came to the section on lighting. Around funny stories of cats knocking metal top lights into a tank, reaching in and jumping to Olympic heights, was his lighting plan.
At the time of writing, he had a central set of flourescent lights down the middle of the room. The lights would illuminate the sides of the guppies. That set of lights was controled by a single timer - probably one of those which can have several pegs inserted, turning the light on and off as one wants. He also had a small light on the brine shrimp hatchers. It heated the brine shrimp a tad and provided the room with a moon so the fish didn't panic when the lights came on, when off or when he walked by in the gloaming.
He seems a practical and cost conscious individual. His box filters and water changing system seek efficiency and simple construction. His fish room is insulated, vented for some fresh air, heated by a single 220 watt floor heater and was able to withstand a three day power outage in the midwest.
He has tried almost every kind of filtration, lighting and tank arrangement likely to be attempted by a person raising a lot of stunning show guppies, something he has been doing for decades. He had a best of show at the IFGA nation in 2003. At the time of his book he raised few plants. His lights were set to go on for three hours in the morning - he fed them before work. Then they went off. They came on again about the time he came home from work and stayed on an hour past his last feeding in the evening. They were on the 12 hours he's likely to be around the fish or when they are cleaning up a feeding.
It makes sense to me. Why pay for lighting when nobody is there and no plants need them? Maybe Axelrod lifted the idea from Shubel's book - a TFH publication. Ideas lifted out of context don't make the sense they would if the original explanation was provided.
I was showing some killie newbies around. Cheapskate that I am, I toss 8 oz yogurt cups in 20 to 40 gallon daphnia cultures, AFTER the cup had been pretty closely cleaned out. That was a small suppliment in their diet. One of those guys went and tossed all of the yogurt from a much larger yogurt container - if a little yogurt, why not a lot? - into his soon to suffocate daphnia culture. :(
There are a couple of people in a group, loosely affiliated with the IFGA, who behavior towards others in the aquarium hobby once upset me a lot and still saddens me. I wouldn't tar the rest of the IFGA members by them.
There is a guy who briefly was an AKA member, has been thrown off of at least three mailing lists, four times or more for the bunch and probably really needs some sound counciling. He resurfaced on-line recently. He elicits pity more than scorn. There have been a couple other AKAers who are gone from the hobby and I'm not sorry about their departure. But four, even if they were 40, from the 4,000 who have been in the AKA over that time period, again are not typical of us all.
The rest of those in the hobby all have bad days. I'd like to retrieve too many snappy and stupid comments back through the air. What human hasn't said things they wished they had never uttered?
As for fish room ideas, check to see why someone does what they do. It may not sound so odd when the rational is explained. (And it may still seem crazier than a loon anyway.) There are lots of ways to raise fish; methods need to fit the individual like a favorite shoe or they will move on to other things. :)
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