I’m powerless to stop them.

People get mad about them but I agree they work great and are mostly asleep when I’m awake.

WTH. It was working fine, I wonder what happened.

It just takes patience. Everything happens slower in a tank like this. There’s sifted dirt on the bottom and then sand on top of that, so the plants have plenty of nutrients in the substrate. I deliberately introduced the dreaded Malaysian trumpet snails to keep the substrate stirred up. Lots of plants, nothing fancy just plenty of stems, mostly pearlweed. I’ve been dealing with a lot of hair algae but I got some amanos shrimp a couple weeks ago and they’re beating it back. It’s just a little ecology and I think a lot about every change before I make it.

None! That hang on back refugium just has some hydroton to give the plants something to hold onto and there’s a power head pushing water around but that’s it.

They look a lot like Brook Trout which are my favorites so it’s no accident I ended up keeping them!

Still no ammonia so I YOLO’d the fish in. Now the problem is the total lack of alkalinity, so I threw in an eggshell and I’m gonna add some crushed coral to the substrate for long term. Fortunately pH is pretty stable.

Oh I just did the Walstad thing and picked the woody bits out of some organic potting soil so while I have no idea what bugs are there I’m sure it’s pretty far from sterile.

I honestly felt bad for him. He had the pace but they made him wait until the tires were well done before they let him try. I mean the whining was a bit heavy but the point was there.

I’m gonna enjoy sitting on the couch and looking down the long side once stuff grows in more.

That’s the energy I need! I reused all the fluval substrate for the cap and also about five gallons of original tank water, I did everything I could to drag over a lot of bugs. I’m hopeful that this balances my carbon economy, I’ve been fighting hair algae and I eliminated everything but low carbon and I don’t wanna go to CO2 injection because I’m so so lazy.

How is this 53 minutes old when the thing launched hours ago?

Some times in life you are just putting one foot in front of the other. Don’t focus on the totality of your problems, just look at the small things you can do to work those problems down. When something good happens, make sure to recognize it and think back on it when you’re down. You don’t beat this feeling all at once, you chip away a bit at a time and eventually find yourself in a better place.

I’ll second mint.

Fortunately we are the medication 101st Airborne.

My wife is going to Stanford for that next week . Best of luck .

The website of my local station crashed three times while I made my donation the other day , I’ll take that as a good sign.

If I send you a selfie …can I watch?

That was the conclusion that pushed me over.

I just installed Mint the other day. I was pussy footing around with trying to create a persistent USB drive but the bootloader was fighting me. I finally just hovered over the “wipe drive and install” button for a while before I finally clicked and let it rip. Never again M$.