SOME THINGS AT A FRIEND'S HOUSE

An aquarium and a few Salamandra salamandra terrestris larvae, with some fastuosa in there somewhere.

THE WET & WILD SHOW RETURNS

First off ... my friends store ... many have fallen in recent times ... a great many!!

Oh and a little video ...

The store, should you wish to look for it, is on the eat side of Baker Street in Enfield and no its not number 221 which you would find funny because I hang out there?! Oh wait a minute?! I am forgetting myself, this is not my corruption blog that contains many tens of gigabytes of data explaing how the entire British Public Service System and government is corrupt and/or very bad at their jobs!! Yeah that has 115,000 visitors plus! Lol!

Now a species of turtle that I have only now taken notice of! I think you will see why in the pictures as I spotted some bright but intricate colouring on them!

WOOD TURTLES

Now for some new arrival species of Tarantulas which there is one lady I must go and tell of this as she might never forgive me if there is anything there she is after?! LOL!

This is not all Sheen, there was like a dozen types and there were White Knees something called Giant White Knees, whetever they are and the Giant Goliath Bird Eaters, Thereposa Blondi, though to read about them you might want to try the name they were previouslky known as which is the same but with TWO extra letters! Yes I kid you not ... THERPOSA LEBLONDI.

There is a video of me scanning across the boxes slowly so you can see the labels, lol ...

THE SPIDER VIDEO ...

THE NEON TETRA - PARACHEIRODON INNESI

The first of some new additions of fish to my aquarium and these are the oldest, though some seem to think it is the Paradise Fish, known tropical fish and often thought of as the one that started it all?!

Now I have spent years overlooking these quite deliberately but just to show that all life and all animals fascinate me and when I saw them in a friends shop I thought, 'Hey, why not?!'

Now these are the Neon Tetra, Paracheirodon innesi, and despite them being dirst cheap to buy they are also difficult to breed. Well except for when you have a very mature aquarium with acidic as well as soft water. Previously when I used to introduce fish I would often have them courting in the space of 24 hours and laying eggs with a month or two!

To my shock and despite being empty for what must be two years the Neon Tetras are follwing the rule!

I will also try to add a pair or preferebly a trio of Apistogramma hongsloi to the mix.

I will add some Cardinal Tetras in the aquarium too, like Neons but get a bit bigger and red runs right through from mouth to the caudal peduncle (where the body meets the tail fin)

I will likely add some Killifish if I find things I want out of the Aphyosemions and Spectralebias/Cynolebias?

BLOODY HELL I LOST TRACK OF HOW MANY VIDEOS I DID?! LMAO!

Or of course if I find anything particularly beautiful I may add them, think Celestial Pearl Danio of the Margaritatus genus.

NEW ARRIVAL - SET OF VIVARIUMS

Here is a new arrival I forgot to post about, a bit busy with other things.

It is one complete unit with a set of four Vivariums with each one being 8 to 10 inches square with metal mesh lids for ventilation. I am going to set up a number of features with each one being very different from the next. I will also set up my own lighting which will only total a few watts, except one that may be 16 watts, lol.

SOme silicone sealer will be the order of the day to set these up with each one looking extremely good and perfect for what I want and what suits the animals I have in mind.

Yes well you may well wonder what I have in mind so I will give you a little idea of what I am currently thinking but this may change depending on what is available as I might see something that really grabs me and I have to have it, lol.

Anyway here is what I have in mind....well sort of...

LIZARDS

Jeweled Ground Geck - Stenadactylus stenadctylus are a dead certainty here
Dwarf Chameleon of some kind or other

FROGS

HYPEROLIUS MARMORATUS
HYPEROLIUS TAENIATUS
RHACOPHORUS REINWADRTII (Proper ones with loads of blue and not the ones I have seen dotted about)

TOADS

Northern race of Green Toads - Bufo viridis but preferably young Natterjack Toads - Bufo calamita
Oak Toads - Bufo quercicus

SALAMANDERS

PAINTED ENSATINA (Ensatina escholtzii)
TYLOTRITON KWEICHOWENSIS
TYLOTRITON LAONENSIS

I do also have two others one the same dimensions but taller by about 4 to 6 inches that houses three botanical orchids within it and already receiving light and heat.

I also have a bigger one still which is also a stand alone one that is 10 or 12 inches long.

I am also thinking of adding more similar ones either another set the same or bigger one of just THREE sections?!

So as well as the weather cooling down which means I will now get moving again and helped by the fact that my bike has now been completely fixed and only yesterday I finally sorted out the gearing once and for all?!

Turns out that I fiddled with the intricate setting of the rear derailleur as we as the front one last year which must have been when the rear axle become broken!! Well even though I got those three gears back I had not been able to access since last year I had a problem whereby some shifting on the crank-set was a bit iffy and I could not get the rear gears quite right. With the rear cassette being 7 speeds what I was getting was rattling towards one end of the gears. Either towards the cogs with the most teeth and widest diameter or the ones with the least and the smallest.

I spotted the little screws that do the fine tuning on the front derailleur and started adjusting them and got that spot on, it seems and fingers crossed.

I then turned my attention to the two screws on the rear derailleur too and altered them. Of course it dawned on me that one screw adjusts towards one end of the cog for going up a gear while the other screw adjusts for the other side for going DOWN a gear, lol.

SO in my desperation to fiddle with a bike not worth spending money I did not have on I spent a great deal of time trying to do things myself. This did not really change this year either until a month after I changed the rear axle and realised something was wrong. Fed up with working on that because it is first of all tricky, second of all doing things technical and intricate on something that is unmanageable size and no proper work stand to hold it when you are guaranteed to get pain in various areas you get fed up. It did not help being bloody hot too so it was dumped in a bike shop with some nice chaps to correct what I had done wrong.

If I had to do another axle I think I could now and front would be easy, mistake I made was that I undid both cone nuts on the rear and I should have undone one and left the other where it was. I did not and when it all went back together it worked but was all out of kilter. I mean I probably did 50 to 100 miles on it after I replaced the axle. My journeys to Lea Valley Park can end up being a 20 mile or more round trip and many others at around 10 miles. Also it is 3 miles to my town centre and 4 miles to the crop crossing. It is probably around 4 miles to The Meadow, another place I visit for photography and video content for my British Wildlife blog and YouTube account.

As far as the animals are concerned I am considering travelling to Vocklabruck and Innsbruck in Austria and Prague in the Czech Republic as there is a chap in each of these countries that has some very interesting things and we get on quite well. I am very interested in making an arrangement to go over in a few months time or early 2014?!

I will not say at this stage what they have or who they are, only there rough whereabouts as it would cause a bit of a stir if known what it was they had and how to get in contact with them. These chaps are highly professional and very nice chaps indeed and I would not want to see certain ... people go over and end up promising to pay at a later date and them not receiving the money...EVER, lol.

GLOWLIGHT DANIO - DANIO CHOPRAE

Just a little video of some Glowlight Danios in a friends store.

Now these were known to me under the Latin name or Danio choprae but I have also recently seen people list it as Brachydanio choprae so not really sure which of the two genus names is the correct one.

From a taxonomical viewpoint it is a hard one to call for me. It certainly IS different from the Zebra and Leopard Danios but may more like them than other members of the Danio genus?!

It has been a long time since I really looked at and of the names of this Danio group and I know there are a couple of larger ones too. The spotty and stripey Danios are all very closely related and as far as I know I have seen two spotty ones, one with both stripes and spots. Along with these there is some fiery finned variety called Danio kithyit if that is a proper name and not some temporary one that has been assigned be a breeding farm in Singapore?! All these are closely related and more so to each other than Danio choprae is to any of them.

Also some Danio species hybridize and for me this is a very strong reason for two separate species to belong to the same family.

I believe this of amphibians also and used to think that for reptiles but of late some really bizarre things have been happening in the reptile world and I find it very odd. When pointed out to others they then do find it odd too. So I cannot apply this rule to reptiles anymore and bizarrely it is only within SNAKES taht this applies, lol.

More next post.

OPALINE GOURAMI - TRICHOPODUS TRICHOPTERUS

Well I never MADAM?!

The Opaline Gourami is also another colour variety of what is know know sientifically as Trichopodus trichopterus?!

I really should have paid for more attention to more than just that giant Gourami, though addmittedly I do like Sparkling Gouramis, Chocoloate Gouramis and Honey Gouramis.

Hmm now that I come to think about it, it is now starting to appear that my statement that I do not like Gouramis might actually be I am not a big fan of ONE GOURAMI..

...LMAO!

PRETTY BUT NIPPY SERPAE TETRA - HYPHESSOBRYCOM EQUES

Stunning but do not keep with long tailed or slow moving fish, lol.

These Hyphessobrycons are nippy whereas many others are not which is a shame as they are one of the most stunning Tetra and one of the most commonly available too.

STRICTLY NO GUPPIES OR SIAMESE FIGHTERS!

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI: LYRE TAILED PLECO

Do not know the name of this pleco but it has a Lyre Tail so I named it Lyre Tailed Pleco, lol.

Another one found at Tropicali.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI: GREEN PHANTOM PLECO

Now this one I DO know the name of and they are Green Phantom Plecos.

There is also a slightly darker and Blue form of these known as the.... BLUE Phantom Pleco, lol.

AS with most of the plecos outside the Common PLeco and Gibbiceps the rule of thumb is bog-wood, bog-wood and BOG-WOOD!

:)

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI: SNOWBALL PLECO

Well I think that is what these are, he did say and I forgot and I am sure I asked if they were Vampire Plecos and he answered Snowballs.

But then there are so many and all Plecos go by the infamous L-Numbers now, with L meaning Loricariidae which is the family encompassing all sucker mouth catfish.

Many people do not do well with these because they are always bought as youngsters, some like the water to be a little less hard, mix some rain or RO water if your in a particularly hard water area like we are in London, and the do like to chew on bog-wood and this helps them to digest food.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI: THE PLATY - XIPHOPHORUS MACULATUS

A couple of shots of different platties.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI - POECILIA RETICULATA GUPPIES

The Guppy....hmm have I not done this already?!

Oddly and despite these being tropical fish many dykes around the West Coast of France are teeming with the wild variety.

Or at least they were when I was there 24 years ago looking for Amphibians and Reptiles, lol.

Do NOT put these guys with nippy fish like Tiger Barbs or Serpae Tetra no matter how nice these two look, especially Serpae, lol. They will have no tails left before very long.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI - TRICHOPODUS LEERII PEARL GOURAMI

Oops had this one down as Moonlight Gourami, curse my ignorance because they bore me to tears, LMAO.

Well bore me to tears is not strictly true I just had so many other groups I was interested in to give them too much attention.

I mean even in fish alone, leaving along all my other hobbies, there were the Cichlids, Killie Fish, American Minnows, American Darters and then I got into Dwarf Plecos, lol.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI - COLISA LALIA DWARF GOURAMI

I hope I have the latin correct on this one, never was a Gourami fan, lol.

These though are unsual, well are to me anyway, in their colour and somewhat different from the normal Neon Dwarfs and I think much more appealing.

A nice community fish this one and not too big either.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI - COYDORUS ELEGANS - ELEGANT CORY

Saved these pictures initially as Corydorus nanus but now I have edited them I can see that they are actually Corydorus elegans.

The nanus species is a little darker than elegans, though my breeding male elegans do go very dark and the lighter parts actually turn gold.

Annoyingly my two pairs spawned once or twice a month and I could hatch the eggs but never keep fry alive for very long, but then I was totally limited by money and equipment.

Maybe one day soon I shall try again?!

Bottom feeders, pacful and good for cleaning up uneaten food, like all Corydorus and Brochis.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI - GIANT COYDORUS (NOT NAME) BROCHIS SPLENDENS

Though in recent time the Corydorus group, Bronze and Peppered Catfish, have been broken up mostly there was already another small splinter group.

Comprising just three species these are all very similar to each other and one of the commonest of tropical Catfish the Bronze Cory, Corydorus aeneus.

Well similar in all respects except one and that is size. Now this Brochis splendens is actually the smallest of the three Brochis species and yet a ful grown Corydorus aeneus will look like a dwarf of this at around one third to one half the size.

Then there is Brochis multiradiatus, which has a more point nose and longer dorsal fin, and the humungous Brochis britskii.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI - TIGER BARBS SYSTOMUS TETRAZONA

The nippy but nicely marked Tiger Barbs.

WHOLESALE SERIES: TROPICALI - ROSY BARBS PUNTIUS CONCHONIUS

Rosy Barbs.

Odd one these can be nippy but mostly not, lol. Err or the other way around, LMAO!