Jul 13 2019
After adding a few plants to my aquarium in its early stages, I added one good-sized piece of natural driftwood, for several reasons. One, I simply love the natural look of it. Secondly, fish like to have items that they can swim around and hide in and behind, so I wanted to make the place …
Jun 23 2019
This month I had the pleasure of visiting Palm Springs, and of watching the recently released documentary on Frank Sinatra’s life in Palm Springs, and I must say that the film paints an accurate portrait of the beautiful desert oasis. One of the narrators of the film describes a Palm Springs neighborhood looking exactly the …
May 19 2019
Sunday morning: I had some of this pretty petunia colored yarn leftover and decided to make a set of coasters with it. This pattern uses a single crochet spiral to form each coaster, rather than finishing off each row. I like the look of the spiral and it makes for a fairly simple pattern. It …
Mar 19 2019
The first thing I added to my aquarium, after adding plants, was two apple snails – one blue and one golden. They are attached to each other all the time, and since I got them, the golden snail has doubled in size! The golden one has laid eggs twice in the past two weeks, but …
Mar 17 2019
My sisters and I have always loved fragrances, including trying new scented candles and bath products. And scented candle making, soap making, and perfumery have long been some of my favorite hobbies. Now my daughter has grown to love fragrances as much as the rest of our family, so when she asked me to make …
Mar 01 2019
To further my pursuit of creating a planted aquarium, I got this cute little Marimo Moss Ball that I just easily dropped into the tank. Despite their name, they are not actually moss, but more closely related to algae. My daughter thought this plant was so cute that she got me to buy several more! The …
Feb 25 2019
This morning I got CaribSea Tahitian Moon Sand as substrate for my aquarium. It’s very beautiful sparkling black naturally-colored sand and I got it to mix in with the natural black gravel that I already have in there. Sand is good for plant roots and it supposedly reduces nitrates better than gravel. Also, there may …
Feb 22 2019
Today I added two new plants to my aquarium, Temple Compacta and Anubias Frazeri. I was happy to see that my new plants had healthy looking roots when I pulled them out of their Top Fin containers. Both are wonderful green leaf plants that you can just place in the gravel and let the roots …
Feb 21 2019
Welcome to The Aquarista, where I blog about my aquarium life and you get to watch me attempt to create a happy, self-sustaining aquarium ecosystem! For the New Year, I decided to set up my new aquarium, and I am very, very excited to get started. I spent a few days thinking about how I …
Feb 10 2019
This is one of my favorite salads, as a matter of fact, when I go to a new German restaurant, I always have to try their cucumber salad – that and their hot potato salad. The dressing combines smooth sour cream with tangy lemon juice and vinegar, and fresh dill. I like onions in mine, …
