1G Pond-Snail Repository Story (or, 'Silmarwen Fails At Everything')

[Silmarwen]

Last night, while scrabbling for something to fill the time between about 8pm and my 10pm bedtime, my eyes fell upon my Pond Snail Repository.

I don't know if this is a problem anyone else has, but I feel bad killing the snails for no reason. They're too big to squish and feed to my betta, and I don't have an appropriate tank to get any other snail-predators.

So I threw them, and some soil, decorative rocks, and half-dead plant trimmings, in a 1 gallon bowl I had on hand. And for a while, all was well. They ate up the dead bits of plant, and I just let it be. No light, nothing.

But last night. Last night, I thought to myself... I COULD SCAPE THIS. Last time, when I poured in the water, the dirt all clouded up and settled on the sides of the bowl and on the plants and such, making it rather ugly. The snails cleared it off, but not without leaving little black snail-poop-lines all over. I didn't know snails COULD poop. I spent a few minutes contemplating the Great Pink Sea Snail's poop upon that discovery.

Anyway, this all brings me to last night, when I decided to take everything out, trim the crappy bits off the plants, and replant everything.

I started with what was not necissarily an incredible eyesore. Granted, half the plants were near-dead, many were chewed to bits where the snails had taken the dead off, and there was a pile of probably decaying Java Moss that I had bought but didn't have anything to tie to at the time. (Impulse purchase. Whoops.)





I Pulled everything out. All of the plants, I lay on a paeper towel. Also, the snails. Any snail I could find got picked out and paper-toweled.





Out came the rocks, then I dumped the water over the balcony. (That was fun! ...the first time...) Some of the dirt stayed, so I decided; "It hung on. It deserves to live.

So I began replanting.





But upon attempting to pour the water slowly down the side of the bowl, I blew up a huge cloud of dirt. So I decided, GO AWAY DIRT.

And I dumped the water and dirt out even more, and cleaned the bowl.





This was it. My brilliant idea. I'd SLOOOOOOWLY flood the bowl from the bottom, so nothing would be disturbed and blown up, like when you dig a hole below the waterline at the beach, and it fills ack up with clear water.

My genius was undeniable.





I replanted. It looked nice.





THe pond snails got bored and started wandering from their assigned pile as I was re-planting.





So. It comes time to try and flood it again. I thought I was smart. My funnel-tube-flood-from-below plain was airtight.





...Or not. So I picked everything out, dumped everything out, and tried AGAIN.

And this time, I covered the mud in those big flat marbles. And decorative rocks. And air. And then water,
over my hand, at barely more than a slow trickle.

And it mostly worked.





So I tied the Java moss to a chopstick, stabbed it into the bottom, and floated some riccia of questionable health on top. I put it on my desk, and glared balefully at it, because it looked better before.

[Elppan]

Dirt always works better with a cap, lol. I can't kill the snails either, don't feel bad. I love the idea of the Java moss chopstick

[Silmarwen]

Originally Posted by Elppan

Dirt always works better with a cap, lol. I can't kill the snails either, don't feel bad. I love the idea of the Java moss chopstick

I didn't have any sand, except some decorative sand that had bits of glitter in it. I didn't figure that would work too well <_< But I wanted to fix it NOW. (I'm impatient. Working on fixing that, haha.) My problem before was that I had used, again, decorative 'rocks' as a 'cap' instead of a fine gravel or sand or whatever. So I tried to fix it by doing the exact same thing. (What's that quote about insanity...?)

I'm glad my moss-stick is appreciated. I thought it was fairly clever

[Knotyoureality]

Isn't it wonderful how often "poke it with a stick" actually works?

Some of the dirt will settle, the rest you can easily suck out on your next waterchange.

[Silmarwen]

Originally Posted by Knotyoureality

Isn't it wonderful how often "poke it with a stick" actually works?

Some of the dirt will settle, the rest you can easily suck out on your next waterchange.

It's amazing, really. I've used the poke-with-stick method for so many things. It's useful in cooking, computers, bugs in the house, annoying customers, and apparently aquariums!

And... I kind of never planned on water changes for this. ^^; This is the first wc that's happened since I started my little "pile of crap" as I fondly call it. Inever saw any reason, since it's always been just some place to put stuff that I didn't have the heart to toss, lol.

[Knotyoureality]

Originally Posted by Silmarwen

It's amazing, really. I've used the poke-with-stick method for so many things. It's useful in cooking, computers, bugs in the house, annoying customers, and apparently aquariums!

And... I kind of never planned on water changes for this. ^^; This is the first wc that's happened since I started my little "pile of crap" as I fondly call it. Inever saw any reason, since it's always been just some place to put stuff that I didn't have the heart to toss, lol.

I'm not as concientious on waterchanges with my toss pots, but they do still get one now. Keeps my hard water from turning to liquid concrete!

Keeping clippings/excess plant material is a hard habit to break--I spent half an hour last night trying to figure where I could put my surplus floaters before I realized how stupid I was being and just tossed 'em. Even with the thinning I've still got spares to take to my next local meeting *and* probably enough to do a decent ROAK if I ever get off my butt and do one.

[Silmarwen]

Ahahaha. I've got all the making of a hoarder. You should see my "craft crap" shelf. Shards of mirror (What if I want to make a mosaic!), little stupid fimo-clay balls in hideous colors (I could paint them!)... I'm horrible. Plant stuff will only exacerbate the problem... "It's alive! I can't just THROW IT OUT. You monster!"

Aaaaaahhhh this is going to be fun.

[andrewss]

how nice of you to spare the pond snails

[Silmarwen]

Originally Posted by andrewss

how nice of you to spare the pond snails

I try. xD

[andrewss]

I wanted to spare mine in my 5 gallon nano but man do those things breed like crazy so after a few months of them reigning I opted to buy two assassin snails last week

[Silmarwen]

I want to get assassin snails, but I don't have quite enough for them to eat yet haha.

[steven p]

Originally Posted by Silmarwen

What's that quote about insanity..?

insanity is doing the same thing every day and expecting different results?

[Silmarwen]

Originally Posted by steven p

insanity is doing the same thing every day and expecting different results?

Yes, indeed.