Aquarium Pets – Platies

Mickey mouse platy.

I have been in the aquarium hobby since I was a kid. There were lots of dead fish throughout my involvement with the hobby; but all that is another story altogether. We’ll get to that some other day. Platies are one of my favorites when it came to aquarium fishes. They have an assortment of different colors to choose from, from black to yellow, red, orange and even dark blue. Not only that they also vary in color distribution. Some of them have patterns that look like Mickey Mouse on their tails. The best thing about these beauties? They breed like there’s no tomorrow, which is also the downside of having them.

Here’s a little info about Platies. Platies prefer harder water and are quite tolerant towards polluted water so they are one of the best first fishes to introduce to a newly set up aquarium to mature the system after the nitrate peak has been passed. They love plants, they use them as cover or hiding places. Platies also love plants because they love munching on them. Soft leafy plants are usually eaten regularly so beware. They also enjoy the presence of algae in the aquarium; in fact they can’t live without them. They prefer the soft green type that grows when you have good water. This can be used to our advantage as they will help to devour algal blooms in new aquariums. Even though they love greens doesn’t mean they only need that. Feed them live or frozen foods regularly plus a good quality flake food as the basis of their diet.

This one is pretty!

Let’s get to the breeding part. These fishes are livebearers. This means they have babies instead of laying eggs. In livebearer males, the anal fin has been developed into a gonopodium, a sexual organ formed by the fusion of the third, fourth and fifth rays of the fin. At its tip there are various spines and hooks which are often called “holdfasts”, and which are used by the male to hold on to the females during mating. At this time, the gonopodium is directed forwards and a groove formed down which the sperm is channeled to the cloaca of the female.

The baby fishes that come out from their mummy’s tummy are ready to fend for themselves. They usually disappear in thickets of plant growth right after they are released. Broods vary from 20 to 40 most of the time. Platy females are capable of storing sperm so many successive broods can be produced from a single mating.

This looks exactly like mine.

Platies are gentle and don’t bother to chase other fishes around. Males might chase each other around sometimes. Males will chase after females because of their mating behavior and might cause the females to die of fatigue. To avoid this, have at least 3 females for 1 male. That way they won’t be too tired from all the chasing from the overly heighten sex drive of the male fish. You can keep them with other community fishes that have mouths that aren’t big enough to fit a platy in it.

This is a baby platy.

These fishes breed a lot! You may start out with 4 and end up with tons more the next 3 months. Here is a tip on how to control population. One of the ways is to not provide too many hiding places, if you have lots of plants; the chances are higher for the babies to survive. Next is to keep them with fished that love baby fishes, I keep mine with an angel fish, my angel just loves to swallow these babies full. If this is too cannibalistic for you, you might want to try keeping only females. If you chose to do so, make sure that the females fishes you buy aren’t already impregnated in the aquarium store. This was what happened to mine. I only wanted two females since I didn’t want them to breed. Turned out that they were actually pregnant and I ended up with overstock problems. I solved it by giving almost all my platy fishes away and remained some in my aquarium. I also bought an angel fish to keep the population in check.

So there goes my article on these beautiful pet fish. I hope you have a great experience with these fishes just as the way I did.

Lynas and the 2013 Elections

Hmm... Why?

Mommies are angry!

The people are angry!

It has been awhile since I last wrote an article. Typical life messes had limited my time in doing one of the things that I enjoy doing the most, writing. Of course, I’ll always try my best to express my words on paper whenever I can. The elections are coming soon here in Malaysia. It is said that the poling day would be on the 5th of May. Rumors are that the current ruling government is going down for sure this time and it is quite apparent that the government itself knows it too. They seemed desperate, trying all sorts of tactics to win the hearts of the people. The heat is up, flags from all parties are erected everywhere, and the politicians are at war once again.

We Sabahans are angry!

Beautiful, and yes, very angry as well!

The problem with Lynas had been ongoing for quite a long time and the march of many angry citizens never did bring much attention towards the issue. The government just couldn’t care less. Now that the elections are near, they are suddenly interested in the matter. The opposition had been trying their best to use this issue to their advantage. I came upon a post from facebook that was very interesting, it’s some sort of a question. It goes like this, “Australia is 23.3 times bigger than Malaysia and yet there aren’t any spaces to dispose of the waste materials?”

Where is this? They are angry!

Weird guy is angry!

No doubt that the people of Kuantan who are all fired up will definitely cast their votes in favor of the opposition candidates who have pledged to shut down the processing plant. Residents are outraged because of the poor water pressure during peak hours and sometimes water supplies are cut off without a proper announcement. Does BN think the people of Kuantan stupid? Aren’t there any efforts put into this by the government to get in some votes from the people? Well even if they did, it wouldn’t make much difference anyway. They were doomed from the start when they agreed to allow Lynas to build that pollution machine on our homeland. They knew those votes, those that they thought will always remain theirs, will be lost once Lynas starts construction, and they did it anyway.

So what do we do when the government does this? We try to make a change. How do we make a change? We do our part to stop the ones who started destroying our home. We stop the government. If you love the environment, I say we vote for the opposition. Clean up or go home Lynas!

Fireworks season and your pets (Especially for dog, cat and rabbit owners)

Let's hide together.

Chinese New Year is here and you are all wondering what to do when the fireworks go off and your pets are all going frantic. Okay, maybe not all of you care so much, but here at Little Earth Gnomes of Sabah we do care. We believe that this is part of our responsibility to make sure that our pets are comforted when the fireworks go BOOM! Animals are afraid of fireworks, since it makes them think that their life is endangered, and also it might cause shocks, just like a thunderstorm, when they hear it, their natural instincts tell them to hide. This is especially true for small animals like dogs, cats, mouse, or rabbits. My fish don’t get bothered by the tremors that have been going around. Anyway, it is our responsibility to make sure they feel secure, like taking care of a baby. Here are some things you can do.

-          For dogs and cats, you can help them create a safe spot before the fireworks season. You will need to make them a small space filled with blankets and their favorite toys, if it isn’t possible, just fill their kennel or cage with some blankets and their favorite toy or some stuff that they really love. This will help them feel at home.

-          Play them some nice soothing music like classics or just some ballads, or if you want to you can switch on some waterfall or beach sounds.

-          Speaking of sounds, you can train your dog or cat to not be afraid of thunders or fireworks by helping them get used to these sounds, if you have a recording or a CD with sounds of fireworks or thunder storms, play it frequently but at a low volume, gradually raise the volume from time to time when you feel that you pet is feeling comfortable and is able to handle it.

-          Talking to your pets and patting them or grooming them slowly can help them reduce stress as well. Talk to them gently; start off by whispering to them. Keep talking to them to drown out some of the firework sounds.

-          Keep your pets indoors. This helps a lot since keeping them indoors will shut out some of the noise and they get to be closer to you. Leaving them outside and they might also be exposed to smoke from the fireworks, which they absolutely hate/fear as well.

There are also things you shouldn’t do, like altering their home too much before fireworks season. Animals like humans need time to adjust to the new environment. So do not change their home way too much or they will feel stressed. By sending them over to a friend’s place is not such a good idea too. Since a new place/environment might give them stress.

Every Chinese New Year in Sabah, KK, there will be a lot of fireworks going off at midnight of the New Year eve. This is what I did for my pet rabbit. I let her stay indoors (she usually lives on my balcony where she gets to run around freely but sheltered from rain and the afternoon sun, she gets the evening sun). Next, I switch on the air conditioning, she loves the cool air with the fan blowing on her; bring in some of her favorite toys (boxes), she plays with them every day, especially the huge ones. Then I shut all the windows to reduce the noises; and turn on the music, I turned on Bjork’s ‘Cocoon’ and let it go on repeat. Occasionally, when the bigger ones go off, she will rise up her ears straight like an antenna trying to find the source of the sound, then after a few seconds, she will continue to run around in my room messing with my stuff, sometimes she will come to me as if to ask me to pat on her head. I will only let her out after the smoke has all gone and I will monitor her even after I let her out just to be sure the air is clean enough for her. My mum handled the dog, she comforts him by talking to him and playing with him, that way the sounds aren’t so obvious.

Remember that we all have responsibilities towards out pets, we must help them overcome the fear of fireworks or to be there and comfort them throughout the season. Love your pets! Oh and if there is anything you want me to add to this, let me know! Or if you want to share what you do to help your pets, let us know and comment. Lastly, Happy Chinese New Year to Everyone!

The Portuguese Man-Of-War, small scale version of a battleship.

The Portuguese man-of-war is also known as the blue bottle which is what it resembles while floating. It may look like a pretty colored object drifting while you spend your summer holiday swimming at the beach. But beneath this beautiful object are many tentacles that will give you a sting that will leave a scar on you for the rest of your life. Despite how the man-of-wars look like, it is not a jellyfish, it is a siphonophore. A siphonophore is not a single organism, but a colonial organism made up of many minute individuals called zooids. These zooids are not capable of independent survival.

The name man-of-war comes from the 16^th century armed sailing ship called the Portuguese galley. Doesn’t really look like one in my opinion, it looks so much more like an alien spaceship that hunts for human brains using long tentacles while it floats around the sky. Okay, maybe too imaginative. But seriously, it doesn’t look much like an old century war galley. It loves the warmer waters and is most commonly found in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Pacific and Indian oceans and in the northern Atlantic Gulf Stream. Man-of-wars like the galley have no means of propulsion and will just float wherever the tide, current and wind brings it to. Strong winds may bring them onto beaches. Just like those jellyfishes at Tanjung Aru Beach, when kids enjoy walking around the beach looking for an up-turned jellyfish to poke. The man-of-war does not come alone; it brings all its friends and family together to have a huge sting party. At some places in the world, the finding of one single man-of-war might lead to the closing of the whole beach.

I won’t go into scientific details as most of my other posts are. There is lots of information about how the structure of the man-of-war is formed, so do your research if you’re interested. Next, let’s talk about the fun part, its venom. Did you know that this species and the smaller Indo-Pacific man-of-war are responsible for up to 10,000 human stings in Australia each summer? This usually happens on the east coast, with some occurring off the course of Southern Australia and Western Australia. Their venom can paralyze small fishes and prey. Even those that are dead (washed up on shore), or their detached tentacles, can remain potent for hours and days. Stings cause severe pain to humans; you’ll look like you’ve been whipped. The venom might also cause an allergic reaction such as fever, shock or an interference with heart and lung functions. Sounds scary? Yup!

Here is a small guide on how to treat a man-of-war sting that I copied off Wikipedia.

1.       To avoid any further contact with the Portuguese man-of-war and to carefully remove any remnants of the organism from the skin (taking care not to touch them directly with your fingers and any other part of your body to avoid secondary stinging)

2.       Next is to apply salt water to the affected area (not fresh water which tends to make the affected area worse)

3.       Follow up with the application of hot water (45 Celsius/ 113 Fahrenheit) to the affected area anywhere between 15 to 20 minutes which eases the pain of a sting by denaturing the toxins.

4.       If eyes have been affected, irrigate with copious amounts of room-temperature water for at least 15 minutes. If vision blurs or the eyes continue to hurt, tear, swell or show light sensitivity after irrigating, or there is any concern, see a doctor as soon as possible.

It is known that vinegar does not work for the man-of-war stings, not only that, it adds up to the pain as well. So never use vinegar unless you’re asking to visit hell for more excitement. Also make sure to identify whether the sting is from a man-of-war or a jellyfish to avoid the wrong treatment.

The Portuguese man-of-war is a carnivore, feeding on small fishes that it paralyzes with its venomous tentacles. Preys include the loggerhead turtle, which has skin that is too thick for the sting to penetrate. The sea slug (Glaucus atlanticus) and the violet snail (Janthina janthina) also feeds on the man-of-war. The blanket octopus is immune to the sting and younger specimens carry broken off tentacles of the man-of-war presumably for offensive or defensive purposes. Lastly, the ocean sunfish also loves munching on the man-of-war. There is also one small fish called the man-of-war fish that lives among the tentacles of the man-of-war. It is partially immune to the stings. It tends to avoid the larger tentacles but feed right off the smaller ones. Other marine life such as the clown fish also resides under the tentacles. This in turn attracts other fish that eats the smaller fish and without it knowing, got trapped in the dangerous tentacles of the man-of-war. So this is how friendship works in the ocean.

So next time you think the ocean is polluted with shiny blue, pink, purple-ish rubbish, think again, you better start swimming to shore.

Is this Considered As Animal Cruelty?

I came across a show called ‘Animal Superpowers’ on the National Geographic Channel the other day that starred Patrick Steward from the x-men movies. The show investigates and explains to us how animals have powers like changing colors and electrifying their prey.

The episode I was watching was about the newt’s ability to regenerate lost, broken or damaged body parts. Interesting? Yes it was, until the part where the limb of a newt was cut right off with a knife just to experiment on its abilities. I felt angry and started imagining the scientist’s limbs being cut off instead of the poor little newt.

Was it really necessary to do so? Is it really that important to learn how to regenerate our body parts just like a newt? How selfish humans are. I can feel the knife piercing through the skin of the little animal and it hurt in my heart. Not only that, they showed that all the other newts that were ready to be cut up lived in tiny containers just enough to hold them. I felt very sad and couldn’t take much more of this and eventually changed the channel.

What do you think of this? Is cutting off the limbs of a newt for an experiment okay to you? Well, it’s definitely a big NO for me. I say this is animal cruelty!

A Simple Guide on Cactus Care.

I have never been very successful with gardening, unlike my mum who just has to sow the seeds and the seeds will sprout effortlessly. I tried protecting my plants, checking on them day and night and to no avail, the plants will die in one way or another. Snails munch on them, parasite bugs sucking on their juices, or sun burn etc. The list goes on and on. I love plants and hope to have my own space so I can plant anything I want, from fruit trees to bushes to flowers and even herbs. And with my hopes down I tried my hands on the cactus.

Everyone says that the cactus is easy. Some told me not to water them. Some say it needs full sun. Some says a little shade will do wonders. I did my own research in the end because I did not want to fail again.

Well I haven’t failed since. So I thought I would share what I learnt and in hope that others like me won’t have to see another dying plant killed by our innocence. Yes, I considered myself innocent when those plants died under my hands (my eyes trying to hide the guilt).

Anyway, when you buy a cactus, try to do a little research on it before you run to the shop and buy a few. Not all cactuses come from the desert (I thought that they were all from the desert before my research because cartoons always showed them in deserts, yes, let us all blame it on the cartoons). Some of the species are actually from the jungle (such as the species that bears the dragon fruit). So their way of living is different. If you can’t find any information on the species, it’s best to ask the shopkeeper for some information. They usually have lots of info from their experiences; some even teach you how to make certain species flower.

After you get your cactus and bring it home, you will need to decide where it will live. For most cactuses, the best spot is a place that provides the morning sun and shade from the afternoon sun. Do not place them immediately under full sun, if your cactus came from the indoors, giving them full sun might burn them. So you might want to help them get use to the idea by giving them full sun little by little gradually every day for at least two weeks before they go out for a longer sun tan. Also make sure that the place will not be wet because of the rain. In Malaysia, it rains often, so I do not recommend planting them straight on the ground.

Once you find the perfect spot, you might need to consider repotting it. Most cactuses that are sold at shops had outgrown its pot. So think about giving them some more space. Some say that cactus grows best in individual pots that are not too big, that way it limits the maximum size that it will grow into. I plant mine in big long pots and I mix different kinds together (this is not recommended for beginners due to the different needs of different cactuses, but I’m experimenting so it’s okay). Plant your cactus in individual pots to be safe. Always use pots that have holes at the bottom.

Next is to choose the best medium for your cactus. The key is good drainage. Whatever you choose, make sure that there are many pores in it that when you water the plant, the water will go straight down and comes out from the holes beneath the pot. Search the internet if you want to know what choices you have.

Wonder how you are going to transfer your cactus into their new pots? First is to get them out, you can try knocking on the side of the pot to loosen it up or use something thin enough to go through the sides. After that, knock gently until the cactus comes out of its pot. Next is to handle them with care, you won’t want one of them pricks stuck in your hands. My way is to use a long piece of newspaper to wrap around the cactus, hold the newspaper to tighten your grip on the plant and transfer it to their new home. Or you can just use the newspaper any way you want to, newspaper helps a lot in the transferring process. Another way is to use very thick gloves, do not use gloves made with cotton or cloth as the pricks will easily get stuck on it.

Now it’s time to take care not to kill them. Knowing how to water a cactus is important, once you know how, you’ll most probably do fine. The shopkeeper that I frequent thought me a good way to indicate when to water. When you see that the top layer of the soil is dry (like really dry), water until water is seen coming out of the holes of the pot. After that, do not water until the top layer is very dry again. Take care not to get water on the cactus plant; if water gets stuck on the plant and does not dry in time, it might cause the cactus to spoil, I’m not sure if ‘spoil’ is the right word. The cactus will become soft and start to rot and you’ll end up sad that now it has a permanent scar. Yes, once a cactus has a scar, it will keep it for the rest of its life to remind you of your mistake. In case you watered too much, quickly remove your cactus from the pot and let it dry under the sun, and if you are lucky it will survive.

Lastly, food is of course important too. It benefits to feed your cactus with fertilizers specially made for cactuses. I heard that normal fertilizers do well too, but I’ve yet to try them out. If your cactus bends towards the sun or has a small/thin unusual growth that tries so hard to grow towards where the light is at, then you will know that it needs more sun. Change the location and it will be fine.

I guess that’s all I can share with you for now. I hope we (the people who fail at gardening and lastly resort to cactuses) will become successful at out new hobby. Happy gardening people!