New native paludarium... I think you'll love it! - Page 2

froggsong · #11 10-01-2009, 01:57 PM

That's one thing I like about being able to work with a tank that needs at least very similar parameters to the climate outside my door (for at least part of the year). Then you can go outside and you have a huge variety of plants to choose from, and you don't have to pay for any of them, lol... That gives you the chance to get plants that are the right scale, as well as knowing the best placement for them (because you found them growing as they naturally would). Both of the tanks I have done recently are 10G tanks, btw (I don't know if you can tell in the pictures). Once we move back to the south east, I'll be able to go outside and grab plants that will survive in a tropical vive. I'm really looking forward to that. If I thought my mother would do it, I'd get her to go out and gather some plants for me (taking pictures of them first so I can see how they are growing) and then send them to me, but she's not very likely to go traipsing through the woods...

Epiphile · #12 10-01-2009, 02:09 PM

That's what I thought was great when I was in Ecuador- if someone found a big orchid or bromeliad that had fallen from the canopy onto a trail they'd sometimes bring it back to the camp. All you'd need to do was stick it somewhere and it would grow like a weed- you wouldn't even need a tank, for that matter.

froggsong · #13 10-07-2009, 02:21 AM

So, the ferns are doing GREAT (I didn't think these would make it, honestly). I just wish I had gotten them in there more upright (two of them are vertical, rather than horizontal).

Guess what?!? Saphira has been coming onto land! I saw her take her first steps out of the water. I saw it and I started hollering for my husband, "Baby!!! Come here! She's venturing, she's venturing!!!"

It was a great moment for me, lol. Ah, the simple pleasures in life.

Here's some pics:

darc · #14 10-08-2009, 12:51 AM

Very nice looking... went to comment on the youtube video but couldn't remember my password, because I have a shitty memory.

-darc

Nighsliv · #15 10-08-2009, 01:41 AM

I saw the pictures of Saphira here and I spontaneously went "wow", she(?) is a really pretty and cool looking newt. Glad to see she is coming up on land for you those moments can be very exciting.

beckdg · #16 10-08-2009, 01:53 AM

you wouldn't think gold and brown would stand out on an animal but that's a beautiful contrast. saphira absolutely looks as if to belong right there too. terrific job froggsong. looks great.

froggsong · #17 10-08-2009, 09:47 AM

Thanks very much guys! I am very happy to see that she likes it so much. I'm glad I didn't go with a larger land area, she stays in the same place almost all the time.

I think that she is actually a HE, due to the large cloacal area, but I already had her named, so I call her a she. She is a very cool animal. We were hiking when we first moved here and I saw her crossing the road as we were headed back to the car in semi darkness. She was so slow and so neat, I just had to have her. I dumped out my water bottle (it was a wide mouth bottle) and put her inside and then spent the car ride home trying to keep her inside it, lol. She is and always has been very tame, she will walk all over you as long as you keep your skin moist so that she doesn't dry out (and you have to be SURE to wash your hands. These guys are one of the most toxic critters on earth, thanks to some snakes that like to eat them and a thing we sometimes refer to as "evolution" hehehe. Or at least so I've read). She will watch you through the glass, especially underwater, and will track your finger if you slide it on the glass. She's only got three toes on each foot on her left side, I think she must have had either the entire legs or at least the feet bitten off at one time. Her nubby feet, as I call them, lol. They are totally the cutest newt feet ever.

She is quite easy to take care of, I rarely even have to feed her, and I don't have to buy bugs for her to eat. I keep her tank stocked with fish, snails, and sometimes ghost shrimp. I feed her the occasional wiggler out of the yard (VERY cool to watch, btw), and I have her new setup stocked with isopods and other little critters that were in the moss I put in the tank. Since I discovered that her favorite food is snails, I've actually fed her maybe twenty times, and she is fat, happy, and healthy. Plus, she's obviously photogenic! She is definitely one of my favorite pets, and one I would never be able to give up if I had to give any up.

Oh, I forgot... beck, she's sortof brown, she looks more red in person, though the pics are very close to her actual color. So she is a red-brown with a gold belly. Sometimes she is a brownish shade of burgandy, it's an intersting color, a purplish red-brown. It's similar to the color of the "clover" plant that she is sitting under in the pics, but not quite.

froggsong · #18 12-02-2009, 11:33 PM

I should update this thread. I have new moss in there that is doing great, and the original moss is climbing the mopani and is doing wonderfully. I've never had moss do so well in a tank before. There is even some sort of moss that can only be growing from spores, because it is very tiny and there is nothing else like it in the tank. I'm excited to see if it is the kind I think it might be.

I'll take some pics and post them in the next few days.

EDIT: I am having a pretty bad problem with aphids in this tank. Does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of them? The plants are just COVERED in aphids and their ancestors (lol). I'm sure they rode in on the plants when I put them in there originally.

brp4e. · #19 12-03-2009, 12:21 AM

Dude that looks like a rough skinned newt... they are poisonous you know, we get them up here in BC, Canada as well and since you live in WA i wouldnt be surprised if you got them as well, it contains enough poison to kill 25,000 mice and is the most toxic amphibian in the pacific north west, a guy around here ate one or something and he went into cardiac arrest.

froggsong · #20 12-03-2009, 08:37 PM

yes, it is (there is also an "oregon newt" that is almost the same, but they have a different pattern to the teeth in the roof of their mouths, they are equally poisonous though). I have read that they are the second most poisonous animal on the planet, if eaten; second to the blow fish. Since I don't know how much of that poison is excreted into the water and how much regularly rests on their skin, she is housed alone. Normally she would have gone in with the others, or at least with my native guys, but I'm not going to risk it. I've seen videos where these guys are eaten, kill the animal, then crawl out of the mouth completely unharmed. They are so poisonous because there is a snake that eats them, and it was an evolutionary arms race to see which species would survive. The snake has such a resistance to the poison that they are not effected and are the only animal that can actually eat the newt and live. It has nothing to do with how dangerous she could be, but she is one of my favorite herps. She has an amazing personality and is perfectly content being handled. That is amazing to find in a wild captive that was fully mature when caught. She's so cute too.

She's had both of the legs on one side of her body bitten off at one time or another and only has three toes on the front foot and four on the back. Other than the missing toes they grew back perfectly, and I love her cute little toes on that side.

I wish I had a second one of the opposite sex so I could try to breed them, but you can't sell native species in WA and are only allowed to keep them in captivity for "educational purposes". So, if anyone asks, I am learning about their behavior... heh.