Greg In The Desert

I do not yet own Aquarium Strip Ease. I like the concept, use water test strips and compare them to the colors in the app. The app will explain what steps are need to improve water quality and presumably keep a log.

Based on the screen shots, I think the app could use a little more polish and could look more like a standard iPhone app. I would also like to have a similar app with full aquarium tracking functionality. I have bought and deleted a fair share of iPhone apps, I will wait and see what other reviews think.

Aquarium – Strip Ease 1.0 is $1.99 on the iTunes store.

This version of Aquarium – Strip Ease supports API® 5 in 1 Test Strips, and Mardel® 5 in 1 Test Strips.

If you use a different type of strip and would like to use it with Aquarium – Strip Ease you contact us using the special email address found within the app we will work with you to include your strip in the next version.

Strip Ease is an easy way to read aquarium test strips. Simply dip your strip in your aquarium then match the colors on the strip with the color pads on your iPhone and find out quickly what your water condition is.

Features:
• API® 5 in 1 Test Strip Comparison
• Mardel® 5 in 1 Test Strip Comparison
• Fresh and Salt Water Testing
• Stores Water Test History
• Email Test Results and Test History

API® is a registered trademark of Mars Fishcare North America, Inc. and is in no way associated with Aquarium – Strip Ease or Key Lime 314, LLC.

Mardel® is a registered trademark of Sentry AQ and is in no way associated with Aquarium – Strip Ease or Key Lime 314, LLC.

A 5 month old kitten adopted a coworker of mine. She showed up on his door step one day and made her self at home. He tried to keep her for about a week, he even took her to the vet and had her checked out, but for various reasons couldn’t and his next option was to send her to the pound.

Now the kitten, which I have named Saturn, lives with me. She has a grey and black tabby coat. She is a polydactyl cat with 6 toes on both of her front feet. She looks like she is walking around on baseball mits. She still needs shots, spayed and to be declawed.

OK I admit it: she’s adorable and I never imaged I would own a cat or even a kitten for that matter. It’s been a little over a week since she first came into my house and it’s been an interesting experience. I’m happy to report that she hasn’t caused any trouble with urinating on anything and has used the litter box for all her waste needs.

She seems to have four modes. Spaz mode is one of the most common. Yesterday she was in super spaz mode where she went nuts nocking everything off the coffee table, jumping on and chewing on things. That ended when she jumped off the couch, slid onto the coffee table and into a box. Both her and the box crashed into the TV. She then ran into the bedroom for about 20 minutes. When she came out she was much calmer.

Her other modes include patrol mode, where she walk around the perimeter of the house. Love me mode is where she wants to sit in my lap no matter where I am or what I’m doing. Keep your distance mode is where she wants to keep me in site and observe but not come near me.

Due to the coyotes that live near in the area, Saturn will be an indoor cat. I posted a HD video of Saturn’s first look at the aquarium on YouTube.

It’s been over a year since I last wrote anything about my aquarium set up and the last few posts were about my issues with keeping algae under control. Since then I’ve had a problem with a particular gold gourami that became extremely territorial and quite the bully. It didn’t matter what fish I put in with him, short of smaller fish like zebra danios, he would eventually kill them all. Not knowing what else to do with the little shit, I left him in the tank by himself (with a few zebra danios)

My last post was on my troubles with the Otocinclus cat fish. Despite my best attempts they just would not live more than a few weeks. I decidied to try something I never did before and stock the tank with a few cherry shrimp. I purchased 10 of them from a person on the aquariacentral message boards and they arrived as tiny little clear animals. After the first month I thought they had all died off. After the second month I started to see a few full grown adults. A year later I have hundreds of them living in the tank. After the population began to boom they literally stripped the tank clean of algae.

They don’t keep the tank 100% clean however, there’s still a fine layer of algae on the glass. I also made the mistake of putting the java moss that came wit the shrimp in to the tank and now it’s just a grown all over the place. The shrimp eat it but don’t keep it under control which requires me to pull as much of it out of the tank that I can ever few months.

The shrimp also make a good meal for the fish. I don’t feed the fish at all, they eat the plant materials and the shrimp. Even the zebra danios can been seen pooping red (the adult cherry shrimps are red).

The Gold Gourami died a few months ago and I’ve done very little tank maintenance during its life. With that much water and so few fish not much waste is produced but there was still a some of cleaning to be done before I start stocking the tank again. Besides the filter, gravel cleaning and algae scraping I’ve reduced the amount of time the lights are on from 12 to 8 hours and will run the UV sterilizer for a few weeks.

The Hydor Prime 10 canister filter I bought many years ago is under sized for this tank. I like the filter, it’s completely quiet and does a good job but its not going to be enough when I have a few dozen fish in there. I’m looking at the Eheim Pro 3E or the Lifeguard system. That will be a post for another day and another budget.

It’s been about 10 days since I set up my aquarium and I’ve suffered 2 losses. After a few days I did the testing for ammonia, nitrides and nitrates and everything looked good. I put in two Bala Sharks, they died almost instantly.

What a waste. As far as I can tell, my test kit chemical had degraded and wasn’t giving accurate readings. I bought a new test kit which showed a high nitrite level. The tank has since settled down and I proceeded to add more fish.

I first added two White Clouds (Tanichthys albonubes), which really are not tropical fish but minnows that come from cool streams in China. They don’t seem to mind the tropical environment and they were really cheap. Next I added a Gold Gourami and a Blue Grurami, both which are doing just fine.