LA

A:  No prob.  Brackish water comes in many variations.  Just add one teaspoon of aquarium salt to each gallon of water.  Voilà.  You have made brackish water.  Since you live in Johannesburg, you may even find an African mudskipper.  We can only get the Vietnamese mudskippers in our area.  See Mudskippers for more info.  LA

A:  Do not mess with the pH.  All those buffers tend to bounce around after 30 days.  Since your mudskipper will spend minimum time in the water, his pH is probably a moot point.  Mollies do great in a brackish tank.  Many of the rainbowfish also like brackish water  LA

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A:  Looks like we get the same little mudskippers here in Des Moines.  I'd have to disagree with your research indicating they are herbivores.  As the pics indicate, piscivore, vermivore, and insectivore would describe them better.  LA

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A:  Easy.  Angalfish look great in nearly every tank.  LA

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A:  Mantids like to hang from the top.  Part of the problem could be the large crickets in the cage with your mantis.  Adult crickets can bite pretty good -- speaking from personal experience -- and they work at night.  Try giving him/her one cricket at a time.  LA

A:  Put a small lamp on him to warm him up a bit.  That will speed up his metabolism and make him hungrier.  This has been a poor year for mantids in our neck of the woods.  None of our staff has seen even one mantis this year.  LA

A:  Evidently there are some mantids (especially those in the tropics) that turn somewhat pink to camouflage themselves amongst pink and red flowers.  I've never seen one myself.  LA

A:  Sounds like you no longer need to worry about your green mantis.  The larger one is likely a female and wil lay an egg case (maybe more than one) on the lid of her cage.  LA

A:  Since you're only 55 miles away, it's easily worth the trip -- especially if you'll be in Des Moines anyway.  We stlll have 300-400 tanks.  LA

A:  Probably closer to half a pound of emails.  95% of them are spam or semi-spam -- mainly ones I don't need to answer.  Seems like every webmaster in the country (and others) wants to link with Aqualand.  These links raise our rankings in the google searches.  But I don't see much connection between most of them and pets.  By the way, I printed your letter because it's like an ad for Aqualand.  It's also known as "organic content" which also increases our google ranking.

Some mostly link request samples:
Simona, New Braunfels Hotels, Guadalupe, Mexico. September 24
Alyssa, blog articles, September 23
Davina, Water Softeners, September 21
Karen, Coral Gables Hotels, September 19
Mary, flash drives and wrist bands, Florida, September 16

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Craig Hall's koi pond here in Iowa.

A:  Water hyacinth grow incredibly easily -- so easy in fact that our state of Florida spent millions of dollars every year before they finally got them under control.  The only thing that keeps them from carpeting Iowa is our winters.  I can't think of any problems that would keep them from flourishing in your weather except if you treated your pond with some type of algae killer or copper-containing parasite treatment.  LA

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Water turtles in captivity occasionally expel eggs in their water.

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Red-ear slider eggs are not this large.  It absorbed quite a bit of water and swelled up.

A:  Male RES have long back toe nails.  It sounds like you have a female and she laid an egg.  The pictures above are eggs that were laid in water.  They're nearly twice the size of an egg laid on land.  LA

A:  All the livebearers are pregnant all the time.  They have several litters in their bellies and pop them out about every six weeks.  There's nothing wrong with her.  She ate her babies.  They're about the size of a fat eyelash (one with Mabelline on it).  If you want to save livebearer fry, put your female in a well planted 10-gallon tank.  Then feed her well.  A diet of frozen brine shrimp will work well.  Add a mystery snail or two to clean up any excess food.  LA

A:  Yes, temperature affects fish metabolism.  Most aquariums are two degrees cooler than the ambient (room) temperature.  If she is cool, it will take longer for her to have her kids.  LA

A:  Crush the food even smaller or get your hands on some frozen baby brine shrimp.  Feed them very little several times a day.  Add some snails to clean up the excess food.  LA

A:  Your fry are probably snacking on the little animacules that inhabit every established aquarium.  Live baby shrimp and frozen baby shrimp would both "disappear" into your filter.  Frozen ones are easier than hatching live ones.  Both are eagerly eaten by livebearer fry.  LA

A:  I'm stumped.  Can you send me a photograph?  LA

LA
Mystery snail laying eggs above the water.

A:  Mystery snails lay their eggs some two to three inches above the water.  Otherwise the eggs would drown.  Some two or three weeks later the eggs start hatching and the baby snailettes slide into the water.  You can find more info under Snail, Mystery on our Table of Contents page.  LA

A1:  Your egg mass contains 100+ baby snails.  They are good for your pond.
A2:  By "seed" snails you probably mean Physa species, otherwise known as pond snails.  They are taking over your pond because you are overfeeding.  Cut your food by one-third and they will starve.  So will your mystery snails.  Actually, snails are very beneficial.  LA

A:  Good eye, dude.  It took me a long time to spot it.  No, I don't run that site.  It appears to come from Australia.  However, I don't care if they use a photo or two.  LA

A:  Whenever one of my oscars evinces such torpor, I give him/her a 50% water change.  You also might find it useful to warm his tank a few degrees.  Make sure his filter is working and give him a small crayfish to stalk and eat.  LA

A:  Don't "clean" your tank too severly.  You want to keep some of the nitrifying bacteria in your filtration system.  I focus much of my efforts on reducing the CTD syndrome.  LA

A:  I made a couple corrections in red.  I don't care if I'm not #1 in Nigeria.  I'm already close enough.  LA

A:  If you don't think you bought trhe right spider, bring him in and we'll make a swap.  Personally I would not "handle" any spider.  I saw a Mexican red legg kick off a literal cloud of those nasty hairs while it was being handled by a pro.  Work with Paul on your spider selection.  He's only here Sundays.  Or better yet, bring it in TarantulaWeen eve.  Might as well have some fun.  LA

TarantulaWeen 2010 Preview

A:  No prob on the spider toting from this end.  One advantage to Sunday night -- no other businesses are open.  We get all the parking lots.  Just let one of our troops know you need a toter, and you got one.  LA

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A:  Hmm.  Sounds like duckweed might be a good food to keep triops from eating each other.  Triops are neat, but mine always turned into cannibals.  LA