Water

Over the weekend, Thomas cleaned the aquarium. I've probably mentioned before that he loves the aquarium plants. We have a CO2 reactor on our tank, and the plants are fertilized and lovingly cared for. Over the past few months, they had also grown out of control. I don't have a "before" picture, but it was seriously hard to find any fish in the tank because there were so many plants.

Here is Thomas cleaning the tank, with a helper at his feet.
Rocky was quickly moved to his cage, as we didn't want him drinking aquarium water. The tank is right by Calypso's cage, and he loves to watch any activity going on there. He puts himself as close to the aquarium as he can, and he stares at you until you're finished working. It's strange.

Thomas removed over a 10-gallon bucket's worth of plants from the tank. Most were given to a friend who has a tank with fish that eat plants. It's a good relationship -- just as he needs more plants, we're trying to find homes for ours!

This is a picture I took this morning. The fish have room to swim again! I can't overestimate the change in their personalities! Everyone was coming out to explore. I was happy to see that all 9 Australian Rainbowfish and 3 Clown Loaches are still alive and appear to be doing well. As far as I can tell, we also have 4 Otos, 7 Red Skirt Tetras, 7 Glowlight Tetras, and one Bronze Cory Cat. It's been over 6 months since we've added any fish. I'd like to get some more cory cats since they are my favorite and they tend to like being in groups (our solitary one has been trying to hang with the loaches).
Since it's still been pretty dry in our house, I've been spraying the parrots most mornings. They love getting baths, especially Max and the caiques. Max and Beeps will actually fly over when I'm spraying a different bird and try to get in the stream. Beeps takes baths in his water dish several times a week in addition to being sprayed. He may be half fish.

Rocky was threatening me this morning as I was taking the picture of the aquarium, so I took his picture. He is still slightly wet, and those feathers look kind of brown.
After we went upstairs last night, Rocky was talking and saying funny things. We couldn't understand most of it, but he was using a silly voice and then laughing afterwards. We haven't adjusted the lizards' lights or the aquarium for daylight savings time, so we are putting the parrots to bed while there is still some light in the living room, which has resulted in more activity than we're used to at night. I say it's kind of like having a sunset, as the light gradually decreases in their environment. We'll probably adjust the timers this weekend.