#she loves that piece of driftwood tho that bitch is smooth from the monching. i got her another recently and she's been so happy

[fatal-blow]

and it's certainly not helped by the fact that every information source tells you something different! after a point i just stopped looking up aquarium advice and started researching the actual environments these lil guys live in to figure out what the hell i was doing because even cross referencing across multiple sources wasn't coming up with anything useful

the aquarium hobby honestly drives me insane sometimes. coming into it as a guy who knows a lot about ecology (even tho i started my first tank less than a year ago), it immediately struck me as odd the sheer amount of cleanliness so many aquarists demand of their tanks. like constantly vaccuuming gravel, or killing snails, or freaking out about "pests" and insisting that everything be quarantined and washed and sterile before throwing it in the tank

like. you're creating a little microhabitat. there has to be a better way than ripping it apart every week because you -checks notes- think bladder snails are ugly