Hey! What's everyone been up to?

Hey CITAC!,

What has everyone been up to? Let's fire this thing back up and keep talking tanks!

I've had some pretty cool things going on in the fishroom including have both Electric Blue and Vanilla Crawdads spawn, had my Orange Rili Shrimp spawn and my Blue-Eyed Lemon Plecos had a spawn while I was in Florida, plus the usual Cories and Angels.

I've tested Matten filters in my tanks, and found a material to make tank toppers that is cheap, easy to clean and works well (covered 8 20H's for $40).

I've been watching some YouTubers including Aquarium Co-Op, Michaels Fish Room, King of DIY (guys has an interesting life story), Jarden Aquatics and some others. Met a few of those guys at Aquashella last Fall.

What does everyone else have going on? If anyone wants to get together and either offer a tour of your setup, or come see mine, just let me know and we'll schedule something.

Keep fishy.

DavidZ

Hey David!

As always, I'd LOVE another fish tank tour - your basement is the *best.*
Did you ever figure out what caused the massive death of all those fish when they were literally dropping like flies?

I got a couple of pretty rams for one tank...and now I have a LOT of rams in that tank (want a couple? LOL). PSP in Normal took a few and I know I can bring several to PPS but it's hard to gauge when Jesper will be there and Monty won't: he's utterly, totally rude to me (I have stories) and literally won't acknowledge me when I'm in the store anymore, so I know there's no sense in walking in the door when I see his truck in the parking lot.  I def want to thin out the heard though and pick out some new fish - time to bring some new color and fun into that tank again. (On that note, want to thin any of your herd?)

For my other tank, I picked up some beautiful young veil angels from aquarium adventure up north and they lasted exactly a week. Usually I have luck with that store - it was a spontaneous move and I kind of know better: there are better sellers on the internet, it's just the shipping costs: phoo.

I haven't been watching a lot of you tubers lately (took on way too many extra classes fall term), but when I have, I usually catch up on a tank build by Thomas from Big Al's pets up in Canada. He just put a discus tank together that makes discus look so easy to keep (hahaha).  I'll def have to check out your list of you tubers during Christmas break!!!

Nice to see some life back on the site again - hope some others jump on.  Helloooooo out there? Anyone else out there?

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

For some reason I'm not seeing the new posts in this section? Had a good laugh to the "Monty" situation, I too avoid the store on occasion for such reasons. David I'm going to try to go up to the GCCA swap on Sunday but if I can't find what I need, I'd be up for another order possibly. I have a lot of fish to thin out but not enough to sell to Seagrest or anything they would want. I've got some pairs of Rosy barbs, pairs of rare endlers, and lots of Bristol shubunkin x regular shubunkin cross, butterfy telescope goldfish, plus large quantities of plants like ambulia and masses of java moss that I need to sell now. I'm thinking aquabid but with temps cold as they are, I'm not keen on shipping around the holidays or dealing with dummy buyers. Our next local auctions are not till next year and I need to thin now. Good to see people posting again. Need a club meeting again. I know people are always busy around the holidays.

I never really found a specific cause to the Angel situation, and UofI Animal Sciences narrowed it to a 'most likely a virus of some kind' but nothing specific or obvious. Have had many spawns since without issue. Weird.

We're having kind of a late-notice impromptu get together tomorrow at Disthil out by Menard's so drop by if you can.

We'll try and crank up the meeting again in January, and see if anyone is interested anymore.

DavidZ

Well, I've been busy with work all construction season (as usual) but am laid off now for the winter. You'd think I'd have oodles of time to do whatever! Just never seems to end up that way.

("My" ) Brad and I have gotten out of fish keeping. I sold almost all my stuff this past spring. Brad still has 2 or 3 tanks (150g., 125g., and a 10 or 20g.) supplies, and quite a few large and extra-large pieces of nice driftwood he wants to get rid of. We just haven't had the time to clean it up and mess with trying to sell it - he's got it all out in storage. He had always been into fishkeeping more than me, but he truly does not have time for it anymore and has also lost his enthusiasm. The past 3 years he's been steadily increasing hours worked until it seems that's about all he does.

We do have two exciting bits of news in our lives lately. One, Brad moved back in with me in April and it's going well - better than I'd imagined it would. We aren't taking the plunge and getting remarried any time soon, however!

The second exciting thing will start next week: We are leaving Dec. 4th and back on the 15th - a vacation to Egypt with a river cruize down the Nile. It's the trip of a lifetime and we are both stoked, as you can imagine! From Chicago, we fly to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, then to Cairo, Egypt. During our trip, we will also fly to Luxor and stop off in a few ports during the 4-day cruizing portion down the Nile. We will be seeing most of the "usual" big tourist attractions but hope it's not going to be an exclusively-over-touristy trip.

I'm not looking at revisiting the fish hobby and, thus, do not plan on participating in future meetings. I might come and meet up with you all from time to time, socially, for a drink or whatnot to touch base and see how you all are doing as I still consider and value you all as my friends. Just don't count on me coming out often as I'm truly not a socialite. I cannot come tomorrow as I'm running around like the proverbial chicken without its head getting ready to go on our trip.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and a better upcoming holiday season. Brad and I stayed home together, ate Spaghettios (yuck!), and worked on trip plans. Perhaps we'll have something a little more appetizing for Christmas dinner!