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How far do Cresteds flee? Or do they always try to get to the highest point of whatever they are on? I keep worrying about the gecko jumping off my hand, scurrying up a wall, and then leaping into an industrial fan and getting diced to bits.
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Aug 19, 2012 04:57
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Cresties will flee for miles. In a second they're flying off your hand, scuttling up your wall and behind something heavy or impossible to move before you realize what's happening. Always keep a hand in front of them and watch the toes; they'll lift up their little 'finger' pads before taking off. Just keep 'laddering' it with your hands until it calms down and decides to perch. You can also gently hold its head between your forefinger and thumb (be careful not to press too hard) and cup your hand around it, to make it feel secure.
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Aug 19, 2012 05:05
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Captain Foxy posted:You had a white line? Can I ask how you kept yours? I'm seeing basking light, temps of 80-90 during the day, 70-80 nightly, high humidity and offer dusted insects/CGD every other day. The guides I've seen also say a 20g/tall works for a pair. I have them in a 30g with two broad-leaf plants, a UTH, basking light (on the way) water dish and bamboo hides. I really like their curly tails. My temps/lighting setup was pretty much exactly like that, I gave him a heavy misting every night and dusted crickets every other day. He was a great hunter! Way more fun to watch then the cresties imo. I heard they would eat CGD, but never tried it myself. He was very cool, I adored his cute little tail and he was really good to handle despite being WC.  He also occasionally barked like a tokay, it ruled. I miss that bugger, my boyfriend (he was technically my boyfriend's) decided to sell him to his other reptile friend when we picked up our hognose to slim down our collection. Booo.  I love my aggie, I have to say, if you find room in your collection for one you definitely wouldn't regret it. Very personable little dudes, and much more out and about during the day which is nice. My little dudes tank is right next to my computer monitor.  And if it makes you feel any better about the Ebanaui, there was only one or two at the table and they looked rather skinny and stressed to me. Still a very cool sighting, but I felt bad for them. Atmus posted:How far do Cresteds flee? Or do they always try to get to the highest point of whatever they are on? I keep worrying about the gecko jumping off my hand, scurrying up a wall, and then leaping into an industrial fan and getting diced to bits. I've never had any of mine get out of my sight, when I got my very first crestie ever in the mail, the first thing he did was jump out of my hands, plop on the floor, scooted about two feet, and then stopped. I've never seen one drop and just... go. Although this is just in my experience, I guess if yours is particularly skittish it might.
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Aug 19, 2012 05:15
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Captain Foxy posted:Back from the PDX reptile expo! A pretty nice show, all in all. Mostly snakes, but I did see a lot of uroplatus and e. agricolae for sale. There were maybe three female cresties in the entire hall; everything else was unsexed babies and males. I managed to grab a beautiful light red white wall harley female, a proven breeder (with retained sperm from a red male) from Black Ink Reptiles. And I picked up my quad stripe male, of course. Nice looking cresteds! How much were the E. agricolae going for? I'm thinking of getting either them or some R. sarasinorums (apparently they're actually Correlophus now) as my next gecko project.
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Aug 19, 2012 05:19
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Aggie babies unsexed were going for $100-125, $250 for a breeding pair. I wish I'd looked at the vendor table more closely, but it was crowded and I didn't want to tempt myself.
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Aug 19, 2012 05:24
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Captain Foxy posted:Aggie babies unsexed were going for $100-125, $250 for a breeding pair. I wish I'd looked at the vendor table more closely, but it was crowded and I didn't want to tempt myself. Well, once I have some hypo albino house snake babies, I'll pick some up. I really dig their eyes. Like shark mouths.
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Aug 19, 2012 05:53
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Here are some pics from my new job, as Education Coordinator at Great Lakes Zoological Society. If you're anywhere near Ann Arbor, please come check us out and sponsor an animal or two! This green scared the crap out of me today - shot straight out of the water when I opened its enclosure. Here are a couple of shots from outside the glass.   All our stuff is low budget, but our enclosures are super nice and big. We even exchange the air in each enclosure at least once per hour.      Caimen lizards! <3     Pancake tortoises - these guys are great - they love climbing and hiding in the rockwalls. They share an enclosure with our uromastyx.   This is Tang - he gets used in our educational shows and is super chill.  Taiwan Beauty Snake:     Here's one of our 90 lbs sulcatas. We use these guys and the room we keep them in to educate people on why it's important to research proper pet choice.  All our animals, aside from the monitors (I believe) are either rescues or donations. This 18' tiger retic is one of the donations: 
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Aug 19, 2012 22:55
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Oughta use the retic as another object lesson about pet choice.
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Aug 20, 2012 00:40
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Wanna snuggle that cane toad.
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Aug 20, 2012 00:44
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I'm currently in the process of introducing a friend to dart frogs, and ended up getting a tank ready myself. We'll be going to the Charlotte, NC show this Saturday to get some frogs, provided there are some decent animals there. I just thought I'd show off my tank; I used a clay soil, clay background technique that I really like. The background is especially nice; it's much nicer than the kitty litter background technique I've used before, and is supposed to be much stronger and more durable. Anyhow, here are some pictures. I took some photos of clay making and would be glad to share the process if anyone is interested.  Here's the front view. It's a 20 gallon high, and should be pretty nice. There's a bit of turface that fell through the bottom, but the rest should hold up well.  Here's a shot from the top, where you can see the little clay shelves I've made. They feel really secure; far more than the kitty litter thing I made. The clay is also much finer and easier to work with than KL, so it's really nice.  Another shot of the background and some plants.  Here's the big deal with the clay soil. You end up making and baking these little rectangular clay pieces that make up the soil, which creates a lot of air space for invertebrates to live in. It's also really great for frogs, since it's specifically designed to have usable calcium in the soil; it's basically an attempt at making rainforest soil, and it's a lot of work but seems to be really worth it.  Finally, since I'm me, gotta end with some salamanders! Here are some red efts that I bred this year; I managed to sell a bunch of juveniles like these guys from a couple species to raise dart money, so I'm feeling pretty good about getting back into darts again.
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Aug 22, 2012 02:10
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OneTwentySix posted:I'm currently in the process of introducing a friend to dart frogs, and ended up getting a tank ready myself. We'll be going to the Charlotte, NC show this Saturday to get some frogs, provided there are some decent animals there. I just thought I'd show off my tank; I used a clay soil, clay background technique that I really like. The background is especially nice; it's much nicer than the kitty litter background technique I've used before, and is supposed to be much stronger and more durable. Beautiful tank. What brand and where did you get that clay substrate? Does it seem to work better than other substrates for keeping the plants healthy? My planted tanks use a potting soil/coco coir/sand mix, and I haven't had any problems with it.
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Aug 22, 2012 05:32
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Thanks, I like the tank, too. I can't wait to add some frogs! I made the clay substrate myself. I've heard that it works pretty well for plants, but some people recommend putting ABG mix around the roots of plants when planting. You mix sounds pretty good; there's nothing wrong with traditional mixes, but the point here was originally for frogs like O. pumilio to deal with froglets too small to eat fruit flies, so that they don't die from lack of calcium. I started with a recipe from Dendroboard; they've been doing a lot of experimenting with clay substrates and backgrounds these last couple years, I guess, and have been having a lot of success. You'll want: 3 Quarts Redart powdered clay (get the clays at a pottery supply store; I got mine from Highwater Clays in Asheville, NC) 1/2 Quart Sodium Bentonite powdered clay 1/2 Quart Calcium Bentonite powdered clay (I just used the cheaper sodium bentonite; it works just as well, but will have a bit less calcium) 1 Quart brown peat or coconut fiber (I used peat; you may want to run it through a blender. Helps lower the pH a bit, due to extra CaCO3) 1/2 Quart fine aragonite Sand (I used regular sand; works fine, but has less calcium) 1/4 to 1/2 cup Calcium Carbonate (I used a bit over a half cup, due to missing Calcium from other possible sources. Grind this to a powder in a blender) 2 TBSP Sugar 2 TBSP Corn Starch Optional: Turface All Sport Pro (can be purchased from John Deere Landscapes stores, or find places here: http://www.turface.com/distributors) Tools: Paint mixer 1/4" hardware cloth (screen-like stuff found at Home Depot in the garden section) Some 2x4s, nails/screws A small block of wood Aluminum disposable cake pan, or some other oven-safe pan thing Spray bottle Mix everything except the sugar and corn starch in a 5 gallon pail, using a paint mixer attached to a drill; WalMart or Home Depot/Lowes will sell one for ~$5; I just used the one gallon mixer with the red tip; apparently the more expensive ones cause problems and get jammed. Add ~1.5 quarts of water, mix with the drill until you get a decent wet mix going.  Once everything is mixed up pretty well, make a little frame using the 2x4s and hardware cloth.  Then, take the clay and make little patties about a quarter inch thick. Press them through the screen with the block of wood, so that they fall into the cake pan. You don't want to move it after it's fallen, or else you'll lose the shape. (Bad picture, but that shows the width; it was about the size of my hand, or a bit smaller.)  It will look like this:  Then, once you're ready, move the pan into the oven at 300 degrees F. Bake for several hours (can take quite a long time, like 10 hours or so, depending on how much you have. I do double batches, so that might be part of the issue.)  When you're done, you'll get this:  It'll be dry and slightly hard. Break the pieces that are stuck together apart, and then once it's cool, you can store it or use it in the tanks. Mix the sugar and corn starch in boiling water until it dissolves, place this in a spray bottle. Let it cool. Once you've got your false bottom set up (you need a false bottom, or else the clay will eventually break down when it sits in water), put an inch or so of Turface down. This is just to take up some space, since otherwise you'll need a lot of clay, which is a lot of work to make. I had to do two double batches, and a single batch for the backgrounds. This filled my 20 and my friend's 40 gallon breeder, though I could have used more Turface in my tank. Then, you can start planting. Put the roots of the plants into the Turface a bit, and optionally put ABG mix around the roots. Wet the Turface a bit with water. Then, you can start adding the clay mix. Just pile it around the plants, carefully misting it with the corn starch/sugar mix, going slowly so that it all gets moistened. Do not dig into the clay mix; any disturbance will cause it to collapse and you'll lose the air spaces. Get the clay down and misted, and then layer some oak or magnolia leaves over top (make sure they've been boiled beforehand for pathogens). Leaves are important for this kind of tank, since the springtails and isopods will hide under it, and will work it into the soil eventually. For backgrounds, just mix up the mixture, but you don't need the screen; you can just apply it directly to the back. Sculpt it as you'd like, trying not to make it too thick, and then let it dry in the open for ~2 hours. After this point, put the top on and let it dry for a day or five more slowly (more time is better, 1-2 days as a minimum before planting). This will help reduce cracking, but cracking can be patched a bit by pressing down on it and rubbing it back into place. The slower it dries, the more secure it should be, and is far less likely to collapse than using kitty litter based mixes, since the Redart binds better and just works really well. I think we put the backgrounds on on Friday, and now it's Wednesday and they're doing really well, sitting securely in place with next to no visible cracking. Compare to my old kitty litter background, which held up great, but cracked quite a bit. (I've also heard horror stories of the KL collapsing).  Then, you can cover the surface with a mix of peat moss for texture/color and possible plants growing on it. I took some dried peat and some dried sphagnum moss and blended it really fine, and then dusted this on top of the wet clay; it ends up looking pretty nice, though I don't know if the sphagnum will grow anything. The peat did on my KL, so that might be promising. The main benefits of doing this is that first, the calcium is available in the soil and can be transferred to the frogs by skin contact, accidental ingestion, and ingestion of invertebrates that have ingested the soil. This is critical for small froglets like pumilio. It won't replace calcium dusting, but will still provide a solid benefit regardless. The second benefit is that it's really, really nice for springtails and isopods, as they can live and colonize the empty spaces in the soil where the frogs can't reach them. The baked shape will generally hold; the sugar and corn starch are to help provide a bio-film that'll keep clumps separate. Over time, you'll get larger clumps, but for the most part, the shape holds. Apparently, some tanks have held for over 15-20 years with similar clay-based recipes. And the third benefit is that while time consuming, if you have to make a lot of tanks, it's cheap. We used a 5 pound bag of bentonite (we bought 15), so making 5 batches (enough for 60 gallons of soil, two backgrounds, and some extra), we used 1/3 of the supplies. The redart and turface were in 50 pound bags, and together with the other supplies, it was maybe $50-60, which will be enough for 200 gallons or more of backgrounds and soil, and some of the supplies will last for far longer (such as the CaCO3). But overall, this seems to be working really well, and it looks nice, too, so I'm definitely a fan of the whole process. I'm probably going to end up doing a 30 soon, and then maybe a 10 for the remaining red efts I've got.
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Aug 22, 2012 15:02
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Anyone know of any good breeders with Northern Pine snakes? The few times I've seen them pop up on fauna or kingsnake classified they are sold before I get there. Big apple herps has them, but I've got no idea about their reputation either. Also, any sources for normal morph cb tokays? It seems like there is just a straight jump from $15 parasite loads to $100+ morph and het genetic ones. All I want is a mid-price normal morph.
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Aug 23, 2012 00:37
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ZarathustraFollower posted:Anyone know of any good breeders with Northern Pine snakes? The few times I've seen them pop up on fauna or kingsnake classified they are sold before I get there. Big apple herps has them, but I've got no idea about their reputation either. Good New Jersey locale Northern pines are hard to find. I had a young pair about 8 years ago that were a lot of fun. I have no idea why they're not more popular. Doesn't someone here breed tokays? Pardalis, maybe?
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Aug 23, 2012 01:48
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Dunno, I know a few people here keep Tokays. I really want to get a pet now that I'm a little more settled down and don't have any (donated all my inverts to my ento lab for outreach, and when my ex and I broke up she took the herps we didn't sell.) After working with such a variety at the zoo, I've straight up fallen in love with pine snakes over all the others I've worked with (kings, milks, corns, old & new world rats.) Where I help out with has 5 northerns, ranging from our resident grandpa at 18 years, to a trio of adults on display and our super adorable baby that hatched a bit after I started helping out and I've posted pics of in this thread before. I wish I could just take an egg home instead of having to freeze them, but it isn't a private zoo so there is no way in hell of that happening. Anyway, I'm waiting to hear back from a guy about a snow morph southern pine snake, so I might go with that if it is still available.
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Aug 23, 2012 02:37
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ZarathustraFollower posted:Dunno, I know a few people here keep Tokays. I really want to get a pet now that I'm a little more settled down and don't have any (donated all my inverts to my ento lab for outreach, and when my ex and I broke up she took the herps we didn't sell.) My personal favorite is the black pine. Very cool and generally calmer in my experience. Have you ever seen deppei janis in person? They're really beautiful and colorful.
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Aug 23, 2012 02:46
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Pardalis' Tokays are CBB, and they're beautiful, non-stressed animals. They laid eggs this year for us, but this is their first clutch so we're not sure what'll happen with it. Apparently Tokays eat infertile clutches and guard fertile ones, and they're guarding these, so here's hoping. I have first dibs on the clutch, but we would totally sell to a goon if there was interest. They were laid approximately 7/20, and incubation is 90+ days. I have a chameleon! Pics will come later when he is more settled in, but he is a grumpily confident little 5.5 month old male Ambilobe pather. Already eating, drinking and basing for me; I'm so proud.
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Aug 23, 2012 03:22
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I've finally got comfortable handling my crested, so it's a lot less scary now. It is waaaay less nerve wracking when you can tell when it's going to hop, and you can 'steer' it where you want it to go. For critters that don't regrow dropped tails, this one sure seems to use it a lot.
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Aug 23, 2012 04:07
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My snake husbandry skills don't go far beyond corns and ball pythons, so I was wondering what size, gallon wise, an adult female red tail boa would need. I ask because my boyfriend said 40gal, I feel that's just too small, but maybe I'm wrong. Lizards, rats, and bugs/arachnids are my thing, so I have no idea if a snake needs room to stretch.
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Aug 23, 2012 04:18
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Olive Bar posted:My snake husbandry skills don't go far beyond corns and ball pythons, so I was wondering what size, gallon wise, an adult female red tail boa would need. I ask because my boyfriend said 40gal, I feel that's just too small, but maybe I'm wrong. Lizards, rats, and bugs/arachnids are my thing, so I have no idea if a snake needs room to stretch. 40gal would be okay for a baby, but definitely too small for an adult female. I've always heard the cage should be at least 2/3 of the snake's length. The cage I have for my larger boa is something like 6'x2'x2' I think. I'm personally a pretty big fan of Boaphile cages. They're a little pricey, but they're nice and big with locks and optional built in heating. You can often pick them up used fairly cheap at reptile shows or on craigslist. Some people build their own cages, which is what I'm planning with my smaller boa when she gets big enough. Keep in mind males usually stay quite a bit smaller than females, so you could probably get away with a slightly smaller cage for a male (something like 4'x2'x2'). There are a few boa species that are smaller in general too, like Hog Islands.
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Aug 23, 2012 04:38
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gently caress. I'm a big blubbery mess. I woke up this morning and my hognose with the regurge problem had passed. Today was literally the week and a half mark that we were going to attempt to feed him a pinky. He'd been active and acting fine all week, although he started to look pretty crappy the past few days. But still, the fear of having him regurge again and cause more damage to him made me hold off feeding him until today. Goddamnit. gently caress, I loved that huffy puffy little bastard. I can't believe he went so goddamn quickly, from healthy and fat to gone in no time. I am bawling like a goddamn baby.
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Aug 23, 2012 18:54
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hypnotoad posted:gently caress. I'm a big blubbery mess. I woke up this morning and my hognose with the regurge problem had passed. Today was literally the week and a half mark that we were going to attempt to feed him a pinky. He'd been active and acting fine all week, although he started to look pretty crappy the past few days. But still, the fear of having him regurge again and cause more damage to him made me hold off feeding him until today. Goddamnit. gently caress, I loved that huffy puffy little bastard. I can't believe he went so goddamn quickly, from healthy and fat to gone in no time. I am bawling like a goddamn baby. That sucks, man. Sometimes poo poo like that happens though. I've seen animals that seemed perfectly healthy die overnight for absolutely no apparent reason before. Don't let it discourage you too much.
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Aug 23, 2012 19:25
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I'm sorry to hear about your hognose. That sucks. I just paid for a snow southern pine snake female. She should ship monday and be here tuesday. I think I'm going to call her Pangur Ban. Also should have an adult pair of D. granti beetles showing up sometime next week too.
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Aug 23, 2012 23:25
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I'm really sorry hypnotoad. That's terrible.
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Aug 24, 2012 16:11
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Sorry for your loss, Hypnotoad. Whoever wanted a CBB Tokay, PM me and I will put you on a waiting list of sorts. It will be several months before I have babies, but I would love to send them off to good goon homes; these guys don't get nearly enough attention for how wonderful the CBB individuals are. E: New additions Carpet chameleon male, CBB 11 months old  4 month old high yellow/turquoise line cbb veiled male  Captain Foxy's first chameleon, a 5 month old yellow body/blue bar cbb Ambilobe panther 
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Aug 24, 2012 18:20
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How handleable are CB chameleons (dunno if species matters?). Like... able to hang out with it like a bearded/snake and do everything with it on you, or take it out to look at it/handle for a few minutes, or............not touch at all? I thought it was the last but I was reading some sights on how that only applied to WC stressed out ones. Someone was saying they wanted one and all the youtube vids had people playing with their chams. I convinced him to get a corn snake instead.
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Aug 24, 2012 19:05
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They're not animals to handle, no. Some species can even stress themselves to death just from you looking at them too much, so the people you see holding them on YouTube are either doing it for very brief periods or are morons. The more confident species, like Panthers, are easier to keep and generally don't stress as much, so they're not going to die if you so much as breathe on them, but even then you handle them only when absolutely necessary. In addition, they require expensive, varied diets, have finicky temperature/humidity requirements, need to be misted 3-4 times daily and can be stressed by the presence of other animals/bright colors/your mom/the wind/anything, so they're really not good pets for anything but spergy hobbyists, unfortunately. I love 'look but don't touch' pets, so it's fine by me, but for the most part people who get them are unable to resist yanking the poor things out all the time, which will just make it unhappy and unable to settle in its habitat, which will usually cause death, but not always. Veiled chams, for example, are tough pissy bastards who can probably survive that kind of treatment, but they're going to be unhappy and unhealthy as a result, and usually the people that think 'oh he likes me! I AM THE CHAMELEON WHISPERER  ' are the people who don't know about UVB or proper humidity, so MBD/stress can kill even the toughest of them. If you leave it alone, provide the correct screen cage/UVB lighting/temps/misting and offer it food from your hand/deli cup, gradually it may begin to associate you with food and it will subsequently be less irritated by your presence and demand food with impunity, but that's about the most you can expect from them. ETA: More pictures of Photon  This is him angry as hell at the breeder's house because there was a Nosy Be adult male nearby. (He's from the Gesangs at Chameleons NW)    You can see the wide range of color he's already showing at this young age; usually they're kind of greenish brown and don't color up much when they're immature. This boy was the 'alpha' of his sibling group and should grow into a stunner. Captain Foxy fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Aug 24, 2012 |
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Aug 24, 2012 19:30
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I have a free range room that is animal proofed that I let my critters run around in, well I heard a crashing noise, what could that have been? Oh.  I see. 
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Aug 24, 2012 21:58
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That beardie is the epitome of nonchalance. "What." Photo dump time!   My male White-Line, Dalek, looking much fatter and healthier than he did at the expo.  This was the only shot I could snag of the female, Sycorax. She's lightning fast!  Ms. Butterworth. I'm hoping she'll keep getting spots and go super dal on me. Go big or go home.  Calcifer, who is definitely going super dal.  Quark, formerly known as Crowley. (It took me a stupidly long time to discover that maaaybe I'm not the only gecko owner who has read Good Omens. There's at least three other Crowleys out there.)  Isomer, new female. Rosy pink when fired down, with extreme harlequin/white wall partterning. Will not stop moving  Amelie is awesome. All day, all the time. Annd check out Pardalis' Tokay pair guarding their eggs! (Excuse the glass, they won't let you clean it ATM)   They will gently caress YOU UP if you touch those eggs right now.
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Aug 24, 2012 23:47
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So, I went to get a tank for my incoming snake and beetles. There is a local saltwater place I went to. For $80, I ended up leaving with a 40g breeder tank, 5g tank, heat pad, water bowl, and a thermostat. I love local stores. And yes, both tanks have metal screen lids.
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Aug 25, 2012 06:13
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What do chams require in terms of diet vs just normal crickets/worms? Is that not healthy for them? Petcos sale for the zills end tomorrow, 40g breeder for $60 and 20L for 40 which I think are great deals, but I have no space. :C I dont find a lot of good deals momnpop store wise though.  Heres a lil new tank setup I did the other day, its not amazing, but it looks a lot better than a bare sterlite bin that was smaller...first try with plants, (well..no second try, I had a simple nano cube but it all got eaten once I put a walking stick in it). Plastic hanging plants for cover and easier cleaning. Any suggestions on how to make snake tanks pretty? Or have photos to share? Mine is really just... Half log hide, big water dish, another wooden hide thing. Its absolutely boring and ugly and I'm curious on how other people spruce theirs up. Everything on GIS looks rather bland too: http://www.dcpaleo.org/Leisure/Animals/CalKingTank.jpg http://i310.photobucket.com/albums/kk415/SecurityStacey/100_2699-1.jpg?t=1217289232 http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/attachments/snake-classifieds/22491d1284737488-pueblan-milk-snake-tank-heat-getattachment2.jpg Malalol fucked around with this message at 08:42 on Aug 25, 2012 |
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Aug 25, 2012 08:40
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Captain Foxy posted:
I don't think Ms. Butterworth will get to Super-dal status. How much does she weigh?
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Aug 25, 2012 12:29
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Malalol posted:
At least here, the 20L is actually $30. I've been tempted to go buy one,but was gonna wait till next week,but I suppose I might have to pop in tomorrow and snatch it. I wish I had a mom and pop store to go to. Has anybody tried a clay background for cresties/gargs? Perhaps a recipe that will work with their lower humidity requirements? Most recipies I see require it to be 80%+ humidity 24/7 which is obviously too high for the wee little geckos to handle.
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Aug 25, 2012 18:26
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Malalol, it's all about variety for chams. You want to have at least three available food sources to rotate through daily, especially with babies. So, for example, one day you feed dusted crickets, the next dusted dubia, the next dusted silkworms, etc etc. Having that many prey items on hand can be an expensive bitch. And don't even get me started on supplements. Daily calcium, twice monthly mineral supplement/calcium with D3. Greycious posted:I don't think Ms. Butterworth will get to Super-dal status. How much does she weigh? I know, it's a pipe dream. She's 20g. Hopefully breeding her to Cal will produce some thick clustering and heavy spots on her babies. I'd love to get a female out of her with her coloring and Cal's big cluster spots, so here's hoping.
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Aug 25, 2012 18:40
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Malalol posted:What do chams require in terms of diet vs just normal crickets/worms? Is that not healthy for them? Chameleons are prone to hunger strikes if not given a wide variety of feeder insects. They are notoriously picky and change their minds about what their favorite food is at whim. They also need a pretty high amount of calcium and regimented vitamin supplementation; if you can provide this through varied, well gutloaded feeders, it is easier and healthier for them than relying solely on powder supps. A few species will eat vegetation (veileds in particular seem to like this) so it can be good to offer berries, slices of squash, greens, and basically what you would give to a beardie. I do this with a chip clip on a favorite branch. Dietary requirements vary by species.
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Aug 25, 2012 18:45
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Captain Foxy posted:
Yeah she's not really going to get any more spotting then, or at least very little. I've been raising up several Super D's for breeding, and a few decently spotted Dals too. I only work with dal cresties. The way crestie genetics work though, you could very well pair those two and end up with a baby more spotty than either, so...might as well try 
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Aug 25, 2012 19:32
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Cless Alvein posted:Has anybody tried a clay background for cresties/gargs? Perhaps a recipe that will work with their lower humidity requirements? Most recipies I see require it to be 80%+ humidity 24/7 which is obviously too high for the wee little geckos to handle. I'm not a clay expert, but a redart-based clay background could potentially work for them, provided it dries very slowly. Patch up any cracks, and let it dry at maybe 50% (number out of my rear end) and over a few months, slowly lower the humidity to what you want with your geckoes. That's just my hypothesis, though; I've never seen or thought of clay in a low humidity tanks. You could always try and hope for the best if you have a spare tank and see what happens, though. I went to a reptile show in Charlotte, NC today, and got really, really lucky. A dart frogger was selling off a lot of his collection, so I managed to pick up a proven pair of "Varaderos" R. imitators for $200, and then a 10 gallon planted tank with a probable 1.2 trio of R. i. intermedius for another $200 (which have eggs in the tank!). I wasn't expecting there to be anything I really wanted, especially not thumbnail pairs, but I feel really good about these guys. My friend also went with me, and she bought 4 mint terribilis for $100, and she feels pretty great, too. I taught her how to culture fruit flies and we had some fun watching the little guys. Just thought I'd share a few photos.    My friend's P. terribilis froglets.    Her terrarium. It's a bit big; I think it's a 40 gallon breeder, but they should do well in there; there are springtails and isopods for them to eat, and I told her to feed excessive flies to make sure the food doesn't get lost in the big tank.     My new Varadero imitators. I didn't get great shots; it was too hard to get into their tank, and they wouldn't let me get a good macro shot, but they're really pretty frogs.  One of my intermedius. The tank is really dirty and it's hard to see anything, but I'm going to leave them in it until I get a bunch of tadpoles, and then I'll set up my own 20 gallon that'll look a bit nicer.  A completely out of focus picture of an egg. Woo! All in all, I'm really excited. Both groups were calling on the ride home, and I can't wait to start seeing little tadpoles in the tanks.
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Aug 26, 2012 00:08
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Beautiful imitators! I'm envious, I've never seen a deal like that at my local shows. It's usually nothing but tincs and azureus. Speaking of, how well would a pair of tincs do in a 12 x 18 ZooMed? I'm considering moving a few of my cresties to larger housing and will have space left over for froggies, if I feel like spending time building a viv for them. (That's a pretty big IF)
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Aug 26, 2012 01:13
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A pair of tincs should do okay in a tank like that. I wouldn't recommend more than that, but a pair should do decent. I'd go with a 20 gallon (high or long) or a 29, but that's me, and I have a ton of empty tanks. Something arboreal would do better though, since it can make use of the height of the tank; I'd recommend leucs, but I love leucs. I'd have picked some up if there were any decent deals on them and I hadn't gotten the insane ones I came away with.
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Aug 26, 2012 01:23
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I love leucs as well! They'd need a group though, right? If I could keep a pair I'd do it, but I'd feel bad about crowding a group into such a small space. I miss my group though; they all stressed and died after a negligent petsitter abandoned them. I could feasibly work one of my spare 20-30gs into a frog tank, but technically they're supposed to be reserved for housing my soon-to-be adult cresties, and I really should be focused on gecko breeding right now. I was thinking of using your clay method to build a layered background into one of the ZooMeds. That way they could make use of the arboreal space, but I'm not sure I actually want to build a tank ATM. We'll see, there's no rush.
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Aug 26, 2012 02:10
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