Moved blog. Name-servers are propagating. Patience. I have none.
Edit: Going to begin moving posts over from the WordPress.com blog and other various places I’ve posted. I’ll also be playing with temporary themes, so ignore the mess until I get all moved in and have things decorated to my liking.
Edit 2: Think I found a decent theme. Dunno if I’ll keep it or not. We’ll see.
:)
Blondies
Blondies from scratch, and they turned out delicious! Doug helped, and we used chocolate chips since we didn’t have any butterscotch chips.
Not my recipe… can’t recall where I snagged it.
Blondies Recipe
1/2 cup of butter, melted
1 cup of tightly packed dark brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon of baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1/3 cup of butterscotch chips (chopped walnuts and chocolate chips are equally tasty)
Directions
1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter and flour an 8X8 pan. Whisk together the melted butter and sugar in a bowl.
2 Add the egg and vanilla extract and whisk.
3 Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, mix it all together. Add the butterscotch chips or other mix-ins.
4 Pour into the pan and spread evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool. Cut into squares and serve.
Tank is finally cycled, finished up with a few more decorations and added the Malaysian driftwood. 10 Serpae Tetra, 3 Panda Garra and 2 Marimo. Decided to do the Neons last as they are the ones that will stress the most during the ride home. Plus I’m going to get them from a place a bit closer to home so that the drive isn’t as long.
PetSmart has the cleanest and nicest tanks that I’ve seen thus far. Plus I like the stickers with the fish info on them, which let you know if they’re community fish, semi aggressive, minimum tank size, foods they eat etc. etc. etc. Most of the non-chain/privately owned LFS that I’ve gone to have tanks that are borderline nasty, and the fish do not look healthy at all. Stickers have no information about the fish either, so I’ve added a saved link on my cell phone to The Aquarium Wiki for quick references.
Had to go 20 minutes out for the Panda Garra due to no one close having them (much less heard of them). They’re SO adorable, too!! A bit on the spastic side, but they’re still cute as hell. You can’t really see them as they’re small, but they should grow to roughly 4 inches or so. Trying to get a picture of them is going to be painful I think!
More fish coming soon! Click on images for larger view.
Completed cycle
Completed cycle
New 30G tank is still cycling, so it will be a tad bit longer till I get fish to put in the tank. Right now I’m focusing on getting things aquascaped. The very center is kept open for a large piece of Malaysian driftwood that is being soaked in a bucket so I can remove some of the tannins. Bought another 25lb bag of Este’s Spectrastone Gravel to finish off the aquascaping, but I haven’t added it yet. The idea is to make a hill going upwards to the right side of the tank (perhaps just half of the new bag). This should raise the cute little pagoda up a bit. I think it will look awesome. Not sure yet if the center back part will need more plants. Will have to wait and see. I’m also still unsure of what kind of background to stick on the back of the tank. Doug thinks a nice solid color would look good, but I’m leaning more towards a background picture of plants for a more natural look. Again, will have to wait and see. ;)
One of my stocking ideas (not definitive):
6 Harlequin Rasbora
7 Neon Tetra
6 Rosy Tetra
10 Serpae Tetra
3 Panda Garra
Check the Aquatics page for more info on this 30G setup! Click on the picture for a larger view.
Aquascaping while fishless cycling