Mixed bag

Well, today wasnt a particularly bad day!

Well, had a little bit of leftover work on the car. The seat cover work wasnt fully over yet. By the way, red and black artificial leather seat covers look kinda cool on the red Wagon R!

I did do some running around today, nothing spectacular enough to mention or even remember. I did bump into a pet freak, when I accompanied Shanmugam, when he went to see a car that was up for sale.

This person, whose name wasnt mentioned to me too, showed me around his place, when I expressed interest in a few pigeons that were feeding. He had some interesting looking pigeons. One of them had upturned feathers from the neck upwards. Another interesting strain had a funny throat that he/she was blowing up like a ball[the way a puffer fish or the bull frog does], as part of the courting ritual.

He then showed me a few Bantams, and some other exotic varieties of chickens. He even had 4 miniature pinschers. One of them had won a lot of cups at various shows. He proudly displayed the cups to me. He even had a fish tank. Obviously a sad tank. I hate to even see badly done up tanks and pity the fishes the most. He wanted a few good bettas, once I told him that I do deal with 'good' fish.

And as I drove home, I was wondering how I feel about a few things. One was aeration, and the other was osmosis.

Aeration has a major significance! Right from aerating wine[yeah, its done] to improving the way your soap lathers, using aeration. When a bottle of wine is opened, and a glass is poured for you, you should actually gently rotate it a few times, to aerate it, before you taste it! Thats supposed to make your experience better, and thats the way, so shut up and listen!

And, have you tried using a loofah? Your soap when you wash your hands lathers a bit. Try the same soap, with a loofah, or scrunning pad, or even a shaving brush! Lathers rather differently. Thats the difference made by aeration.

Ok, what I really wanted to convey was the real meaning of aeration in a fish tank. There is no need or necessity to use an airstone[with airpump] to aerate your fish tank. The bubbles by themselves dont mix with the water, to provide oxygen for your fish. What really happens is, these bubbles travel to the water surface and break it. This helps in gas exchange at the water surface, and thats how oxygen enters the water.

A lot of people look at my tanks and ask me if my fish dont die, as I never use an air pump. All you need to do is use a power head, or something to ensure that your water is turned well, so the surface is broken somewhere. This will ensure adequate oxygen levels.

And about osmosis. Its really funny. I will admit that I learnt this quite recently. Do you know what will happen if you put a few goosberries in salt. I mean, take a small bottle. Pop in a few gooseberries, and then cover them with salt. Leave them for a few days. You will see water in the salt. Wheres the water from? Its actually osmosis, when water flows from a lower concentration to a higher concentration.

I use brine shrimp eggs. These are normally stored dry, and hatch when I put them in water, with very little salt. A really interesting thing is that, to dry out some brine shrimp eggs, I put them in a super concentrated salt solution. I am referring to decapsulated ones, where I remove the hard shell. Isnt that super cool? To store those eggs dry, they are stored in water[super saturated with salt]. The concentration is so high, that they such every water molecule out of those eggs!!!

Well, I should call it a day!