Once again this is going to be a rant-esque bit of writing although it's informational as well.

One of the biggest mistakes newbie Aquarists do when they get into keeping fish is that they get a tank and they don't cycle it. Let me state again. THEY GET A TANK AND THEY DON'T CYCLE IT. One could post a thousand and one facepalm.jpg's and it still wouldn't do justice to just how much derp is involved when you don't cycle a tank. Usually this ends up costing fish sellers money because they have to refund fish due to stupid customers. This costs the customer money because they tend to freak out and by all sorts of quick fixes to try to remedy their mistake. It also means a lot of potentially rare or expensive fish end up dead.

Do us all a favor. If you have a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a family member who wishes to get into fish keeping make sure they research how to properly cycle a tank. Pester them. Pass the information along. Tell them they need to look onto ensuring the focus on getting the biological set up right before they add fish.

Do you know what it must be like for a poor fish stuck in a uncyled tank? It's a bit like if you got thrown into a house and forced to stay there with no where to go and the house looks clean but it smells like urine, dog piss, has mold on the walls, and is so dangerous air wise that it's killing you.

If you want some reading here is a good place to go: http://www.firsttankguide.net/cycle.php

Another thing many newbies often don't realize and often fail at is selecting fish that do well together and making sure they can accomodate the size of the animals they bring home. If you have a 20-50 gallon aquarium you can't expect fish like Bala Sharks, Clown Loaches, Ghost Knife Fish, and other similar animals that need lots of space to thrive into adulthood. Also if you want a lot of pretty community fish you can't really keep them with verocious predators like Bichirs. What ends up happening is a lot of fish end up unwanted, killed, dumped in lakes, dumped on pet stores...etc because people didn't do their research and cannot afford to upgrade to accomodate the size of the fish. Plan ahead, don't be stupid.

Living in an area with little rain to "biodegrade" the lanterns I have seen first hand the hazards they pose. We all know our furry friends like to chew on things they really shouldnt- hey thats the fun of pets, unpredictability. With more and more vet visits and deaths associated with the lanterns I thought I would post some safety snippets.

Locally 2 dogs on base have been put down. This is cause for alarm because this shouldnt happen. The base doesnt allow the lanterns instead they are from outside landing in our areas. Two dogs ate and ingested the metal wire inside one of the things and had to be put down due to sepsis. The wire caught in their colon ripped into their internal body cavity and thus caused infection to spread.

http://jacqui2011.hubpages.com/hub/.....ns-The-dangers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8490524.stm
http://www.wishlantern.co.uk/blog/2.....safety-hazard/

This also poses problems for cattle and wild life. While not only a strange object floating in the sky can distress wildlife, birds are trapped in them http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wi.....ife-fears.html this causes possibly a slow painful death by starvation or stress. They also can cause forest fires- and we know why that is bad.

Chemicals in the paper can cause seizures in rare cases so please be advised to look for any metal wires and get rid of them asap. If you suspect your pet as ingested a foreign object that they shouldnt have TAKE THEM TO THE VET. Do not wait. Animals have a habit of hiding illness. If you see wild life in distress- do not approach them. Instead call local wild life officials and explain the urgency of the matter. Never approach wild animals as this wont end well for either party.

Always watch your pets when out and about. Always keep pets on a leash and try and keep them safe by making sure they are not chewing or ingesting things they shouldnt.

You might not think about your pets when it comes to the New Years celebrations. However it is a fine time to think about how the combination of cars, drunk people, and unsupervised kids can lead to unnecessary animal deaths during the new year. Animals left out can be targets (that's ofen the case on Halloween too in some areas) so remember to bring them back inside. Don't leave your dogs outside, and bring your cats in. Make New Years not only safe for yourself (don't drink and drive duh!) but also for your lovely pets.

First of all I owe everyone an apology for not being able to have this group start off the way it should have. It's slow going and I do have a lot of things on my place right now. So for now I will update this journal with relevant bits of informatin and in time put together a nice long essay detailing the subject I detailed earlier.

Now that said Winter is upon us. As DD said in the comments and I will say here "KEEP YOUR PETS WARM". Just because your furry friends have fur doesn't mean you should abandon them out in the elements for long periods of time. It's cold in a lot of places right now. Water freezes. Food freezes. So do yourself and your furry friends a huge favor. Don't leave them out in the cold. They need to be inside where it's warm.

Not only that you might stop and also think about your scaly friends as well. Fish Aquariums sometimes absorb some of the temperature that is within a home. So if it is really really cold and you are not heating your home your tank can suffer a heat loss. If you are running house at a very warm temperature your tank may see an increase in temp. So take these things into consideration as heat or don't heat your home. Also reptile tanks can go through the same thing depending upon your set up. Anothern thing to think about are birds if you have them. An open window can mean death for a bird. Wrap the sides/back of a cage with blankets to help keep them warm (thanks Clayton for that suggestion). Plan accordingly and keep all your animal friends well taken care of during the winter months. Also (contribution from DD) don't forget to regularly check on the animals water. Don't let it freeze, and keep changing it out if you have to and or use hot water to break up stuff that is beginning to freeze.

Moving along I brought up Spaying and Nuetering your pets. I know there are people on each side of this camp. Personally I feel that if you are not a responsible breeder, and not looking to breed than fix your pets. For females going itno heat is a exuasting and painful experience. Humans don't know quite what it is like because we don 't exactly go through the "in heat" phase that things like cats and dogs go through. Going beyond their discomfort having animals at home in heat can lead to high stress for people because (especially with cats) they become very vocal, irritable, and or moody. Having to deal with that yowling at night becomes irritating and can lead to high frustration levels.

For males the desire to mate can lead to a lot of wandering type activiities. It can lead to increased aggression, spraying(which can cause problems in the home and with neighbors) amongst a whole other host of things. Animals like cats and dogs tend to live happier less stressful lives, and pet owners tend to be happier and less stressed when their animals are fixed. So if you have excess money and you have unfixed animals you may think about gifting them with a better overall life. Also you might also look into donating to local places like the SPCA that helps families have affordable options to fix both family pets and strays.

That's all for now. I will try to have another thing posted sometime in January. Have a wonderful holiday if you celebrate one, and a safe new year.

I have little time as it is right now so unfortunately that essay will take a while. That said since it's relevant to current goings on in my life and may very well be for others I'd like to say a piece about fish keeping. This involves one of the most popular forms of pet keeping today. It also involves care of (often small) animals that are wholly dependant on their care taker. Let me repeat...these animals are wholly dependant on their care taker. There are times where I feel that if a person is unable to properly keep fish alive and in a clean healthy environment that they are ill able to care for other animals that are larger and require even more upkeep.

So what does it take to take care of fish well? The first thing is obvious. Budgeting...you need to stop right now and think about just how much money you can afford to put into this endevor. You need to put forth the initial expense of a set up. Then once you have your set up you have to buy actual animals and the items you need for care long term. Now I can only speak for my own experience with fresh water tanks. The basic set up however includes:

A tank(often a stand), hood(which often holds a light), heater, thermomater, filter, air pump, and an airstone. This is your basic hardware. Now when it comes to size I suggest reading this carefully: "The larger the aquarium, the easier it will be to maintain. This sounds contrary to what common sense would predict but here is the reason why: A large aquarium has a better chance at replicating nature, which is the natural cycle that fish live with.
The larger the fish tank, the more likely it can sustain it's own biological processes, the more space beneficial bacteria has to grow and flourish on which in turn reduces the nitrate levels in the aquarium, allowing the water chemistry to be stable and the tropical fish to be happy and healthy." ( http://newaquariuminformation.com/a.....r-aquarium.htm)

Some other links worth checking out are : http://www.petfish.net/articles/Aqu.....sics/equip.php
and: http://www.firsttankguide.net/upgrade.php

Moving along something I have noticed that is frustrating is the inability of fish owners to do their research or maintain their tank properly. I am now going to share some stories with you of people I come across at pet stores that are well..rather stupid.

I will call this first story "The mystery of the disappearing fish".

There was a couple that frequented Petsmart, and they had a big community tank stocked with small schooling colorful fish. I overheard them arguing in the dog section of Petsmart over if a cat was eating their fish, or if the fish that they had added several months ago was eating his tank mates. I ended up steppingin and asking what kind of fish had they had introduced. I kid you not these people introduced Bachirs. They had put one of these: http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/fis.....natebichir.php and one of these: http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/fis.....graybichir.php into their tank. They did not know that both of these fish are predators and will eat any living thing that fits in their mouths. They didn't want to believe me at first until they asked the person working in the fish department and got the same answer.

Bichirs are not community fish. They willl eat their smaller tank mates if they can catch them and if they can fit it in their mouths. Lesson here is research fish before you add them. Make sure the conditions your current tank has will accomodate them and know what to expect for different species as they mature and get older.

The second story is "Shocked".

It's very simple. A couple started bickering while talking to the person working the fish department because one accused the other of killing their fish. Apparantly one of them took out over 50 percent of the tank water, and the other one dumped too many of different chemicles into the new water. Together they effectively shocked their fish, killing them. Also it is interesting to note that the last time they did a water change was 6 months prior to the death of their fish. Lesson here is: Don't do mass water changes, read up how you use your chemicles and don't overdose your tank, and do frequent water changes.

The third and final story is called "Derp"
This is even shorter. Some idiot bought a fresh water fish and put it in a salt water tank. He went to the store demanding a refund. Yeah, don't do that. Don't not look at what kind of water your new fish should be in. :C

I've seen others from people who leave a dead fish too long in a tank and it causes an ammonia build up and the rest of the fish die. There are people who shock and kill new fish by A: Not floating the fish so that they can adjust to the new temp, or B: not introducing water in the tank to the bag during the float and thus kill them because they can't adjust to a sudden change in PH, or chemicle make up.

Research research research. Perhaps fish keeping isn't as simple as it seems with the whole water aspect but if you can't bother to be responsible enough to do your research and act on it than that's not a good start to keeping animals. So for now that's it. I hope to have an actual essay on what the value of keeping animals but it will have to wait.

In the mean time did you know looking at an aquarium can lower your blood pressure? http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/t.....riumhealth.htm
http://www.seacave.com/poi/fish.php
http://www.sound-mind.org/aquariums.....ce-stress.html

But I ditched the previous idea for getting art for the page since it seems like no one was intersted. That's okay, I"ll get art for this one way or another.

I need to find time to start on that first essay dealing with why it's a good thing to care about the treatment of animals. After all how we treat animals reflects back upon us. Here are a few things I plan to address:

The effect of companions animals on human health and longevity.
The correlation between animal abusers/cruel death, and the abuse of people/murder.
How working with animals often helps troubled people get back on the right track.
How animals are often very good early warnings for imminent natural disaster.

These are just a few of the things popping around in my head. Many of these things above have good bits of evidence backing them. For example a recent study showed that looking at an aquarium can help lower blood pressure. Well taken care of dogs can also equal better fitness (dogs have to be walked). The presence of animals in a home also is linked to lesser levels of stress(I need to find the specifics on that one.

We also know that people who have a history of callously abusing/killing animals for pleasure end up being violent against people, and also tend to follow the path into being a murderer. On the other hand there are programs that pair troubled or criminal people up with working with troubled dogs and the result very positive for both human and animal. We also know from incidents like Tsunamis and Earthquakes that animals are very good indicators of danger. There are also so many stories of animals warning their owners of fire, toxic gases, and in the case of dogs sniffing out skin cancer when they are not even trained to do so. I hope to be able to dig up a lot of references for this. If there are other examples you know of that deal with how treating animals well and living well with them is good...please please drop your comments in the comment section.

1: Get the rules of engagement typed up and ironed out. (A first draft is up on the first page)
2: Get the profile info hammered out with a conscise to the point statement of purpose for the group.
3: Get the Avatar and Icon fixed up with something nice
4: Write official actual first submission of why we should seek to help/and or be kinder to other animals as well as find a first topic of discussion and make a journal to open up the ball.
5: Locate and set up a few people to co-op this as well as find people knowledgeable in specific fields of animal husbandry.

Yay fun to do list but there you have it. I am open to ideas of what the Avatar and Profile Icon should be.