kid gloves sometimes. I sincerely doubt I will get a spawn from them, but I needed to thin out the group in the 40-gallon and I have become so attached to these fish that I'm content to keep them in their own tank (I am positive it is a male and female, with one male and two females in the 40-gallon, plus the domestic of unknown sex).

So, we'll see what happens with the small rocks, and maybe I will move one of the extra canister filters from the 40-gallon to the 150 for a week or so and see what it does to the nitrite value, mainly so Rick can see that he was right, and validate this little chemistry/biology lesson. I think every science class in middle school ought to cycle a fish tank. Things like temperature and pH will influence the progress of the cycle, and you can get as geeky as you like with it depending on the age group. It would also drastically limit the Failed Fishkeepers of the Future. This group is vast, an epidemic, really, and though a reduction in membership would mean far, far fewer cheap tanks at yard sales and on Craig's List, more people would find success and we could raise the geek quotient. I'm just sayin.

I have not mentioned Otis the puffer in a while, but he's The. Best. Fish. Ever. He's fat and a good solid 2", probably his full size. He enjoys his brackish tank that is open on all sides to the room, and is wickedly overfiltered with an AquaClear 70. Yes, I said 70. As mentioned long ago I had great plans to transition Otis to a 20-tall setup, which is a huge space for a 2" fish, but after having him for at least 18 months now there is no question that more water is better for puffers. He is a voracious eater, and even has nipped me when he's hungry and I reach in to do maintenance. He is always hungry, by the way. He has nice bright blue eyes and an almost fluorescent green pattern to his Figure-8, so I know he's healthy. His tooth plates seem well maintained, with about 90% of his diet being snails, which I cultivate avidly. Ramshorn snails, specifically. Woefully, MTS are much too hard for him to manage, but if he could eat them I'd have plenty.

I have coral rock in the tank with a bit of java moss that is miserable, and one remaining sprig of java fern that is perhaps even more miserable than the moss. I don't know why I can't grow brackish-friendly plants in this tank, but I have a horrible time. The tank is lit by a 13w CF bulb, plus overhead fluoro lighting sometimes during the day, the temperature is good, etc., so I'm not sure of the problem, but I don't sweat it too much. The tank looks like a SW setup with the coral anyway, so plants don't look particularly correct, though the java fern has a marine algae-like appearance that works. I have made arches and caves in the middle, so he goes through them to get from one side to the other. This gives him something to do. I think it would be good to build up the central structure a bit higher for more architectural interest for him. As long as I rearrange the furniture from time to time he is kept content. I am enjoying this fish immensely, in case you can't tell! I worried about getting him at first, since I'd never kept brackish and I'd never kept a species with such particular needs before, but it is working out okay.