Babies! What have these creatures been doing?

Today is June 23, 2011.  I came in today to check everybody (they're great) and feed them (Tim was hungry).

Imagine my surprise when I saw 2 baby black mollies.  I didn't buy baby mollies.  I bought adults.  Yep.  Breeding has occurred in my freshwater tank.  That is a first, actually, for any tank of mine.  Pretty cool.  They're swimming around quickly and safely at the moment.

I moved to the roach tank next, and there was a white one!  The white roach isn't albino (like David the King Snake), but is molting.  They turn white when they molt.  Pretty cool.  So I lifted the water dish for more water and there was a swarm (at least 30) of babies underneath.  They've been busy, too.  Nice.

Tim the Turtle is happily munching on his treats today.  He misses the kids in here - they provided him with excellent entertainment.  OTherwise, that tank's doing great.

The Salt tank is still overrun with some algae, but our sea hare (see above) is working on eating.  And eating.  And eating.  Qbert the Cubicus fish is happy, too.  He always swims for me when I walk in the room.  He knows food is coming, too.  The clowns are still trying to eat my fingers, but they'll learn one of these days.

David the King Snake is at least 2.5 feet long.  He's really grown.  I'll have to measure him soon.  He also misses the daily interactions, but I spend as much time with him as possible.

Well, that's the update for today.  Have an excellent June!  See you over the weekend or early next week with more news and some pictures.

Salt, news, Summer!

It's summer, and about 5 months since I updated here.


Salt water - we've got animals - 2 clowns and 1 cubicus, 5 turbo snails, 2 sea stars and a sea hare.
They're all doing great.

My tarantula (rose-haired) is growing well, the roaches have reproduced at least 2 more times (there are numerous little critters in that tank.

And sometime I'll show you a picture of my African side-neck turtle.  His name is Tim.

News, both sad and exciting

Greetings.  I have some very sad news today.  Curly, our curly-haired Honduran tarantula decided that life was no longer an option.  She died sometime on Sunday/Monday early morning.

Everyone else is doing well here, though.  We're still waiting to get the water tested on the salt tank, but I can guarantee you that it's doing very well.  There are 24.98 lbs of live rock in the tank, and since it was started three weeks ago has shown great signs of life.
There are large splotches of the purple (desirable kind) algae.  The rock is also making many bubbles during the day cycle of the tank.

The sand also has some life forms on it.

The bottom image is a closeup of the live rock.  You can even see the bubbles form before they are released to float to the surface.
Very cool, indeed.

The snake, but faster

Having received a few rather vocal complaints about the last snake video, here's a new one.
It's been sped up by a factor of at least 10.

And yes, there's payoff.

Snake Dinner time!

As promised, here's a video of David eating his first mouse dinner in three weeks.

Curly, the Curly Haired Honduran Tarantula

One of our other exotic pets is a curly-haired Honduran tarantula.  She's just a few months old, we think. 

Her weekly diet consists of a few small to medium crickets.  She loves to explore her cage, and on occasion, she'll let one of us hold her.

She's pretty small, so the shots we have are rather close.
Here she is in my hand on Thursday, 17 December.  She was there for over an hour.  Must like the warmth.

Below is one of my 7th graders.  Haley isn't bothered by the creatures, and loves to hold the spider and the snake.  Taken on Monday, 13 December.

The Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches

There's nothing like creepy, crawly roaches to cause people's skin to crawl. 
Then you get roaches this size that hiss at you and it really compounds the icky factor.

These guys are pretty cool.



(stock photo)