Ugly Ivan's Fins and Scales Rescue

10/02/2025

A heartwarming story of a man and a Hippo..... Or a cautionary tale about adopting wildlife. You decide

08/02/2025

New fish!!! These are khuli loaches, my favorite community tank species. Somehow these guys have managed to make a home behind the tiles that line the back of the aquarium. How? I don't know. Either way, they are healthy, and are assisting with my snail infestation issues. I've seen a dramatic drop in the snail population. In fact I may get 12 more.

07/02/2025

Can't believe I have to say this. Please do not use your Betta tank as a fragrance diffuser.

30/01/2025

So I was spending some time downstairs looking at all the stuff I have set up. My microscope, my stains, my aquarium. I realized that I have a deep love of biology, and it's always been there. Since I have what could best be described as a bio lab in my basement, I might as well get the degree to match it. My goal is to be in school by the fall semester.

29/01/2025

So this is in the building I clean aquariums in. Super cool piece of history right?

Yes

But read the bottom.

Conspiracy theorists existed even in the 1800s.

Enjoy that depressing knowledge

15/01/2025

I just need a quick pog for this absolutely amazing water quality.

12/01/2025

Every single time I've gone to take a picture of my new tank, I've had the filter barf up a massive amount of junk into the water and make it impossible to see.

But today I finally got pictures!!! And oh man are these guys thriving!!!

These are the guppies I rescued from a local fishkeeper who committed su***de, and they are doing so good! It makes me so happy seeing them thriving like this.

24/12/2024

My Aunt, Jinx, passed away after her battle with pancreatic cancer turned into a war of attrition.

I'm personally very happy to see that she's no longer in pain and is now in the arms of Jesus.

Thank you to everyone for your support through these very difficult times.

Edit: If you check my post likes, you'll see that my dear sweet beautiful mother has accidentally used my aunt's profile to like it. Thanks mom.

This past weekend, my former state director and top aide in the state, Jinx Clark, passed away. Wyoming and the Congressional delegation lost a wonderful mentor, colleague, and friend. Jinx was truly dedicated to serving others. She has been by my side in Wyoming since the day I started in the U.S. Senate. Both as a leader and guidepost, she helped ensure we stayed on track and achieved our mission.

While she radiated kindness, Jinx was tough as nails. Her experience serving our country as an officer in the U.S. Navy trained her to face any problems and obstacles head-on. Jinx could always be trusted to get the job done and do it well.

Jinx helped so many people across our state – whether it was through her work in the Senate or her beloved church community. We are all better off today for having Jinx in our lives. I’m beyond grateful I was able to serve Wyoming alongside her for so many years. My prayers are with her sister Kim, brother Bill, and her entire extended family.

22/12/2024

Hey everyone! I'm in Houston on an impromptu Christmas vacation, does anyone have recommendations for an aquarium store to visit down here?

15/12/2024

So, like everything else, the tanks I rescued those guppies from were absolutely infested with snails.

So tonight for your reading pleasure, I give you The Ugly Ivan's guide to absolutely obliterate anything in your tank that you don't want in there.

Will solve algae, snails, and other infestations.

Note: this guide was written in the midst of a snail crisis, it is overkill and it was written by someone who had a near psychopathic hatred for snails at time of creation.

Also, wear gloves when you use bleach. That soapy feeling on your hands isn't the chemical sticking to your skin, it's the chlorine pulling lipids out of your skin cells and making a form of soap with them.

1. Completely drain and empty your tank. Put fish somewhere safe. And put the sand off to the side

2. All of your glass and acrylic decorations can go in the dishwasher like any other dishes. If you do not have a dishwasher, see next step.

3. Plastic plants and hoses can be washed using a scrub brush with soap and a mild bleach solution. Whenever I have had a situation where I needed to do this, I was at a point of frustration where I didn't care about bleach concentration, but about 4% is plenty.

Put it in a bowl and just start scrubbing. Any snails you find can go down the garbage disposal as long as it's turned on to keep them from going into your septic system or the water table.

They kind of explode when they hit the grinder, which feels very cathartic.

4. Use soap and bleach mixture on a rag and wipe out your aquarium, making sure to wipe underneath the rim.

5. take the little filter pad out of the filter and throw it away, then run the filter in the bleach bowl for about 3 minutes, again, doesn't matter too much at this stage, bleach and dawn kills anything.

6. Put the sand/rock on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for an hour... Or three, follow your heart. This step depends on how angry you are at the snails. I ran mine overnight.

Let the sand cool off for an hour or two before adding back into a tank to prevent cracking the glass from heat stress.

7. For live plants, do not bleach them. Rinse them with warm water and then keep them under observation for a week to see if any more of the snails turn up.

8. Rinse everything off with clean water until all the soap is gone, if you are worried about chlorine being left behind in the water, you can do a long rinse, and then just add some extra chlorinator.

Reassemble. Put in new filter. Add in fish. Add in stress zyme, half again as much dechlorinator and some quick start from api, and monitor your ammonia levels for a couple days.

This protocol was written by someone very very very angry at bladder snails, and is definitely overkill, but guess what, the snails didn't come back.

14/12/2024

You wanna hear something terrifying? CRT televisions worked by blasting electrons at a phosphorescent coating to make each frame. This produces ionizing radiation that causes cancer and death, and we just sat there, in front of a particle accelerator, enough gamma radiation trapped inside that ray tube to give us super cancer, and just a layer of barium lead glass keeping us from being featured in a TLC health documentary.

TERRIFYING

13/12/2024