Around the house

It rained - hard - for 20 hours straight here.  We haven't seen rain like that since the first winter we lived here.  I actually thought it was really nice because it gave me an excuse to do things in the house without feeling like I should be outside enjoying the oddly warm winter weather we've been having this year.  I'm making homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight, we're cleaning and organizing the house a bit (filing papers, sorting out old clothes to donate, etc), and now Steve's going to clean the fish tank.

Steve's got a planted aquarium set up in his man cave office/spare room.  The plants produce oxygen (lots of it!  Look at the bubbles in the water) the fish use the oxygen and give off CO2, which the plants take up.  The fish also poop and provide nutrients for the plants.  At night an air pump comes on to keep the oxygen levels up while the plants aren't producing it and there's supplemental CO2 being trickled in from an outside source too (yeast + sugar + water = CO2).  It's a pretty maintenance-free system, especially for me since Steve does all the work!  The trouble is that we started with guppies, which make babies like crazy.  We started with seven fish and at one point estimate that we have over 200 fish in the tank.  Steve put up ads on Craigslist for free guppies and some have found new homes.  Still too many big females in the tank though!

Happy Sunday!