Yesterday on a whim, I decided to buy some new fish for my aquarium. I’ve had zebra danios, ghost shrimp, platys and pencilfish at some point in time in my aquarium, but all but the zebras have died. I wanted to try a new fish, so I got some Jack Dempseys. They’re pretty tough, chasing away other fish from their territory. Also, apparently they grow to be like a foot long. I wish I had known that at the fish store. I think there’s an opportunity for an iPhone app in there somewhere.
Let’s see, what would the workflow be?
- Go to fish store
- See a fish that looks cute
- Take a picture with iPhone
- Update picture to fish servers for identity matching
- Match the identity and serve up a page of detailed information on the fish, including ideal tank mates, preferred diet, turn ons, and horoscope.
- Repeat
Hey, it could happen, if I muster up enough non-laziness.
Right now I’m trying my hand at culturing fruit flies so that my fish can have some live food from time to time. I’ve had a fruit fly problem for a few weeks now, and have been trying to create traps to exterminate them, but I’ve recently realized that hey, mayhaps my fish would like to eat them. And they do!
So I’ve been luring them into a jar with some vinegar at the bottom (vinegar DOES attract more flies than honey) and then when there’s a bunch in there, covering the top with a plastic baggie and sealing it off once the flies are all in there. After that, I throw the bag in the freezer for 10 seconds to stun the flies, then dump them into the fish tank. Mmmm!
I’d like to have a more repeatable way of doing this, so I’m gonna try letting them breed for a while in the jar. We’ll see how that goes.