Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Moving Forward

Our fish tanks make me happy.  There are times when other aspects of life keep me from caring for our tanks the way I should.  I am notorious for not doing water changes, something that probably contributed to our latest tragedy.  Still, a 50% water change and continued care is showing progress.  Of course, we now have a red slime problem...oh, well, I am looking at it as a challenge.

Cora and I have had these tanks for quite awhile.  We began the 30 gallon tank in 2006.  Shortly after we started a ten gallon reef tank...unfortunately, the reef tank drained of its water in 2008.  Two years before this latest debacle.  I had salt water tanks in Ellensburg...back in 1995-98.  We moved back to Yakima and shortly after that, we gave up on the tanks as too much work.

At least, I always have Cora.  I love this picture of her.  She looks good when she is out in the wild.
We have been together for a while now.  When we got married we went to Walt Disney World for our honeymoon.  On the way back we stopped in Salt Lake City.  I bought a touristy cactus "egg" which had seeds.  I planted them and woo hoo, in two weeks I had a ton of little cacti.  I had a decent amount of die-off in the next six months.  I gave some away and kept a few.  Today I have seven or eight left over.  One is about 8 inches tall.  I think it's a saguaro.  Below is a pair of the hold overs.  

No wonder the South Western states protect cacti so fervently.  It takes A LONG TIME for them to grow to a decent size.  These two below are ten years old and are only a couple inches tall!
In 2008 I bought more Cactus seeds when we visited Arizona.  I planted some of them and they have not grown very much at all.  None are more than a half inch.  I suspect, if I ever have a kid with a green thumb, I will give my cacti away.  Hopefully they will bring someone happiness for a long time after I am gone.  



1 comment:

Charissa said...

Or more than likely you will have a kid that will find an accidental way to kill them. As parents we've learned not to be attached to anything, or hide those things, or constantly live in disappointment. Sigh-- here's to long life to your cacti, or better yet, a kid.

Fun pictures by the way.