Bloody hell it’s been a little while since I’ve written a blog! This year is flying by. 😵‍💫

Where to start, really?

Let’s go with the latest changes to the fish tanks…

🐟

First the sad news.

Our dear snail Gary has passed on 😞 (24.4.22), which was a bit sad because he was the first mystery snail we got. He did a wonderful job of keeping the large tank clean.

Along with Gary, we’ve so far lost two of the Danios. Both of the males, actually. I have absolutely no idea why, because the other fish are doing fine and the water parameters look totally normal. You just never know, sometimes. 😞

But I’ve also got some good news on the fish tank front.

In February I went and bought another tank- one that’s a bit easier to clean and a bit bigger than the original 29 L (which I’m waiting to palm off to someone else, eventually 😅😂).

I waited a month and a half before I did anything else with it, but I used bio filters from the big tank and live plants to try and encourage microbial growth as quickly as possible (because we all know microbes are very important in an ecosystem).

Once I was happy with the tank, I went into the store to find a Betta fish that would rule the tank…

Initially I wanted one that was blue (I do love blue 💙), but when I went in to the store, there was one Betta that was particularly active and healthy looking…

And especially after dear Germaine, I just wanted to get one that was as happy looking as possible.

So, this is Hugo.

We named him Hugo because he reminded us of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert 😂

He’s still ruling his tank, busily making bubble nests and flaring at the mirror I occasionally place for his entertainment.

And he also has two snail friends. Larry and Harry. 😂

And I also got Barry as a companion for Gary in the big tank…

But then after Gary died I added three new snails that are all golden, so now I haven’t got a name for those three. 😂

🌱 🪴

In terms of gardening…

It wasn’t the best tomato or capsicum season for us (too cold and wet over summer), but we still got a half decent tomato harvest in the end. Most of it got turned into passata, but I also made a lot of curries with it, too. Just to avoid getting sick of pasta, like last year. 😂

I also got lots of chillies this summer. 🌶

I even gave most of them away.

I also finally dealt with the poor ginkgo being root bound in its pot… although in hindsight I should have hacked the roots back more to account for the older roots that had spiralled in its previous pot from about six years ago…

And I’ve got autumn/winter/spring crop coming up in the garden beds.

And that’s just the outdoor stuff! Indoor is also going crazy.

The peace lily I have had turned into three separate plants, so I had to deal with that…

All in all, everything is growing! 😂

And I FINALLY got to wear that coveted mushroom 🍄 hat in late March. Almost 18 months after ‘graduating’ from my Ph. D, I finally got to attend the ceremony.

Fortunately I also got to attend it with a few other friends as well (also graduating from their Ph. Ds), and more friends came to support and take photos, so it was just an amazing experience, all up. 🥰

As the days get colder, we’ll be going off adventuring again, too.

These are just from last weekend.

Sometimes, you just want to stare at the ocean for hours. 👌🏼

But that’s a broad summary of what’s been happening so far.

Hoping to make a science related post soon on other things I’ve been working on, so stay tuned!

Categories: General Ph D posts

Tagged as: 2022 aquascaping fish tank gardening hobbies phdchat

ABugsLife

A Ph. D graduate in Microbiology, residing in Victoria, Australia. Currently working in multiple locations but still in the STEM field. 👀 🦠 🧫 🧬