Daily Photo - Rose of Sharon

Rose of Sharon.

Daily Photo - Wooly Bear

Just a caterpillar in the yard.

Daily photo - Normal Kuhli Loach

This one has fins and everything.

Daily Photo - More Fish

Harlequin Rasbora showing that I need to wash the glass just a little more.

This is stumpy. I have no real idea how old it is. It was only this year I moved fish tanks and got it a few friends (it did originally have friends, they just didn't survive as well.) I think it's supposed to have stripes like a normal kuhli loach, but it just has a little stripe left on its head, and its pectoral fins are just little sumps now. I'm not sure why, since I have a second different species of the same basic type of fish who is about as old, and still has all its fins. They were in the same tank too. Its also roughly double the size of its new friends.

Daily Photo - Betta

While the new hillstreams won't stay still the betta was willing to freeze for a second.

Daily Photo - Hillstream Loach

Not sure on species yet, but I have 5 fish in quarantine. Here's hoping they're one of the species that breeds in captivity. They were labeled Fireworks Hillstteam Loaches.

Daily Photo - Blue Dasher

From the New York Botanical Gardens.

Daily Photo - Parking Lot Clouds

We'll see how long this lasts, but I'm going to try my daily photos again. Get back into photography.

Zebra Finches

Plexiglass makes taking pics of birds MUCH easier. They went in their new cage yesterday and are back to singing and eating today, still startle easily, but that will happen when you have to catch them to move them.

Adults

Whole Flock

Large Finch Flight Cage

So two months ago I bought some zebra finches. While they do go against my standard pet rule, easily handleable, they're cute, and require less attention then some other choices. I bought a pair with the intention of letting them breed at least once so I could have a small group rather than just one pair. I may or may not swap some of the babies with others just so I don't have a group of all related birds. They had four chicks that just left the nest this weekend. I've been planning out their cage a few times and settled for the largest one that can fit in my living room (it actually can't fit out of my living room with out being disassembled...

They've been living in my old cockatiel cage, which I realized in two days was much too small to let them fly as much as they want, a 30" x 18" x 36" dome top... The new cage is 5' long by 30" deep, by 3' tall. This is roughly 4+ times the interior space. The top has plexi doors so I can see the birds without wire in the way which they should learn not to fly into (the adults were from a store that had glass fronted cages, and they seemed to figure it out easily, I'll probably drape something over it for a while to keep it from being an attractive exit), and the bottom wire. The sides and back are solid at the moment, which will supposedly keep them calmer, though they mostly ignore the dogs anyway, and the top is wire for ventilation and so I could add lights or heat lamps in the winter.

Awful cell phone pic of the birds through their thick wired cage.

Growth - Kenyan Sand Boa

Adult Male Normal Sand Boa, approx 16in long, About 5 years old

When I really noticed he was getting bigger, yes he was tiny when I got him.

Back when I first got him (2009), same hand

This is Baby (I was lazy about naming pets for a while.) I remember initially he was a nightmare to feed (had no interest what so ever), but once I got him to eat he quickly endeared himself. He's pretty, very docile, and stays quite small. Except for that need of higher temps (90-95° hot spot) then some other beginner snakes I think he would make a great starter snake. The real bonus is the size though. He's about 5 years old now, and seems to have stopped growing. He lives in a small low exo-terra tank, and he should be able to live in that for the rest of his life (min. another 10 years).

Firebelly Toad Froglet...

A little smaller then a dime, living in a 16oz deli container. It's eating fruit flies at the moment, but since it's so small I have way too many fruit flies.

DIY Vertical Terrarium Conversions

I'm slowly dealing with the annoyances of my pets. I have three not particularly tame (one actually bites, and the other two flee in terror) male crested geckos. They've been in 20 gallon high aquariums with screen lids for a few years. The downsides of this setup are numerous, but the worst is any time I open the cage if startled they rocket to the top and I have to close the lid to keep them in, and wait for them to calm back down before I can do anything. This means I don't feed or clean as often as I should because it's a pain.

A few months ago I thought why not flip the aquariums on their sides and make the top the front. This was partially caused by picking up some Exo-terra terrariums on clearance and loving the front opening aspect, meaning I can leave a heat lamp on the top but still feed or clean. The Kenyan sand boa is so much easier to deal with when I don't have to take off the lamp, pull at the cage locks, then look for the snake. Same with the leopard gecko. So I had the flipping idea and looked around. Plenty of other people had done it, notably dart frog owners and breeders. They'd silicone a small piece of glass to the bottom edge of the new opening, use an aquarium lid hinge to attach it to another piece of glass that acted as a door. the very top would have a custom screen for air exchange. There were even companies that made kits. Kits were about $25 maybe per set of two pieces of glass hinges and a screen. I had to purchase the frame pieces for the screen, and had a glass shop cut the glass (Awesome experience with Ace Glass.) Turns out I had all the other parts. I had some silicone, took apart two aquarium hoods for the hinges, and had just enough screen left to make these small screens.

I used 6 inch tall glass for the bottom and 13 inch for the top, width depends on your specific tank. Of the three tanks I used one was very slightly smaller. I bought unfinished glass (it's cheaper) so did have to sand the edges at home with a sanding sponge. I also bought a glass cutter so might just cut my own glass next time if I can find 1/8" thick, all the local stores sell 3/32" which is just slightly too thin. And at $5.00 or so a piece for the largest pieces I didn't see much point it buying a large piece just to test how bad I am at cutting glass.

Some links I used as inspiration.

• Making PDF Tank vertical tank 3D Background
• 20 gallon vertical conversion live terrarium
• diy 10 gallon vertical vivarium
• 10 gallon vertical dart frog terrarium construction

Note: this conversion only works for animals that do not require UVB, mostly floor or nocturnal dwellers from very heavy rainforests, if your animal requires UVB the top of your cage needs to be mesh to let the light through.

DIY Dog Gate

So one of my dogs is nine years old and for most of that time I've used those crappy plastic and wood tension baby gates. For a few months when I first got that dog I used a 4 foot tall piece of plywood that hung on hooks on the door frame to keep her in my kitchen. She just jumped baby gates. Eventually, I graduated down to stacking two of them, and fast forward to now when I can just lean a baby gate across the door and she mostly won't cross it. The problem with the gates was me, and how I always assumed I could clear the baby gate because moving it was too annoying. It was of course just that extra inch too high for my second foot to clear easily, and I tripped over it a number of times, but notice it never made me move it. My other dog was also terrified of them and panicked if one hit the floor and wouldn't come near the door if they were there.

Then a few weeks ago someone (miraculously not me) went over one with a bucket of water and spilled it all over my living room. I'd just taken apart an ikea bed frame at my cousins and saved the boards that made up the mattress support because why not. They were just about perfect. I added one on each side to anchor the gate to and spent two hours fiddling with some others to make the gate. I knew I wanted it tall enough that I'd have to open it, and it had to be easy to open. I also spent some time making sure it was level so unlike every door in my house it will stay open or closed without being latched. I added a small barrel lock to keep it closed, but the dogs aren't super interested in pushing it. I may paint it white, but I really like the look of it. And I get to throw out my bent baby gates now. Ignore the foam in the background, it was also from the bed deconstruction and the dogs are getting more comfortable beds out of it.

New year, New pets

So to celebrate getting a new full-time job, and having excess Christmas money hanging around I went to a reptile expo. I was also celebrating entering the final weeks of my retail job and having weekends back. I had a few interests, but with this being winter it was slim pickings for captive bred juvie snakes, they're much more common in late spring to mid-summer depending on species. I did pick up the two above Kenyan sand boas, hopefully females, one is a lighter yellow and the other is the traditional pinkish orange. I did have a few chances at adult snakes, but they were all too squirmy for me. I already have a boa and he is the most laid back of the snakes. The ones up for sale were all freaked out and thrashing, and having tried that exactly once I won't buy a very thrashy non juvenile snake. (I bought a sinaloan milk snake who thrashed so badly I thought he would injure himself, and after a few months I rehomed him because I couldn't get him to calm down at all.) Once a few years old a snake should be much more handle able if it's a species known for it. The two I picked were both much calmer, and after having them for a week both have also eaten. I also tried for females because they get bigger then the males, and I already have a male (judging by how he stopped growing at about 15 inches a few years ago). While I have no plans to bred them you never know. The real goal is a little silly. I have three large snakes, they all eat the same food, so the food can be bought in large quantities but eaten fast enough it doesn't get freezer burn. The sand boa eats much smaller food, that tends to get freezer burn since I have to buy it in even larger quantities, and only have one snake that eats it (the frog gets one about once a month, and the bigger snakes sometimes get one, but one snake takes a long time to go through a bag of a hundred fuzzies.) So I either wanted a baby corn who would eat fuzzies at a very good clip for a while, or something else that stayed smaller. The new boas are eating pinks, but will move up to fuzzies eventually, then I'll stop having the freezer burn problem.

I also took a chance on some fire belly toad tadpoles. I had an empty cycled fish tank, so they went in there. As of three weeks in, all but one have disappeared, but the one I have left is huge. Maybe I'll get an adult out of it eventually.

I have plans to rework the reptile room in the near future, probably moving the three larger snakes out into a cage stack in my bedroom and reorganize the smaller bedroom. I have to decide if the crested geckos will stay in their extremely inconvenient tanks, get moved to bins, or if I try to build them something custom. In the last few months i did pick up two exo-terra terrariums and love the front opening doors. They were short ones so the leopard gecko and the sand boa each got a new easy to access home. Two of the big snakes are still in tanks, and the corn has really outgrown it, while the ball could get away with the tank size I can't deal with how much of a pain it is to open or clean the tanks. Once it warms up I'm building shelving racks to deal with the cages, and to hopefully set up two fish tanks in my living room, once the snake gets out of one of the tanks. The fish I've hung onto for years have gotten new accommodations and live in a new tank in the kitchen. I'm also considering garter snakes Red-Sided - Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis can be convinced to eat rodents, or some other interesting looking different species in the future as well, depends on how my house rearranging goes.