Sunday

[LizStreithorst]

Good morning friends.  Sorry I missed yesterday.  I had a great day doing nothing interesting.  A guy bought 3 pairs of Rams which is great news.  I'm surprised that so many people want these Pitch Blacks that I am still able to get the same price I was asking a couple of years ago.  I guess they really are hard to breed for most people.  How are yours doing, Willie? 

Today is another not exciting day but nice day.  I have learned that if I'm going to post here I need to do it before late afternoon rolls around.  By then I've done my WC in the hot humid fish room and then go into a hot house and the heat combined with the back pain makes me retreat to the bedroom where I can lay flat on my back with Shawn's portable AC running.

The blue berries are really doing their thing.  I need to get something to keep the stink bugs off my 'maters.  We had a big storm that was a dud here.  The garden still needs more water and Ill have to do it myself.  The gods won't be sending any until maybe Thursday.

What's going on with all the rest of you?  Barb did you have fun working outside yesterday?  Ron, what do you have lined up with the plant business?  You really have it going on!

[wsantia1]

Good afternoon everyone. Liz, just like your storm my storm was a big dud too. Plenty of lightning and thunder but very little rain. It did leave a lot of humidity behind. We do have a 40% chance thorms coming through tonight. Hopefully it doesn't start until late tonight.

Liz my Rams are still doing well. I am ready to move them into a larger tank but first I have to get one ready. I would say 75% of the fry are black and the rest are gold but that's just from looking at them.

I've had very few losses and most of them were early on after free swimming. I haven't had any losses for several days now. Once I move this group to a larger tank I will put the parents back in this tank and start the process again. I need to strike while the iron is hot.

I've been feeding these guys 3 to 4 times a day but very little at one time. I am pretty sure that most of the losses from my previous spawns came from overfeeding. These guys are super small at birth.

[Ron Sower]

Ron, what do you have lined up with the plant business?  You really have it going on!

I missed this the other day, Liz....I may be repeating myself some here...
I've completed cutting down a tall stand for a super heavy 110+ gallon tank to go outside...today I stripped the black paint off the back... I'm now using plastic shoeboxes with substrate in them so I can easily keep similar species separate and easy to pick come bagging time...I use masking tape as labels which I stick on the front glass...we moved the bagging station out of the fish room into the utility room giving me more room to move around to pull plants and it gives Lucy her own area to bag and label... we also moved the start of our order picking earlier in the day so we have our evenings back...

Meanwhile I'm trying to hone my buying to the point I don't have way too much of a species and not enough of another...it's not like our customers are walking into a retail store and choose from what they see in the tank...our customers look on the website or FB page and order from the stock that is shown...we're having some problems keeping the inventory correct on those sites, so we're searching for a way to do that...

Meanwhile we're testing new species and products...we're setting up to have a private labeled line of USA tissue cultured plants added to our line at a price that will be very competitive &  should have them ready to sell in August...also adding shrimp to our lines ...that may start as early as next month...they will be dropped shipped from a nearby shrimp culturist under our label as well...

As we move along I like to add 1 or 2 new plants to our line and drop those that don't move very well...

One of the hardest things right now is dealing with emergent grown plants...it takes time for them to transform to submerged leaves and we don't have time for that, and there is a lot of melting...it's mostly stem plants...I'm trying to figure this out as we move forward...

Our high school packer/shipper fellow is doing a good job and is consistent and doesn't miss workdays...we may have to replace him when he graduates and moves on to his higher education but that's a good ways Down the road...I'm thinking I may have a potential employee pool here in the park with the retirees that may want to keep busy or need a little cash...

One more thing...as we were driving to the shrimp guy's place to negotiate the deal, my partner told me he wants me to take on 70% ownership of the business so he can back off spending time with the shipping process and concentrate more on the internet marketing side of the business...I'm considering that...

That's about all at this time...Liz, thanks for asking...that put me into review/planning mode!...