twinkles

i know nothing about guitars, but i do know that my partner has a 5k les paul, and a cheap old fender stratocaster something-or-rather, and he hardly ever plays the les paul. Loves the fender and wouldn't swap it for the world, something about it being lovely to play and having great sound. So yeah they're probably good guitars.

here's our gae, eating algae..

congratulations

great see i knew i'd feel silly worrying lol she was fine when i picked her up, the teacher said she'd been great all day and not shy to ask when she doesn't know something. Just finished telling me some of the things they did today. Didn't want to take her uniform off Phew!

well the morning went fine... she was up and dressed into her uniform at 4.30 this morning, trying to wake her little brother up to play without me hearing lol. Spent the next 4 hours asking if it was time for school yet i stayed at the back of the class while they had news time, then they were going to play a game so i said i had to go now, and she looked a bit freaked but just waved goodbye, she was sitting with all her ex-preschool friends by then. So i'm sure she'll be fine. When we went for our visit yesterday they asked who already knew her, and half the class did from being at preschool together. Now i've got a long quiet day till its time to pick her up and find out how it was and what she thinks of it, quiet for the little brother too. I think we'll do water changes on all the tanks, that'll take all afternoon Also spotted on our visit yesterday an empty tank in the back of the room.... will be talking to the teacher this arvo to offer to set it up and maintain

mine's in with little fishies, the biggest other fish in the tank are a pair of female bettas, 100-ish litre tank, so maybe thats part of it, there's nothing big enough for him to bother taking notice of, and no other bottom dwelling fishes. If he does turn nasty and start eating the others i'll have to move them out and leave it to be his tank, because its in my daughters room and he's her favourite fish.

my first little babies are going well, still seem to have the same number after two weeks (actually there's way more than i though i had a week ago lol). I can't believe how fast they grow! They seem even bigger every time I look in on them. Have a second tank set up ready to move some of them this weekend, there's about 15 huge ones and 6 or so that are lagging behind so i thought i'd move the big ones out and give the others a chance to catch up. Planning on trying to breed dad again with another girl, maybe next week. Will make sure i have batteries in the camera this time to catch them spawning, it was fascinating last time

mine hasn't gone nasty yet, in a community tank. He's at least 10cm. He does do some strange things though...

that's a beautiful poem Bilbo, it captures the feeling perfectly. I guess that's what its all about really, after 5 years of spending nearly all day every day together, its time for her to go out on her own, do things without me watching over her, make her own friends, make decisions and learn things without refering to me constantly, and of course i have to worry if i've taught her enough, or the right things, if she'll know how to interact with everyone else. The fantasy world preschoolers live in is so innocent and fun, everything is clear and simple, its sad in a way that they have to grow up and learn to deal with things in the real world. All the kids from preschool who will be in her class are lovely though, i'm sure she'll make friends again easily. Whetu thats what she was like with starting preschool, i worried and stayed for a bit, then said goodbye and left for an hour, when i came back she wasn't ready to come home. So i'm sure its only me thats so worried lol. She'll never learn not to laugh out loud, but i'm sure one day she'll learn to keep quiet when the situation demands. The kids round here are mostly from farms, so they'll probably catch frogs and play in the mud together, no prim little girls here. And she'll probably still sneak up in the night to bring our old dog into her room to sleep by her bed, even though he occasionally disgraces himself by peeing on the floor, she worries he'll be lonely in his bed.

and i'm definatly not letting her buy her lunch for ages, until i think she can without problems, i remember going to buy lunch at intermediate when i first started and it was scary with all these huge kids pushing and shouting

we've been for a very quick look at the classroom, no proper school visit yet, because her teacher has been off sick all term with the flu. She's supposed to be back today so i'm just waiting for them to ring then we'll be going in this afternoon for a couple of hours, and the same tomorrow. But the teacher has been to visit preschool twice so she knows her a little at least, and we've got a nice book they give out at enrollment about 'what will i do at school when i am 5' which runs through everything they do in a day with photos, so that should help too. She was worried last week that she might get a boy for her 'buddy', has been reasurred that it will be a girl though lol. Unless the girl is away on friday it will be one of her friends who left preschool a few weeks ago, so fingers crossed she's there. We live one house away from the school so she's used to going there to play on the weekends, and seeing all the school kids going past on their way home, and all the preschool teacher's kids go there so we usually see them picking up their kids each afternoon too. Oh and her nana is a teacher too so she's been to visit her school lots of times and seen what they do there. I'm sure it'll all be fine really, but i still can't turn off my worrying voice in my head. I'll be glad next week once she's settled in and everythings fine, and i'm sure i'll feel silly then for worrying so much.

It's my eldests 5th birthday tomorrow, I'm nervous as heck lol. She's not the least worried about starting school but i was lying awake for ages last night worrying about it. I'm worried she wont know what to do, or she'll get lost in the playground, or no one will want to be her friend, or she'll think the teacher is scary, or she'll miss preschool too much. I'm sure none of that will happen but its terrifying none the less. Why does no one warn you when you're pregnant how scary it is being a mother? I'm sure i'll be more nervous on friday than i was on my first day of school. Everytime i think of a new thing to worry about her dad says stop being silly, she'll be fine, but i can't help it. What if i put the wrong things in her lunch, or forget to put something in her bag she's supposed to have? I'm sure some of you have been through this and its all turned out fine on the day?

aren't they cute? counted 18 this morning, definately more there than i first though. They've grown so much too, its hard to believe, i think they're about 3 times the size they were when hatched. Week and a half old now :bounce:

40wpm 97% i'm suprised, thought i'd got much slower than that must have finally adjusted to my little laptop keyboard

the mothers are the worst sometimes, they hunt them down and gobble them where as the boys only seem to try and grab them if they happen to pass

i keep 6 males and 2 females in a well planted 100L, with a couple of female bettas and a furcatus rainbow. When the girls have babies most of them seem to survive. I had two big girls dropping 30+ each time, i'd just net them out when it got too crowded. Now i have two younger girls in there who are related to the boys, when they drop i leave the babies a couple of weeks until they are sexable, then pop them into a girl tank and boy tank, and the best boys go back in, the rest get sold/given away. They're endler/wild guppy crosses and i'm trying to breed them back to being more endler-like, i figure this is the best way to do it without loosing too much of their variability. I just pick the young boys that look most like i want them to in colouring, and swap them with the older males that aren't as nice.

the temperature, feeding, water changes etc while they grow helps to determine adult size, but it is largely genetic too. The wild type guppies are generally alot smaller than show guppy strains, and different fixed strains of guppies will be different sizes. My little wild/endler gups are 2-2 1/2cm for males, but the females are double that.

they get especially confused by snakesking or wild type boys that have the black dot on their side, seem to think they are gravid spots on girls lol Our preschool fish were all little wild x endler male guppies, until we had two beautiful big show males donated, now the original ones are convinced these big ones must be girls, very amusing watching them displaying for all their worth

welcome what part of the waikato are you in? Are they brown bristlenoses? They're my favourite, love the little white tips on the babies tails

they mate every chance they get watch the male closely when he's chasing a girl, you'll see that everytime he gets close he swings his gonopodium out sideways and tried to jab it in there, occasionally he'll succeed.

lol i figured it out i was reading to many threads at once :oops: what i meant to say here was.. Yes guppies can change sex, several people here have first hand experience of it. Closest i've seen was an almost adult male with a gonopodium change to female shape, lose colour and his gonopodium changed to female shape, didn't get to see if s/he could have babies though.

woah what just happened to the posts in between? They're all gone away or is it just me?

if you search a few pages through the livebearer threads you should be able to find the ones where this has been discussed before

depends on the fish, some males are terrible at harrasing the girls, some go after just one mercilisly, and some are laid back and hardly bother them. If the girls are looking stressed and hassled add some more or take out the trouble maker. Yes guppies can change sex, several people here have first hand experience of it. Closest i've seen was an almost adult male with a gonopodium change to female shape, lose colour and his gonopodium changed to female shape, didn't get to see if s/he could have babies though.

what if you put a glass wall in the tank and the new one on one side, so they can see each other and have their own space for a bit before meeting properly? I walled of the end of one of our tanks by getting glass 1mm wider than the tank and burying the bottom in the substrate, with a spare suction cup either side of the top.