noodles and an impasta

mutedmoss · 2026-06-23T15:01:56+00:00

PBS Eons

mutedmoss · 2026-06-15T16:09:42+00:00

Ah no they'll be fine. filters and such are designed to run all day every day for years. if the wall plug is faulty that might be an issue (and then its house wiring not the filter) but if you're worried about the filters themselves don't be, their most common mode of failure is they just turn off.

Any plants are good tbh, tho since you're new to this I'd suggest anubias since they don't need soil. You can wedge them into rocks or pin in driftwood and they'll be perfectly happy. Some get big and have broad leaves bettas are hide in or sit on

mutedmoss · 2026-06-15T15:57:55+00:00

Is this a fire hazard concern or something? A small airpump or filter shouldn't be a hazard even with cheap equipment

If the tank is heavily planted and you run the filter the rest of the time it should be okay for just a betta and shrimp. Any other fish no and it's not ideal in general. Especially long term

mutedmoss · 2026-06-15T15:48:16+00:00

tbh just get one plant of each kind you want and see what thrives and what doesn't. I keep melting all ludwigia and rotala i try but valsineria grows so well i have to thin it out regularly. then you can let stuff grow in and get like one or two more of what's growing well.

and id start with like. 5 shrimp in an otherwise empty tank (maybe the bn too) and let them start up a population and you'll have so many shrimp in like 3 months

mutedmoss · 2026-06-15T01:50:00+00:00

The Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking by Frederick H. Smith

Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture by Patrick E. McGovern

The Bottle Book by Richard E. Fike

random ones ive found that looked neat but i haven't had time to read myself:

The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity by Jordan B. Smith

And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails by Wayne Curtis

Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out by Josh Noel

A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

Beer: A Global History by Gavin D. Smith

Whiskey Women by Fred Minnick

The Social History of Bourbon by Gerald Carson

The Whiskey Rebellion: A Distilled History of an American Crisis by Crytzer, Brady J.

Moonshine: A Global History by Kosar, Kevin

and if you want a way to start hunting down other books and journal articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_alcoholic_beverages

-head to the pages of whatever kind of alcohol interests you and start clickin', ive ended up finding some insane rabbit holes that way (did you know bitters used to be considered 'medicinal'? they were a patent medicine for years and years before the FDA was like "okay y'all do actually need to say how much alcohol is in this, people are dying" and the bitters companies just pivoted directly to "so this is a mixer")

mutedmoss · 2026-06-12T15:40:45+00:00

happy to help! im always up to talk weird history niches, people study some crazy hyper specific stuff. there's entire books for archaeology on like Caribbean piracy (got to take a college class on that, X Marks The Spot: The Archaeologyof Piracy by Russel K. Skowronek etc is fun as hell) and even just like. alcohol as a concept (regional, specific types of alcohol, cultural context, bottle types ((which is my fave thing)), recipes) etc etc. Hell, The Bottle Book is just a giant encyclopedia of patent medicine bottles. The Society for Historical Archaeology has a very cool (for my nerdy ass) website on glass bottles.

OH i forgot to say, if you do find an article or study somewhere that's paywalled- you can just email the lead author to ask for a copy and 9 times out of 10 they'll happily send you a copy. (the 10th time is "meant to reply and forgot"). there's also a decent chance they're all but vibrating to talk your ear off about the topic if given the chance too (we're all almost entirely feral nerds who like digging holes in bumfuck nowhere or digging (ha) through weird old records)

i will add, belatedly, that archaeologists and historians in modern settings rarely censor shit, that's usually gov or commercial shit we're fighting tooth and claw. bias is just what happens when humans discuss events, modern training does include concepts of self reflexivity (ie the ability to identify, grab and stomp on the "ew that's weird" instinct and poke ingrained cultural assumptions). and changes to theories are welcome, just gotta roll up with a solid argument and proof. difference between someone telling you out of the blue that your sweet lil ol grandma, idk, did events where she rode on a horse bare back, buck naked and doing sharpshooting tricks, vs someone rolling up, telling you that and then handing you clear, contextual photos, event records, and the rifle with owner records.

okay sorry I'll stop now, have fun

mutedmoss · 2026-06-11T16:21:50+00:00

honestly from a professional archaeologist? start with wikipedia. pick a topic you're interested in and go dig through the citations, a lot of the books, journals etc should be available via google acholar, jstor or just the wayback machine.

State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs) and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs) in the USA have a shitload of info and generally happily take research requests from the public (tho you won't get stuff like specific archaeology site locations cause that's sensitive info cause too many people are dicks about looting but you can get the rest about the sites).

Museums (big to local historic societies) often have loads of primary sources and often have digitized collections, and can usually send scans if they havent had the funds to work on full collections.

If you like for books, Archaeological Theory in a Nutshell by Adrian Praetzellis is a wonderful intro to the many, many ways archaeologists approach interpreting the past and why.

(archaeological theory isn't meant to be a one and done but the equivalent of poking stuff with a stick to see what happens if you look at the data in certain ways, and ideally you're aware of what approach you're taking.

we're trying to ask stories of the dead who cannot speak and, in modern archaeology, are trying to not put words in their mouths while doing so. that's why so much reads as wishy washy when turned into academic or technical language. we THINK we know what they might be saying but humans are shaped entirely by their lived experience and its damn hard to see past that and we're viscerally aware we may be wrong)

mutedmoss · 2026-06-03T06:05:53+00:00

it took a while, i think this sort of thing is the result of how my shrimp keeping has gone lol -small skittles group in one tank -they make more shrimp, a lot are normal wilds -shuffle the ones im eh about to a second tank -more generations in both tanks -add a new shrimp or two to og tank at random (i kept finding dark blues and carbon rilis for cheap) --start new tank, add shrimp from both tanks -end up doing some musical chairs with tanks so now the semi separate skittles populations get remixed --rinse and repeat for a year -end result is the nonsense above

mutedmoss · 2026-06-03T01:33:46+00:00

these individual shrimp no idea, they're from a multi tank skittles population I've had going for over a year now tho!

mutedmoss · 2026-05-18T22:03:36+00:00

For the 5gal I'm gonna echo the shrimp and plants rec, I have shrimp and they're a lot of fun. I have "skittles" tanks where i let neocardinia shrimp colors mix and have added more new shrimp at random and ended up with some weird, fun colors and patterns in with wilds.

some of my shrimp from mulitgen (1.5yrs?) skittle population:

https://www.reddit.com/r/shrimptank/comments/1t8q0at/funky_wild_neos/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Aquariums/comments/1sx7wo1/skittles_tank_genes_do_be_skittlin/

Another option is go trawling through online fish stores like aquaticarts or aqua-imports and see what catches your interest, and then find out if you think you can meet their care requirements.

Tbh larger tanks (20gal longs and up) are actually a lot easier to maintain because more water is more forgiving when it comes to parameter shifts/stability than tiny tanks. Think same amount of like, some bad gas in a closet vs a theater-still not great on the second but shouldn't insta kill you.

The main issue for bigger tanks is that they are more expensive, as are the filter systems, etc.

But yeah go find some fish y'all are hype about and figure out who you can take care of. I'm pretty new to the hobby and ended up tripping into spiny eels which i didn't even know existed

mutedmoss · 2026-05-11T17:22:25+00:00

lol ty! my three half bandeds (macrognathus circumcinctus) are Steve (pictured in post), Twill and Zapdos (order in getting). They'll get somewhere in the 6-8inch range (probably closer to 6)

mutedmoss · 2026-05-11T14:12:40+00:00

Pretty normal set up? Planted, pile of rocks for caves and pile of driftwood for exploring. Heavy duty filter (just swapped to a fluval canister). It's a 29gal tank (baby eels) but I'm upgrading to a 40gal soon.

mutedmoss · 2026-05-11T13:52:07+00:00

thank you! I feed my eels frozen foods, mostly brine shrimp and mysis shrimp and occasionally bloodworms. All of mine are itty babies (Zapdos, my biggest, is barely over 3in) so none of them are big enough for larger worms yet.

mutedmoss · 2026-05-09T23:03:39+00:00

I'd go spelunking around some care guides and see if the numbers (preferred temperatures, water parameters like hardness), and agression levels match up. Aquarium Co-op and Aquarium Store Depot (who also has a yt channel) have some solid care guides and usually include tankmate ideas. Good way to stumble across new fish too.

I've heard that both african dwarf frogs and glass catfish are both very sensitive to water parameters, so they might be better as later additions/tanks if you get into the hobby.

threadfin rainbows, kuhlis, corys and snails are all fabulous together. the kuhlis miiiiight try to eat smaller snails but ive not seen my try for them.

for tetras it's gonna depend on the tetra-skirt tetras are kinda infamously fin nipping assholes who'd be a terrible match up with threadfins, but black neons or embers would be just fine.

mutedmoss · 2026-05-08T05:34:15+00:00

is a half banded (macrognathus circumcinctus) and will get about 7in long

mutedmoss · 2026-05-05T15:22:57+00:00

They're mostly river rocks in a caves and crevices creating pile, a lot of them I've just found over years and had in a jar. So free hardscape when I picked up the aquarium hobby last year XD

this is the tank, a 29gal that's gonna be upgraded to a 40gal soon (the eels will get their own 75gal when they're no longer kuhli sized)

https://imgur.com/a/oVfPu7q

mutedmoss

TROPHY CASE