mudboots

A person in this area who wants to start creating terrariums and vivariums as a hobby ran into me by chance the other day while I was on a "date" for lunch with the kids (they chose McD's for the play area). I brought up the wetland and after some discussion on different plants and different set ups, this person is going to do one or two wet habitats, so I am going to donate some of the plants from the wetland (these set ups will be used as eco-displays for local elementary school students, so I couldn't say no). Not sure when exactly, but a pretty major thinning will be coming. I have some reserve plants at the house I can offer as well, so it may not be as much as I think from this tank. We'll see...

I might make the foreground a little larger, but not by too much.

mudboots

Some of the less-observed residents:

If anyone has an idea of what this is let me know. I thought it was a root, but noticed it moved once in a while. This worm was very, very slow, and I see it (or others) very rarely against the glass in the water among the Riccia. For scale, the worm is approximately 1 mm wide (about twice that of the Riccia fragments it's among).

mudboots

And here are some others; a white worm (or planaria for all I know) and an ostracod, plus a couple miscellaneous views of the tank I didn't post last time. For scale on the first two shots, the Riccia fragments are 0.5 mm wide.

mudboots

The cypress knee pieces are becoming part of the scape in a more organic way now. I can see Anubias roots beginning to creep around them, and somehow Riccia and Pelavicinia are beginning to grow on one of them. I'll spare a whole lot of boring pics, but here are two I snapped a few evenings ago.

Michael

Mudboots, what is your substrate in this tank? And do you keep it saturated all the time, with some water over the surface where the substrate is shallower?

I am thinking of something like this as a home for poison dart frogs.

mudboots

The substrate is a third "MGOC" that I did a partial mineralization process with just to get some good muck started, about a third of EcoComplete or something (I forget, but one of those bagged black substrates that are sold wet and claim to have iron and other nutrients in it), and a third "other" which is a bit of soil from the yard plus a touch of pea gravel.

There was no rhyme or reason for the specific mix; it just kind of worked out that way.

The substrate slopes from a high point in the middle to the sides, and then is lowest in the very front. I keep about 2 cm water depth in the very front.

This will change soon. I plan to move two Anubias "clods" to the back or out completely and raise the water level another 2 cm, increasing the Riccia footprint a little. Then I am going to wait for an opportunity to find 2 more newts (Notopthalmus viridiscens louisianensis). Ned finally passed away after what I thought was a pretty long life, especially considering we changed his home several times from Nac, to Dime Box, Bryan...

The folks at the office bug me often about putting various critters in there, so whatever I add will be the office pet.

mudboots

Tomorrow on my lunch break I am going to heavily trim the Syng. plants (the bronze ivy-looking plants), remove 3 or 4 Crpyt. spiralis, 3 or 4 units of Anubias, another handfull or two of the Juncus repens, and some of the Riccia that is climbing up the front of the glass. If anyone wants to pick any of it up let me know. Otherwise it'll get tossed (no shipping, no sales, just come get it if you're close and want it, or no big deal).

I am going to increase the Riccia lawn area and raise the water to about 5 cm or so in the very front (still will only be a small area of water)...then in a couple of weeks I will try to find my new pets.

Michael

Do you plan to collect or buy your newts?

I've been considering what type of fauna to put in my planned paludarium. From my reading, all the newt species seem to require cooler temperatures than I can provide during the summer. But if these guys come from Texas, they can't be THAT intolerant of warm temperatures.

mudboots

Hey Michael,

I plan to collect them. That's one main reason I would be hesitant to buy, because I have no idea where they come from otherwise and what they need. The place I hope to find them is about at broad-spectrum as I can imagine as far as Texas weather goes, and for as long as I had Ned and Nattie they never seemed to mind much of anything as long as there were bloodworms once in a while.

My planned "expedition" is the 18th; I'll let you know what I find...

Michael

Interesting! This is the best on-line info I've found: http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/No...idescens.shtml

This site is great on all salamanders, but it has so many warnings about keeping the animals at temperatures that are too high that I gave up on the idea. My aquaria stay at about 78 to 80 F during the summer, and 70 to 72 F in the winter. (I don't use heaters.) Do you think N. v. louisianensis would be happy at those temperatures?