Also, snails are not necessarily pests. If you crush them up, you fish will love to eat the fresh meat they provide. A fish tank, regardless of what is in it, should never be in sunlight as the refraction of the glass or plastic hightens the rats of the sun to an unhealthy nature. A tank is not a pond or natural body of water. Light through plastic or glass creates an unatural energy source with odd results. A Betta is very comfortable on a shelf or quiet place with minimal light. Also,. When you clean the tank, every once in awhile (like bi monthly) put the Betta in a cup or bowl of the tank water (roughly 40 to 60% of the original amount) stir up the gravel a bit to release the bacteria that's building up down there with your hand. Usually a cloud of brown will be seen. Empty out that water about half of that water but not all (remember, bacteria is not as completely a bad thing). Then fiill the tank back up with fresh water and pour the fish back in with the original water it was in... Fish love fresh water, but they need some bacteria in their tank to be healthy. Also, and this is important, temperature is important as you don't want the fish to go into shock from a sudden temperature change. Think about your own body when you do this. If you are in a room that is comfortable temperaturewise, then you enter a freezing or hot room, your body reacts. Use your sense of touch when gauging whether the tap water is close in temperature to the original. If needed you can use a thermometer but I have never found that necessary. It sounds more complicated than it actually is. Just think of your fish as a living being that needs the same things you do.

I have to agree with Ken on this one. (Surprised, Ken??) Some battles aren't worth fighting, and this is one of them. Euonymus scale insects are an extremely persistent insect; at the same time Euonymus is very, very susceptible to this pest. With an infestation that appears to be at such an advanced stage as yours...taking years to get to this point....very few experts would advise that you try to 'fight the good fight'. You would be signing on for pesticide treatments for the life of these plants....something that is not good for YOU, or anything else. Me? I'd be planning my way out of this mess. I would remove the plants entirely promptly, stumps and all. That would give me the summer to clean all of the debris and sort of get used to what my landscape looks like without the euonymus. Then, in whatever is the optimum planting time for you (fall, winter, early spring), I'd slowly replace them with completely different shrubs, ground cover, or perennials. I'm attaching a google page of university based fact sheets for you to glean some further information about these nasty insects. I've moved into properties that had euonymus plantings and ripped them out before I unpacked my boxes! If I had a FEW of these plants forced on me before I could see any sign of scale whatsoever, I'd begin treatments with a horticultural oil right away. It is not impossible at all to prevent a terrible infestation but it takes persistence and a lot of horticultural oil. So! Are your plants shrubs or groundcover? How many do you have? How old do you think that they are? Here is a link that might be useful: click here for great information

My outdoor patio has rubber tiles (made from recycled tires) on the concrete slab. I have used a detergent+water solution in a pressure washer to clean the tiles but a white "stain" remains. What is the white stuff and how can I remove it?

My outdoor patio has rubber tiles (made from recycled tires) on the concrete slab. I have used a detergent+water solution in a pressure washer to clean the tiles but a white "stain" remains. What is the white stuff and how can I remove it? This is what the rubber tiles looked like when they were new (8 years ago):