Hello everyone.

This week I'm going to talk about the Swap Meet I went to last Saturday. It was at least an hour away. It was held at the Madison County Fairgrounds in Richmond Kentucky. I was looking for Shrimp, Guppies, and some floating plants. I had sort of made an arrangement for a deal on Shrimp though a Facebook Group. I did complete that deal. I then looked the rest of the room over. I purchased some Guppies from a guy who had posted to the Facebook Group and bought some very affordable floating plants. Next time I will stay longer than I did and probably won't pretty much decide who I'm going to buy from beforehand. I think I spent about 30 minutes in the swap while total driving time was over 2 hours. I think I would have purchased some botanicals and might have bought more shrimp. Next swap meet will be sometime in the spring and I'm already looking forward to it.

Pretty sure that I have found a third clutch of Mystery Snail Eggs this morning. I will find out for sure once the lights turn on in the aquariums. They lay their eggs above the water line. Most of the videos about the eggs on YouTube say they take 10-14 days to hatch if you incubate them in a container. They can incubate up to 4 weeks though. The first clutch fell in the water. Not sure if that clutch will be viable. I'm still incubating it. 

When the eggs are laid they are very soft. That is why they suggest leaving them 24-48 hours to harden up a bit and make them easier to remove. I was waiting 48 hours on the first clutch when I woke to them fallen in the tank. The 2nd clutch I removed before the lights went out on the second day. That is what I plan to do with the perceived 3rd clutch. If I confirm it to be there, I will remove it Sunday evening before the lights go out in the aquariums.

Halloween is 10 days on the first clutch. With it falling in the water, I don't have much hope but I'm still incubating since it takes very little effort to do so. Also, I need the experience of working with the clutches. I currently have 5 Ivory Mystery Snails each in 2 tanks. Thus far all the eggs are coming from the same tank. They do say they can lay weekly over a 4.5 month time period from one insemination. They do require a M/F.

As you can read I'm very excited about the snails. The shrimp and Guppies look like they need to grow a bit before I can expect more of them. The Guppies are livebearers. They are in a tank with lots of floating plants so the fry will have plenty of hiding spots. The shrimp have the females becoming "berried". It just means they carry the eggs underneath them and move them with their swimmerettes. Once they become viable the shrimplets are released. That tank only has snails and shrimp in it along with some plants. They should be fine once they start making more.

Thanks for reading my weekly rambling. I'm still hodling my crypto.