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Leperflesh posted:Are you planning to do a wet or a dry bottom? Definitely a wet bottom - this will be my third dart frog tank and I've used both a hydroton/leca appraoch and an egg crate approach. I kinda liked the hydroton approach better and will be going with that. I'm debating about an automated mister - I've never used one before, but I'm kind of pulling out all the stops on this tank. My fiancee has said one tank, so, yeah, trying to make it eh best ank possible.
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Jul 8, 2019 03:23
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That’s got a soggy bottom. It’s a bad bake.
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Jul 8, 2019 05:25
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Imo the worst part of keeping dart frogs is breeding fruit flies as feeders. I suggest doing that for a bit before deciding on getting the frogs. Fruit flies are very annoying imo.
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Jul 8, 2019 10:26
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Electric Bugaloo posted:That’s got a soggy bottom. It’s a bad bake. 
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Jul 8, 2019 13:40
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https://twitter.com/rattlesnakeguy/status/1148222462389346304?s=21
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Jul 8, 2019 15:07
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Crocoduck posted:Definitely a wet bottom - this will be my third dart frog tank and I've used both a hydroton/leca appraoch and an egg crate approach. I kinda liked the hydroton approach better and will be going with that. Ahh, OK, I mistook you for a total beginner, you're already experienced with darts. Big Centipede posted:Imo the worst part of keeping dart frogs is breeding fruit flies as feeders. I suggest doing that for a bit before deciding on getting the frogs. Fruit flies are very annoying imo. I've been lazy for years and just put in an order with flymeat.com for two cultures every ~1.5 months ish, but recently erin decided to stop selling live cultures. It's definitely cheaper to just keep doing your own, but if you don't mind spending $20-30 every 1-2 months you can just order them instead. Of course you still have to deal with the escapees etc. Actually I kind of have a problem now. Last month my last phyllobates bicolor died, and now I'm down to a single dart frog, a leucomelas. One culture is too many flies for him, so my culture is booming and then having a big die-off becuase I'm not feeding out of it fast enough. The obvious solution would be to get more frogs, but honestly I'm kind of done with keeping frogs, we got them back when we had a small place and couldn't have cats and now we have lots of cats and the frogs are kinda stuck back in our frog/herp room and I'm just not enjoying them any more. I may have to give away the little guy. Really he deserves to be in a colony anyway, leucs do well in groups.
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Jul 8, 2019 23:05
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Leperflesh posted:Ahh, OK, I mistook you for a total beginner, you're already experienced with darts. Yeah, not a total beginner, but still pretty green. quote:I've been lazy for years and just put in an order with flymeat.com for two cultures every ~1.5 months ish, but recently erin decided to stop selling live cultures. It's definitely cheaper to just keep doing your own, but if you don't mind spending $20-30 every 1-2 months you can just order them instead. Of course you still have to deal with the escapees etc. Man, that sounds like the level of luxury I'd enjoy. You aware of anyone else doing that sort of service?
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Jul 9, 2019 02:28
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Oh sure, I get flies now from josh's frogs or fluker farms or there's a few others, none of them have as good cultures as flymeat did but they all cost around the same. You deffo save a lot of money by just starting with a storebought culture and then doing your own medium & cups & starting new cultures every x weeks. Depending on your indoor climate and the number of mouths you're feeding and whether you're doing melanogaster or hydeii or both all affect how frequently you need to start new cultures & how long each lasts, so it's a matter of dicking around with it for months until you hit a routine that works. Also recycling your used culture containers is pretty gross, it's much nicer although much more wasteful to just bin them and get a new one in the mail.
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Jul 9, 2019 03:01
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 lovely picture, but I got the hardscape together. I ultimately went without the water feature, I think it's a good decision. I'm trying for a very forest floor feel, so I'm not adding a background, but I ordered my plants and can't wait to start planting. Need to order some isopods and some springtails still.
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Jul 11, 2019 13:39
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That frog desk is the only thing that I've ever wanted in my life
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Jul 11, 2019 21:32
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You've made art, dude. Hope your frogs love it as much as I do!
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Jul 14, 2019 09:34
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Thanks guys! Plants are ordered. I think I'm going to focus on a few different species of fern (korean rock fern, white rabbit's foot fern, miniature bolbitis ferns, etc.) and for a splash of color begonia harmony 'fire woman.'  Colorful while retaining that cool dank feel that I'm going for. I'm excited about incorporating some moss, but wanted leaf litter on the ground as I've heard it's tremendously beneficial for dart frogs. I'm still unsure of what exact morph of tinctorius I want to go for, but that can wait a bit longer still. I want to order some isopods and spring tails, but temperatures here have been such that shipping is dicey.
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Jul 16, 2019 16:52
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Thanks guys! Plants are ordered. I think I'm going to focus on a few different species of fern (korean rock fern, white rabbit's foot fern, miniature bolbitis ferns, etc.) and for a splash of color begonia harmony 'fire woman.' Colorful while retaining that cool dank feel that I'm going for. I'm excited about incorporating some moss, but wanted leaf litter on the ground as I've heard it's tremendously beneficial for dart frogs. I'm still unsure of what exact morph of tinctorius I want to go for, but that can wait a bit longer still. I want to order some isopods and spring tails, but temperatures here have been such that shipping is dicey.
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Jul 16, 2019 16:59
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Crocoduck posted:Colorful while retaining that cool dank feel that I'm going for. plant some weed
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Jul 16, 2019 19:11
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Hey herp thread, my kid almost lit his dresser on fire with the ceramic heat emitter after moving it from his snake's cage. We got it before there were actual, like, flames. Charting, cracking, varnish bubble... His room smells delicious now... But yeah, those things get kinda hot!
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Jul 16, 2019 19:31
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Yeah I singed the carpet in my kid’s room swapping out heat fixtures when I set a CHE down for a second. It had been unplugged for quite a while, too. Luckily all the carpet in my house has got to go anyway.
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Jul 17, 2019 01:57
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My son, (14) has been keeping herps since he was about 6. He asked me about trying to breed ball pythons. It sounds like an interesting project, but I don't know a lot about breeding. We don't currently own any balls. Is it hard to get into? Do you end up with a bunch of snakes nobody wants if you don't spend 1k plus on a nice morph? Where should i start researching?
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Jul 25, 2019 21:54
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The Dregs posted:My son, (14) has been keeping herps since he was about 6. He asked me about trying to breed ball pythons. It sounds like an interesting project, but I don't know a lot about breeding. We don't currently own any balls. Is it hard to get into? Do you end up with a bunch of snakes nobody wants if you don't spend 1k plus on a nice morph? Where should i start researching? The question is more why balls, and to what purpose? I had a trio and they bred once; I didn't condition them and they weren't housed together long, just during a move, but it was enough time to get busy! I ended up with about 10 normal babies, which are almost impossible to get rid of unless you sell them as wholesale feeders. I got lucky after dropping way too much money on cages and feeding each picky fucker and found homes for them all, but it took almost six months after they were all eating well enough to be sold. Almost every herp show near me is flooded with balls, bearded dragons, and leopard geckos. Does your son want to breed balls with the idea of profit in mind? Or just to breed reptiles?
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Jul 26, 2019 03:10
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I work at a science center, and we recently got a $7,500 grant to improve the animal room. I have a bunch of small things I want to fix, but does anyone have any recommendations for what I can do with a large enclosure? It's about the size of a small shower stall - something like 5' x 5' x 8' or so, and right now it just has a pair of black rat snakes. Anyone have any suggestions for what might use the space better if I properly build it up?
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Jul 26, 2019 22:35
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The Dregs posted:My son, (14) has been keeping herps since he was about 6. He asked me about trying to breed ball pythons. It sounds like an interesting project, but I don't know a lot about breeding. We don't currently own any balls. Is it hard to get into? Do you end up with a bunch of snakes nobody wants if you don't spend 1k plus on a nice morph? Where should i start researching? Feel free to PM me if you want. I breed balls (owned them for over 15 years and been breeding for 6 years) and I can answer any questions you can think of. I'm curious about his motivation. Does he want to breed just for fun, or is he trying to make some money? Either reason is valid enough, but you'll want to approach it differently based on his goal. In short I'd say it's not difficult to get into, and no, common base morphs sell just as easily (actually much more easily, in my experience) as high end morphs and combos. But the profit margin is of course a lot lower with the common morphs. Normals aren't worth much but can be given away or sold wholesale. This is a good breeding guide to start with. Edit: Worth noting that some of the inexpensive base morphs are capable of producing some really incredible offspring with the right pairing. It's not hard to breed out hatchlings that are each worth 3-4x more than the parents. snake and bake fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jul 27, 2019 |
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Jul 26, 2019 23:57
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OneTwentySix posted:I work at a science center, and we recently got a $7,500 grant to improve the animal room. I have a bunch of small things I want to fix, but does anyone have any recommendations for what I can do with a large enclosure? It's about the size of a small shower stall - something like 5' x 5' x 8' or so, and right now it just has a pair of black rat snakes. Anyone have any suggestions for what might use the space better if I properly build it up? Can it hold a large water feature? Some kind of fishing snake would be really cool. There are some small ones that'd be comfortable with an arboreal setup above a pond that you stock with small fish. Alternatively, that's a good size for large full-grown chameleons. Or really any semi-arboreal or arboreal herp, lots of vertical space rather than a big wide flat terrarium is ideal.
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Jul 27, 2019 00:13
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Yeah if it’s tall, rather than wide, then it’s probably ideal for arboreal animals that benefit from the space- big arboreal snakes or chameleons.
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Jul 27, 2019 01:21
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Don’t get an iguana.
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Jul 27, 2019 01:22
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The Dregs posted:My son, (14) has been keeping herps since he was about 6. He asked me about trying to breed ball pythons. It sounds like an interesting project, but I don't know a lot about breeding. We don't currently own any balls. Is it hard to get into? Do you end up with a bunch of snakes nobody wants if you don't spend 1k plus on a nice morph? Where should i start researching? Do you have any reptile shows near you? Before you buy or breed balls, I would check out what the local scene is like. Like Cowslips said, the shows near me are almost all balls. That is fine but if your goal is to sell, you might be at a disadvantage compared to the other breeders. When I bring my carpet pythons to a show we get a lot of traffic because no one else ever has them here. They are as easy to breed as balls and more interesting, in my opinion. There are many species like this. I would check your local scene and see what is and isn't there. What is missing? I was super excited to see someone selling Angolan pythons at the show local to me last weekend. I was excited in April to see someone with locality corn snakes. But yeah, ball breeding is dead simple to get into. You need two good eaters, time and a home made incubator. If your son is thinking he wants to breed balls because he loves them, great. If he thinks it could be lucrative I would urge him looking into something more niche. snake and bake, what kind of balls do you breed? Do you specialize in a couple morphs or go all over? I find the current state of ball python breeding really confusing, myself. There are too many morphs. There are some really amazing looking snakes though. I would love a banana pied or something like that. HungryMedusa fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jul 27, 2019 |
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Jul 27, 2019 03:12
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Yeah, definitely thinking arboreal. It could make a gorgeous red eyed tree frog tank, but they're so boring in action, just sit there, so it would be pretty wasted. I'm thinking maybe a lizard or something, like giant day geckos or a small monitor. Multi-species might be interesting - normally I'm against them, but this is a pretty big enclosure, so species from the same region might be neat - especially if they're larger inverts that would cohab okay with a reptile, but I can't think of something that'd fit the bill. There could be a shallow water feature, but it's very similar to a shower stall, so wouldn't hold much and would need to cover a drain. I'd like to keep the total build under $3 - 4,000 - I have about $1,500 earmarked for better dart frog, cane toad, and box turtle habitats.
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Jul 27, 2019 03:42
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HungryMedusa posted:Do you have any reptile shows near you? Before you buy or breed balls, I would check out what the local scene is like. Like Cowslips said, the shows near me are almost all balls. That is fine but if your goal is to sell, you might be at a disadvantage compared to the other breeders. Their location is a good point, I hadn't considered that. I'm in Florida and we do seem to have a ton of reptile owners here. Not sure if that's the case everywhere. Still, shipping is an option, and it's not as hard as it seems. Check out ShipYourReptiles or Reptiles2You. There are a ton of morphs out there, but some are likely just different lines of the same morph (see yellowbelly vs goblin, fire vs mota, etc). Many morphs can be sorted into allelic groups, or complexes, where you have morphs that do look a bit different but are compatible with other similar morphs to produce the same supers (for example, lesser and mojave both have a blue-eyed lucy super, even when bred to each other). Here is a pretty decent list of currently known allelic groups. Ball python breeding is a bit different than breeding other reptiles because they have two different kinds of morphs: dominant and recessive. Dominant morphs are much easier to work with, because you can breed a dominant morph to anything else, even a normal, and each hatchling has a 50% chance to be the dominant morph. If they have the morph, it is visible. Recessives like albino are different because they can only produce a visual recessive if bred to another albino. Ball pythons can carry a recessive morph without showing it - these are heterozygous, or "het" for whatever morph. I have a few different projects going. Most of them involve either bright colors and dorsal stripes, or white balls. My current morphs include butter/lesser, clown, fire, mystic, nova, pastel, pinstripe, specter, and yellowbelly. Mainly working on producing blue-eyed and black-eyed leucistics, clown combos, super stripes, and ivories.
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Jul 27, 2019 14:45
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Thanks for all the replies guys. Sorry i didn't check sooner, I was thinking this thread moved really slow. We realized that we did have a Repticon this weekend, so we headed there. Let me start by saying that we mostly wanted to breed for fun, if I break even selling babies, so much the better. There was a a seller there (Dream Weaver Reptiles) who had a pastel female 100% het pied for $100. He said he'd throw in a 100% het clown male for free. I had done just a little homework and I realized that pied is recessive so I asked him if he had any het pied males. He had a yellowbelly 100% het pied male for 100, but he knocked 50 bucks off in lieu of a free male. I am fully aware that there is a chance that these just a pastel and a yellowbelly. His website seemed well reviewed, so I took the chance. Either way, I really like them and I will have fun raising them. My son also bought (with his own money) a wild type baby BCI for 50. He loves it. We're setting up the tanks now. He has a 20 gallon long and it worried that it might be too big. Is that a thing?  
The Dregs fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jul 27, 2019 |
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Jul 27, 2019 16:40
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Finally got stuff planted up! Here are a couple moments for the tank, I think things need to really grow in. I've ordered a few additional species like the little oak leaf ficus, but mostly things are where they're at. Next for frogs! 
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Jul 27, 2019 17:13
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Speaking of balls, we've now had 3 successful feedings in a row. We've finally figured out how he likes to eat, and how he shows us he's hungry.
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Jul 28, 2019 02:45
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Congrats! My crested gecko passed away today. I don't know why it happened -- it wasn't age. I'm guessing she was sick or something, and I didn't know how to recognize it. The only thing that stood out to me as being WRONG was that she didn't touch her food last night. I went to check on her immediately after noticing that, but she was already gone. I wish I'd have noticed something sooner, but I really don't like to bug her during the day...  Buried with honors in the flower garden.
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Jul 28, 2019 03:17
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My little 10 gallon aquarium is too small for my baby ball python. I think I am gonna go out and get her a big 100q rubber maid today. The male is in my son's room in a 20g, but if it works out with the bin, I may get him one too. I was watching ball python videos on youtube and one person (Snakes Discovery, I think) mentioned that she uses humid hides rather than trying to keep the whole enclosure humid. has anyone tried this?
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Jul 29, 2019 12:43
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A humid hide is much easier and better because too much humidity can also give your snake problems.
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Jul 29, 2019 15:28
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What CW said, plus giving your snake options in their environment is 1) nice for the snake 2) nice for you because your snake’s behavior will likely be more interesting as she has reasons to move around 3) useful because snakes can’t tell you that they’re sick/hurt/etc but they can show you through their behavior. A snake that exclusively hangs out in their humid hide vs their dry hide and never comes out is a tell you might not get in a more homogeneous enclosure.
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Jul 29, 2019 16:23
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Electric Bugaloo posted:What CW said, plus giving your snake options in their environment is 1) nice for the snake 2) nice for you because your snake’s behavior will likely be more interesting as she has reasons to move around 3) useful because snakes can’t tell you that they’re sick/hurt/etc but they can show you through their behavior. A snake that exclusively hangs out in their humid hide vs their dry hide and never comes out is a tell you might not get in a more homogeneous enclosure. So, if I use a humid hide, should I worry about the humidity in the rest of the enclosure at all? I live in Georgia, so we're pretty humid naturally. I did order some digital hygrometer. I picked up the 100qt tote, it is bigger than I thought! Almost the size of a 40 breeder. This should keep her happy for quite a while. The Dregs fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Jul 29, 2019 |
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Jul 29, 2019 17:06
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I contacted the breeder and asked what the baby ball pythons were eating. He said live hoppers. I went ahead and tried giving them f/t hoppers and it worked like a charm. I was worried they might be fussy. Tried feeding my son's boa and he wasn't having it. Just kept fake striking and then hid in his hide. I'll try again in a day or two.
The Dregs fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Aug 2, 2019 |
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Aug 2, 2019 23:28
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It is great the two balls are already eating f/t. I am no morph expert, so I can't speak to whether or not the one is a YB. Cool if they make pieds someday! If not, they are still beautiful animals. For the boa, a 20 long does not seem huge for a baby boa as long as it has many hiding spots and a proper thermal gradient. You might have to insulate the sides if the tank is glass depending on how temps stay during your seasons. As for feeding the boa, don't try to feed again in a couple days. Give it at least a week. Don't handle/check/peek in on him in that time. Leave it alone until it finally eats, then leave it alone again. After it does eat, feed it less than the balls. Boas are slow digesters. The new thoughts about feeding them are to offer smaller prey items and to space them out farther- the days of feeding a prey item a week are over. We as a hobby are finding that slow and steady is the way to go. Snakes in general live longer if they are fed slower. Congrats on the snakes!
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Aug 3, 2019 04:18
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I'm a complete novice to reptiles, always wanted them as a kid but my parents flat out stopped me, so I grew up with various cats instead. Now I have kids, I'm starting to think about pets for them as I think they are very good for children to be around. My wife is not a fan of furry creatures due to fleas etc but is very open to reptiles. As such I've been reading as much as I can find online about various reptiles and which might be suitable for a family with small children and I'm pretty settled on a Blue Tongued Skink. Does this seem reasonable for a total beginner? Can anyone recommend a good setup and a breeder to buy from in the UK?
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Aug 3, 2019 15:20
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The Dregs posted:Thanks for all the replies guys. Sorry i didn't check sooner, I was thinking this thread moved really slow. We realized that we did have a Repticon this weekend, so we headed there. Let me start by saying that we mostly wanted to breed for fun, if I break even selling babies, so much the better. If you bought from a legit breeder, both of those BPs should definitely be carrying the pied morph. Some pairings produce only possible hets but those should be marked and priced accordingly (50% het, 66% het, etc). Other pairings produce guaranteed hets so there shouldn't be any guesswork involved. Did you ask about the parents? Either way, congrats on the new sneks.  Earlier this week, I was surprised by 2 clutches on the same day. I got 5 eggs from a lesser pastel x butter pastel pair, and 7 from a "who's your daddy?" lesser pastel and pinstripe x butter pair. Hoping to get some BELs in the mix.
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Aug 3, 2019 16:49
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snake and bake posted:If you bought from a legit breeder, both of those BPs should definitely be carrying the pied morph. Some pairings produce only possible hets but those should be marked and priced accordingly (50% het, 66% het, etc). Other pairings produce guaranteed hets so there shouldn't be any guesswork involved. Did you ask about the parents? I didn't ask about the parents, but i did ask if they were percent het and he said they were 100% het, guaranteed. We'll see. I was surprised they took f/t the first time. I didn't read the post above yours until today, otherwise I would have tried waiting a week before feeding my son's BCI. Instead I tried giving it a live rat fuzzy. Ate it right up. His breeder syas they never use f/t, I hope he doesn't end up being picky. I am really, really, trying to resist buying a couple more BP's already, these snakes are so cool. Also, some asf rats ostensibly to feed them, but also because breeding them looks fun too. Talk me out of this
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Aug 6, 2019 01:40
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The Dregs posted:I didn't ask about the parents, but i did ask if they were percent het and he said they were 100% het, guaranteed. We'll see. I was surprised they took f/t the first time. I have done ASFRs. They are pains in the rear end when it came to any kind of handling. Then again I am used to my generations-inbred mice who don't care if I handle the babies. ASFRs pinkies, I gave some to mice and rats to see if other rearing could calm them. Nope. Of course if you have deep enough bins they won't be able to jump much. Mine might have just been nasty fuckers, even the rats, much smarter, larger, and able to count when I took babies, were nicer.
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Aug 6, 2019 02:31
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