What Footsie taught us !Written by graham and julie
We have just inherited a rag, tag and bobtail of a dog called ’Footsie’. She was found three weeks ago wandering around outside a local restaurant for a couple of days looking for food. Paula, a woman who takes responsibility for stray animals in this part of island, took her in and started to look after her. She soon found that, Footsie has such a quiet, loving nature but is definitely not a ‘looker’. She wouldn’t win any awards at Crufts. Pure white coat, almost albino type eyes but a protruding bottom set of teeth which means she always has canine tooth on left and several of her other teeth showing. But, as we said, a lovely temperament. Very playful, loving and peaceful. Paula took her to local vet for a check up and found that Footsie is about 12 to 13 months old and had recently, within last three weeks or so, had puppies. The vet gave appropriate medicines to help her during whelping period. But otherwise was in good health. She also had a chip in her ear but when they checked computer system found that registration had not been completed properly and only an out of use phone number was registered. So: no chance of finding original owner. For next few days you could see Paula and Footsie walking around village and after a couple of days it became more and more obvious that Paula was getting very attached to ‘Footsie and Footsie to her. After all, Paula had taken her off street and shown her a lot of love and affection. The only problem is that Paula specialises in cats. Wild street cats; and so there was no room in apartment for Footsie. The result: Footsie spent nights in Paula’s car and days in her office. It wasn’t long, no more than a couple of days before people in village began to notice Footsie. About a week later a young guy approached Paula and asked if he could take her for his parents. Their dog had recently died and so he thought she would be an ideal replacement. An ideal loving dog, especially for an older couple. Footsie loves sitting on people’s laps! The deal was done. Paula agreed and Footsie was taken by young man, placed in his car and taken on local ferry to next island where his parents live. Unfortunately his father did not like Footsie. For whatever reason he said he did not want her in house. Although his mother quite liked her it was an impossible situation. So she had to make return journey.
| | Spawning the Chinese Algae-eater Written by William Berg
And one day there were fry... Spawning Chinese Algae-eater (Gyrinocheilus aymonieri) By William Berg of Sweden, for http://www.aquaticcommunity.com Gyrinocheilus aymonieri Common name: Chinese algae-eater Family: Gyrinocheilidae (Algae eaters) Order: Cypriniformes (carps) Class: Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes) Max size: 30 cm/ 12 inches Water conditions: pH range: 6.0 - 8.0, temperature 25 - 28°C/ 77-82°F I would like to say a few words about one of bigger surprises I've had as an aquarist. A few years ago I was cleaning out a 50 gallon holding tank in which I kept fishes that were going to a new aquarium when new aquarium was ready. I also used it for keeping fish I didn't know what else to do with. At this time this aquarium was home to twelve blue discus of about 10 cm, and four albino Chinese algae-eaters that were about 20 cm. The aquarium was overgrown with lots of C. Demersum since it had been neglected a little during previous months. Now time had come to clean this aquarium and try to weed out jungle that had formed. To my big surprise I found a small (1.5 - 2cm) Chinese algae-eater fry. After looking around a little more I found a total of seven fry. I stopped cleaning and left aquarium as it was, since water quality was good and I didn't want to change too much. I didn't see any reason to move fry since they seemed big enough to be safe from discus which I was moving to a 120 gallon Amazon tank in a few days anyway. The fry survived and grew relatively fast on a diet of what they could find in well-planted aquarium, and boiled lettuce. But I never got parents to spawn again, and fry themselves never spawned either. However I would like to say a few words about how Chinese algae-eaters had been kept before spawning, and which waters they spawned in, to see if I can help anyone else have success where I failed - to breed Chinese algae-eaters and figure out what triggers them to breed.
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