Angels Ready to Sell

There is quite a discrepancy in the sizes of the angels as they continue to grow. The largest angels have bodies larger than a quarter, and they will go to the pet shop first.

Having the larger ones gone will give the smaller ones more of a chance to grow and flourish. They should then gain weight much faster and will be able to go to the pet shop in about 2-3 more weeks.

The smallest ones, two black marble angels, are not quite a dime in diameter, even though they are from the same clutch. Had the parents remained with them, they would have killed those to give the larger ones a better chance. But these can flourish as well and live long and happy lives. I've seen it happen!

Climb That Fence and Take That Leap

Today's special guest is Philip Johnsey. Raised on a farm and having been a volunteer at different animal rescues, it’s no surprise that his first two published articles were about animals. So it’s only fitting that Phil’s first book is about animals and the connections we share.

From Phil’s first high school job to present, he’s spent his career working with clients, explaining complex ideas in an easy to understand manner.  In addition Phil enjoys exploring the world and sharing those adventures via writing, photography, and videography.

Phil’s credits include, multiple certifications, Reiki master, photographer, author of two blogs, author of a travel column, creates short segments for a local T.V. station and whatever else he can get into.

Kirkus Review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/philip-johnsey/climb-that-fence-and-take-that-leap/

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

I asked Phil if he had five things he wish every pet owner knew. Here are his answers below. And Phil, thank you for joining us here today!

Hi! Thank you for the opportunity to swing on by. This topic really made me think more than expected, which I always enjoy. Here are five things I wish every pet owner knew.

In no particular order…..

11.      Pets have distinct personalities: 

That may sound obvious, but if you pay attention, you’ll see they’re very much like people. Some are very easy going and just float along; others demand a lot of attention and will let you know if they don’t get it, some just are playful. For example, Edmund is easy going and mild whereas Amanda needs lot of attention and validation.

2

2.      Pets are protective on a variety of levels:

We’ve all seen stories of pets alerting owners to fires or other in home physical dangers. Pets can also sense things about people. I’ll never forget the evening my mild mannered, laid back cat decided to have a stare down with a guest. As soon as this guy sat down, Keiko climbed onto the coffee table and just stared at him. She didn’t move an inch and was directly in front of me. The guy became very uncomfortable and even noted he had never had a cat stare him down like that. Keiko wasn’t moving at all and we couldn’t budge her. Later on this guy’s true colors shown and he was not someone we wanted to be around.  Keiko was dead on in sounding the alarm.

33.      Pets are intuitive:

Similar to number two, pets can read us and know what we need. I know when I’m not feeling well or sad both cats will come and stay near me. What’s even more interesting is times I’m quite upset and one will just walk up, rub against me and just stand there. As if to say, “it’ll be fine, I’m here”.  On a fun note, the other morning I was thinking to myself "this would be a good day to take a sick day”. I never said a word, but as soon as I thought it, both of the cats excitedly ran around the house and then headed for the door waiting to be let out.  It’s like they knew: Daddy’s home today, we get to hang out on the porch.

44.      Pets have feelings and emotions:

We all know pets can be happy. Just wave a ball in front of a dog! Yet I’ve seen them display sadness after another pet passed away. I particularly remember a time when Edmund kept trying to get out of the fence and I finally fixed all the escape routes.  He just lay on the patio, as if he had no purpose. He didn’t seem to care much about anything else. Even eating was routine. I changed the patio where he could explore and the life instantly came back. If you want to experience this first hand, take a walk in a shelter and see the animals that are just lying there. Wondering what happened to their owner, will someone take me home?

55.      Pets need attention and love:

This sounds too obvious, but often life can get in the way and we end up giving them food and water and that’s it.  It’s amazing how they wake up when you give them a little brushing, or spend some extra time with just them.  When you give them love and attention, they totally wake up and then show you more affection. It’s a cycle that is worth continuing.

In summary, I’d say that pets are more like people than we think. They have feelings, emotions, personalities, and a special bond with their owners.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Edmund blasts across the yard against my calls to come in. He gleely runs off and I chase him across the grass only to find a unique butterfly or a sky filled with stars. As soon as I stop and admire, Edmund promptly comes to my side and rubs against me.

Do you ever wonder if there is more to your pet's behavior than meets the eye?  Sometimes their antics are more than just random behavior.  Can we learn something about ourselves by watching them?

I believe so and Climb that Fence and Take that Leap is a compilation of personal, inspirational animal stories and the life lessons I gleaned from them.

After enjoying these stories, hopefully you'll enjoy more quality time with your furry friend and know what it takes to Climb that Fence and Take that Leap!

AN EXCERPT

Unconditional love isn’t always easy:

You remember how I said I’d spend more time with her? That became very difficult as the disease progressed. The sickening smell, the drool, and the wet fur made it hard to be near her, let alone pet her.

Whenever she came up to me, there was always a puddle or mark left from her drooling on me or rubbing against me. Anything she laid on or was near captured that smell.

Then one day I looked at her, and she just looked so pitiful. How could I not show this cat who’d been with me eighteen years some love? That was just being selfish and mean. I grabbed some old towels and began to hold her frequently. She just loved it. As soon as I picked her up, she’d just purr away. Yeah, the stink would get through onto my clothes, but that was OK. It was worth it.

It had always been easy to hold her when she was clean. Now that she was stinky and sick was when she needed that affection the most. As much as I loved my cat, there were days where it was difficult to be close to her. Often I’d get upset with her, and I knew that it was my frustration coming out. I just wanted to help her be well.

Unconditional love can be hard sometimes. You have to go way past the funky appearance and the odd smells, and think solely about the other person. You have to think about what it’d be like if you were in that situation. What would you really like?

MY REVIEW

I don't usually review books, but anyone who knows me knows what an animal lover I am. I couldn't resist asking for a review copy. And to my delight, this book is a real gem. As I read about the author's 18-year relationship with his cat Keiko, it brought back memories of my own pets and how much their lives taught me about living. Both heartwarming and heartbreaking, I was pulled into the drama as Keiko was diagnosed with a type of squamous cell carcinoma that degenerated her entire jaw. The author told of wrapping her in a towel and taking her on car rides, which she adored, as her physical condition waned. Her emotional attitude, however, remained high and that is due (in my opinion) to the caring and loving attitude of her owner, who clearly adored her.

Johnsey takes the story a step further, however, into what Keiko taught him about living each day to its fullest and making every moment count.

He also tells of a turtle he rescued who became a pet and family member, and how the turtle discovered the world beyond his fenced courtyard. While some owners would see the digging under the gate as a nuisance, Johnsey took the role of an observer, discovering why the turtle wanted to explore its world and deepening his bond with this unlikely pet. The result is how much this turtle taught him about broadening his horizons, taking on challenges and never giving up.

A truly heartwarming story is one in which he found sea turtles digging their way out of the sand and making their way to the beach, encountering rocky outcrops and terrain that threatened their lives. Only the size of quarters, he watched and assisted without taking from their unique experiences and tenacity to reach the sea. There were stories of waves pushing them back, of imprints in the sand that swallowed the baby turtles, of rocky ledges with four foot drops, and much more - but their determination to reach the sea and survive was an amazing, inspiring story.

There are many of these stories in which Johnsey observed animal behavior and applied their attitude, problem-solving and tenacity to our own lives, our own challenges and the worlds we make for ourselves. The result is learning how to excel in this life and perhaps, in the process, becoming the type of human that our pets believe us to be.

This is a quick read, if you're looking for entertainment. But it's much more than that: it's a reference book to return to time and again, to re-read the lessons and learn how to apply various principles to our own lives.

Highly recommended reading.

LEAVE A COMMENT - AND WIN A GIFT!

Philip will be awarding a $50 Amazon gift card to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour.

Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: 


http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2013/09/virtual-book-tour-climb-that-fence-and.html

Buy links:

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Climb-that-Fence-take-Leap/dp/1478200162/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371561944&sr=8-1&keywords=climb+that+fence+take+that+leap

Barnes and Noble:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/climb-that-fence-and-take-that-leap-philip-johnsey/1114721387?ean=9781478200161

Createspace:

https://www.createspace.com/3923565

Batch Nine

I've decided to number the latest batch of eggs Batch Nine. Yesterday I posted some pictures, and today I have this short video of Stevie watching over the eggs. The video was taken as I was looking down into the tank.

The angels prefer to lay their eggs on amazon leaves. This time, they selected a leaf where I see only the back of it when I approach the tank. This gives the eggs more privacy, for sure!

As they get close to hatching, the parents will clean other leaves and adhere the babies to the leaves by their heads, where they will dangle until they are large enough and strong enough to pop off and swim.

Meanwhile the Honeymoon Suite is Working...

As the current batch of angelfish fry get large enough to sell, Lindsay Buckingfish and Stevie Fishnick are starting yet another family.

I found these eggs on the red amazon plant. This is Stevie watching over them.

It might look at if she is simply watching them (kind of like watching water boil) but she is performing a very important function. The pectoral fins are fins that are on either side of the angelfish's body. They are constantly in movement, and when Stevie is watching over the eggs as she's doing in the picture above, the movement of those pectoral fins actually fans the eggs. This keeps fungus from forming on them. Fungus, as you might guess, will kill the eggs.

When the parents are removed after laying the eggs, an air tube can be placed directly under the eggs to keep the water moving around them. This will also prevent fungus. As a last resort, a chemical can be added to the water to kill the fungus, but I don't like using that method.

I prefer to keep both parents with the fry until after they have hatched and are free swimming. However, I have learned if they remain together for too long, the parents will kill the weakest and smallest of the group, in order to ensure survival of the strongest and fittest. So I separate them a few weeks after the fry are free-swimming.

Here is Lindsay and Stevie together, watching over their eggs.

This is a 20 gallon tank, and these two angels are the only ones in the tank - plus their eggs.

Alpha and Omega

With a clutch of fish, some emerge as alphas and some as omegas.

Alpha angelfish are almost always male. Within a few weeks, they are twice the size of their brothers and sisters. They are the ones that learn the quickest and are the pushiest when it comes to food and survival.

Omega angelfish can be female or very passive males. They are the smallest angelfish and usually stay away from the others in their group. You'll often seeing them going their own way - when their brothers and sisters are crowded at the surface of the water to eat, they are at the gravel level, or hiding amid the landscape.

If I'd allowed the parents to remain with their young, they would have killed and eaten the omega angelfish in order to give the largest and more robust babies a better chance at survival, which also means less competition for food.

Because I separated the parents very soon after their babies hatched, it gave all the fish - even the omegas - a better chance at survival, because there are no predators and there is plenty of food for all. In the video below, you'll see the variety in size between the alphas and omegas.

Release of my 16th Book

Normally this blog is about raising freshwater angelfish and focusing on my rescue dogs on Friday Friends. But I wanted to let you know that my 16th book, The Tempest Murders, was just released and this week I began my first book tour to promote it.

The book is considered cross-genre, and I'm finding that men really love it. It is a detective story with Irish Detective Ryan O'Clery attempting to solve a series of murders in North Carolina as Hurricane Irene barrels toward the coast. In another sense, it is a love story that stretches across centuries and halfway around the world. And in another, it is considered slipstream, which means it moves between the present day and the past, blending together like time travel.

The book is a nominee for the 2013 USA Best Book Awards and is a nominee as well in the 2014 International Book Awards.

Ryan O'Clery has always had vivid dreams of a woman he loved and lost at the hands of a killer in 1839 as a massive storm swept across Ireland. But when he discovers a journal his uncle five generations past and halfway around the world in Ireland, he realizes they were not fantasies but memories of a man who died nearly two hundred years earlier. He also discovers that the murders he is currently investigating are nearly identical to those Constable Rian Kelly was investigating as the killer set his sights on his soul mate, Caitlin O'Conor.

When Ryan meets Cathleen O'Reilly, a television reporter, she is the exact image of the woman in his dreams. He becomes convinced she is the reincarnation of Caitlin O'Conor - and he is Rian Kelly. As a hurricane nears their shores, he realizes the killer's next target is the woman he is falling in love with.

This is the story of soul mates found, lost and reunited... And the lengths to which one man will go to change their destinies.

The book can be purchased at any book store or through amazon (http://www.amazon.com/The-Tempest-Murders-p-m-terrell-ebook/dp/B00EOAFTYY for Kindle or http://www.amazon.com/The-Tempest-Murders-p-m-terrell/dp/193597016X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0 in paperback) or in the UK at http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Tempest-Murders-ebook/dp/B00EOAFTYY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381670161&sr=1-1&keywords=the+tempest+murders (Kindle) or http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Tempest-Murders-p-m-terrell/dp/193597016X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1381670161&sr=1-1 (paperback).

The Parents

Yesterday I showed the latest batch of angelfish babies, who are going on seven weeks of age.

Here are their parents, who are permanent residents of the Honeymoon Suite:

Lindsay Buckingfish is the 10-inch tall, black marble angelfish with an orange crown. About half of the babies are black marbles.

Stevie Fishnick is the platinum angelfish, around 7-8 inches tall, with a golden crown. About half the babies are a variation of white marble, mixing the solid color of their mama with the marbling of their papa.

I have noticed as Emmie Lou gets older, her crown has gone from platinum to golden, like her mama's.

Lindsay and Stevie have laid eggs as often as three weeks apart. I've lost count of the number of clutches they have conceived.

They chose each other as mates when they were in the community tank. After laying eggs several times (which were promptly eaten by other fish in the tank) I moved them to their own, private tank. Angels can live to be 10 years old and they mate for life, often grieving themselves to death after the loss of a mate.

Discrepancy in Sizes

As the angelfish babies continue to grow and flourish, some have established themselves as alpha fish while others languish far behind.

In one batch of fry, there are always some who will quickly become twice as large as the others. They are the ones who come to the surface first, who are less afraid of danger and who eagerly await my visits to their tank with food in hand.

Others will end up very small. These could be females, or they could be omega fish. They tend to hide behind the plants longer, are less eager to come to the tank glass, and are far less adventuresome. They spend much of their time near the bottom of the tank.

This is normal with a batch of fish fry. However, as time passes, the smaller ones will catch up, though the females will typically remain smaller than the males. Eventually, they will all be quite accustomed to human faces and the food humans dispense.

I have begun feeding them finely crushed dry flakes in conjunction with the dried brine shrimp and First Bites. They will soon transition to the flakes and dried shrimp, and then almost exclusively to flakes, as I ready them for their new homes.

Angelfish Fry Nearly Dime Size

Meanwhile, the latest batch of angelfish fry are continuing to flourish. The father is a black marble and the mother is a platinum. Just over half the fry are white marble and the others are black marbles.



As they grow, they've become more adventuresome, swimming toward the surface of the water and leaving the school to explore as individuals.

In about four weeks, they should be large enough to sell. While some angelfish breeders sell them when their bodies are the size of a dime, I believe this is entirely too young; the mortality rate is high at that size when they are moved to different water conditions. I prefer to keep them until their bodies are the size of a quarter or larger, to give them a better chance at surviving and flourishing.

Kept in the right conditions, angelfish can live to be 10 years old.

New Betta

Now that Emmie Lou has moved from the betta tank to the community tank, I found my betta tank empty and the adjoining betta depressed. Seems he enjoyed watching Emmie Lou in the next tank over, and once she was gone, he was lonely. He spent his days hovering on that one side, looking for her.

So I decided to get another betta. The small, 2-1/2 gallon tanks are easy to clean if I can remove the one fish inside, so although I contemplated something like neons or glofish, that idea was short-lived since they'd be harder to catch during each water change. And smaller tanks can get dirtier much faster than larger ones.

My friendly local pet shop phoned me to let me know a new shipment of betta babies had just come in, so off I went.

Here is the new, multi-colored betta. He is a comb-tailed betta, the first one I've had. He seems very happy to be out of a cup and in a real tank. He is about 1/3 of the size of the adult betta.

Success in the Community Tank

Emmie Lou has been in the community tank for almost a week. I am very happy to report that she is doing extremely well. All of the other angelfish (a silver male, a blue marble male, two koi females and a koi that I believe is male) have all accepted her into their group.

Though her body is roughly the size of fully grown tetras in the tank, they are non-aggressive; I selected them because they are not fin-nippers. So Emmie Lou has a predator-free tank.

Emmie Lou's father is a black marble ten inches tall, and a platinum mother about 7-8 inches tall. She is about 10-11 weeks old now, and I believe she will be a large fish based on her current height.

Here she is almost one week after being introduced to this tank:



Climb That Fence and Take That Leap

I just finished reading Climb That Fence and Take That Leap by Philip Johnsey. The book is a real gem.

As I read about the author's 18-year relationship with his cat Keiko, a seal point Siamese in dark-chocolate with deep blue eyes, it brought back memories of my own pets and how much their lives taught me about living. Both heartwarming and heartbreaking, I was pulled into the drama as Keiko was diagnosed with a type of squamous cell carcinoma that degenerated her entire jaw. The author told of wrapping her in a towel and taking her on car rides, which she adored, as her physical condition waned. Her emotional attitude, however, remained high and that is due (in my opinion) to the caring and loving attitude of her owner, who clearly adored her.

Johnsey takes the story a step further, however, into what Keiko taught him about living each day to its fullest and making every moment count.

He also tells of a turtle he rescued who became a pet and family member, and how the turtle discovered the world beyond his fenced courtyard. While some owners would see the digging under the gate as a nuisance, Johnsey took the role of an observer, discovering why the turtle wanted to explore its world and deepening his bond with this unlikely pet. The result is how much this turtle taught him about broadening his horizons, taking on challenges and never giving up.

A truly heartwarming story is one in which he found sea turtles digging their way out of the sand and making their way to the beach, encountering rocky outcrops and terrain that threatened their lives. Only the size of quarters, he watched and assisted without taking from their unique experiences and tenacity to reach the sea. There were stories of waves pushing them back, of imprints in the sand that swallowed the baby turtles, of rocky ledges with four foot drops, and much more - but their determination to reach the sea and survive was an amazing, inspiring story.

There are many of these stories in which Johnsey observed animal behavior and applied their attitude, problem-solving and tenacity to our own lives, our own challenges and the worlds we make for ourselves. The result is learning how to excel in this life and perhaps, in the process, becoming the type of human that our pets believe us to be.

I highly recommend Climb That Fence and Take That Leap.

Angelfish Fry at Six Weeks

The newest batch of angelfish are now going on six weeks of age. I've lost no fry over the past 2-3 weeks, since separating their parents from the fry. This in itself is an encouraging sign, as it shows how hardy and healthy this batch is.

In the video below, you'll notice a sponge over the filter intake. This dramatically reduces the possibility of an angel getting sucked into the intake. As the smaller brine shrimp gets pulled toward the intake, it also allows the babies to eat the shrimp caught in the sponge without mishap.

I am now feeding them dried brine shrimp instead of freshly hatched, plus First Bites. As they get larger, they will be introduced to a high quality dried food (I prefer Tetra Color).