The Realm

Ok so I think the subject is a good one as lots of things are getting closer. Before I go on, is anyone else getting the stupid banner up top to confirm email? I hate clicking stuff and don't trust most pop ups but it won't go away. Want to make sure it's legit. Click stuff is how you get viruses. Reminds me of when DA was doing this a few years back. I did ignore if for quite a long time. Very annoying. Maybe they're doing it because so many people lost their accounts when they made that change where you were forced to change passwords in a certain time. A lot of people did not have access to their old emails from decades ago and lost their LJs. They are still sitting there but they can't get into them. It's sad how LJ used to be the best (it still is but is dropping fast) and now they are going down hill to sucksville.

Anyway, I was worried because my Amazon order I placed this past week took several days to go through. Luckily it finally did and all my dog stuff came in yesterday. I got the play pen, some chew toys and blankets. Oh and an awesome new dremel tool. Ah, this brings back memories of when I was a macaw owner and had my awesome blue and gold named Joel. I miss him so much. He was amazing. I used to have a mobile bird grooming business in the 90s. I would advertise in the local paper then go to people's homes and clip wings, nails and beaks. For the big parrots the dremel was essential. You have to be careful with bird claws as they have a blood vessel. Some birds have black nails and you can't see the blood through it like those that have white. They are harder to clip cause of that. From what I've seen it's the same with dogs and their nails. I'm off topic now. So almost everything came in. Luckily I got the most expensive difficult stuff first which makes the last stuff on the list seem easy. Since I'm naming my dog Olive, I want a tag that has olives on it. I got a collar but they were green olives. She's going to be a black olive. I found a nice tag that will match the collar but you know me, I want everything customized. I'm wondering if I can recolor the olives to be black and if the seller would print the new art I will provide? I hope so. If not the green will be fine. Since the collar was a premade ribbon I can't recolor those to be black. Eh, but the green would show better against a black dog. Not sure. I need to think about that.

Speaking of puppies. I was looking around and found a breeder in Dallas. My goodness that would be a haul. I don't think I can do though, that is save up in time. I have enough for a deposit, but I can't meet the balance in time. Even in the 8 weeks it takes for a puppy to wean and be sellable. I want cropped ears so that makes things more expensive. Add a few hundred dollars on top of the price. If I can't go get the puppy myself add several hundred more dollars for a plane trip to Tampa. The bad thing about that is I don't get to meet the puppies and pick one. I may still contact them to ask questions but looks like this particular one wont' happen. A shame because I love how they care for the puppies, how well raised they are and just everything else is great. Oh that they aren't show dogs. I'm so sick of all the breeders being show dog people, making their dogs stupid expensive, having dumb points in the contract that I refuse to agree to and possibly getting rejected as a buyer. Now I have done my share of rejecting customers when I sell birds but those were people that I knew would not care for my babies as pets. Years ago I had a jerk keep pestering me in person to sell him a bird because his son let the last one go (not one of mine thank goodness) and they needed a new one. Are you kidding me? No. What's to stop his irresponsible kid from just doing it again? I really need to tell that story sometime. The guy was a scum bag but he never was able to pull a fast one on me. You guys know how I am in online flamewars. Well guess what, unlike the majority of keyboard warriors in the internet what you see is what you get. I'm the same in real life as I am online so he got the What For from me. Ha, I'm off topic again. The channel Doberman Planet made a funny video about jerk breeders actually where John plays all the parts and argues with himself. If any one wants to see it here's the link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUFtRe6OZ8

I have finished the frog tank. Perhaps it's good the first one failed because this one is WAY better.



I'm a big fan of the 3d brick "wallpaper". I used light blue panels on the previous tank. This one I got these coral or peach colored ones. They were listed as pink but that's not pink. It's light orange. You can't see it here but the rocks are fish tank rocks in different shades of blue. I made an egg crate false bottom so it's not as heavy as the last one, will hold water better and uses fewer rocks. Since becoming a frog owner I have also now become a fan of small bromeliads. These are all Neoregelia genus hybrids. The one on the left is called Chiquita Linda, the one in the middle is Fireball and the one of the left is More Pepper Please. All these remain small which is perfect for terrariums. As far as size I love Chiquita Linda. One of the smallest. I think that's as big as they get. The other two might get bigger. I think the fireball might be close to full size but will begin to make pups. The more pepper is my fave for color in this tank. The plants on the side are fitonia white vein and pink vien. There's a peperomia cubanensis hiding in the left corner. You cant see it. The middle is a cutting of neon philodendron. That one I picked because the green will contrast the orange but it gets orange stems. And several types of moss that I hope in time will grow in and make a carpet. At that point leaf litter won't be necessary. I will let this sit for a week, maybe two so the frogs don't uproot everything and eat all the springtails and isopods which is what happened last time. Oh springtails are tropical pinks and isopods are porcellio scaber orange. I'm hoping with the leaves, the bark, wood and plants they'll have places to hide. I love that round thing on the right but it keeps growing hairy white mold. I don't want to get rid of it but not sure what to do.



I didn't take step by step photos. I did take videos but forgot to do still photos. This is the only one and it shows how I made the false bottom. I hope to make a video showing the progress at some point. I'm so behind on my videos. Ok that's it for now.
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I have made an animated icon of Scary Fear. I'm so happy about this. He looks great! My goodness, I have remade this picture so many times. When will it end? I'm thinking of fixing his eyebrows. They aren't long enough. That means I'd have to remake the animation. Sigh, well we'll see. So here's a short video of me talking about it.


https://youtu.be/KrT1Tui-vyE

That little tadpole has been a major pain. He's the last one I have. I had made a little tank with a rock in the center for an island so he could come out on land. I must have saved him like five times today. I can't lose him. He fell back in the water and almost drown and a few other stupid things. I had put some soil on the rock with springtails and he was eating those. He got stuck. I then set up an 8 oz container with a rock, soil full of springtails and sphagnum. He got stuck in the soil and I had to rescue him. So I added more sphagnum so he won't get stuck. I hope the springtails will come out now that they are covered. So what they tell you about putting them in a tilt cup and don't feed them because they absorb their tails is not true for me. They continue to eat and it's aweful to think so many others could have survived. But I didn't know. I'm angry at the "experts". Tadpoles are easy. Frogs are easy. But the transition from tadpole to frog is very hard. I hate it.

I got a new nepenthes today. Ampullaria Lime Twist. It's not as developed as my other ampullaria though so it doens't quite look like one. I hope it will grow fast and fill out. The photos I have seen online are beautiful. Here is a pic if you guys want to see one.
https://www.carnivero.com/products/nepenthes-ampullaria-lime-twist-be-3390?variant=32272369254513
Seems I bought the last one as it's now out of stock. I would like to get a green one next and one called hot lips that's green with a red peristome.

Also here is the next video in my series of how I made my new Scary Fear drawing.


https://youtu.be/blr6rR18HvY

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Hey guys. I disappeared for a long time didn't I? That's because I've been sick. Last week Chris caught something. Could have been the flu could have been the China virus. Doesn't matter we're not afraid of these things. So he was in bed and I was happy to take care of him. I was also working on my new frog tank at the time. But two days in I started to feel what I thought was fibro. Well it was. It tends to go off when anything else is wrong. But then I could feel cold like symptoms in my head and knew it was going to get worse. So next day I'm sick too now which sucks because we broke one of our "vows" we made. That being: Both of us can't be sick at the same time. Only one of us may get sick at a time so the other can take care of them. Ha, yes we know that's out of our hands but we like to quote that. So we've been taking care of each other when we're strong enough to get up and make hot teas, and give each other chicken soup, cough medicine, fever reducers and any other medication we need. We've been too weak to drive but since we have a stock pile of food and water for emergencies we've been eating that. The fevers have been pretty relentless. We've been giving each other ice packs, and for me wet rags. I can't handle cold stuff it hurts too much. We're finally on the mend. YAY. I've also had congestion and been using nasal sprays. So we could use prayers from you all to help with speeding recovery. If this was Hong Kong fluey then we're happy to be done with it so now we're immune and covered for another year. Might be our 3rd time. Just like it's always been.
Remember when everyone used to go to work and school while dog dead sick? That shouldn't change. People weren't afraid to make a living because lies weren't being blasted at them all the time. There were other types of lies back then but not like today. I remember phrases and conversations like, "Don't come near me, I have a cold."
"It's ok I already had it." or.
"It's ok. I have a special meeting next week and if I have to get sick I need to do it now."
Or if you were in school you HOPED you ran into a contagious classmate just to get out of school and were happy if you succeeded. Speaking of which. Though we've been rather miserable Chris and I are also so happy and thankful to have had all these days to be together. You guys don't know how much we miss each other with work. We're still that much in love like when we first met. That's good and that should never change. I do feel like I've snuck out of school by being ill. And it's so nice to be home and just watch cartoons. That's what I used to do. Actually it's funny we've been watching episodes of the original 70s Incredible Hulk. We used to both love that show growing up. My gosh though what an ugly time period it was. I'm glad I lived through so little of it. I don't know what changed in the 80s but it was so the far better with the lovely colors, better furniture, music and just everything was a vast improvement. It was like we came out of the dark ages.

So yes I was working on a new tank build. I had siliconed on these lovely sea green brick panels to the glass. I then added expanding foam to create a water fall. But I didn't know to seal all the seams. The foam got between them and went behind and pulled the main three panels up. I didn't figure out how this happened til yesterday. I'm going to have to take it apart and start over. I hope I don't have to destroy the foam waterfall. That would suck and be a waste of money and materials. I can't do anything about it yet. I'm too weak but can't wait to get back to project. I've already lost a nepenthes. I hate getting sick because stuff always dies on me. It's been hard taking care of the pets but we're both doing that best we can. As far as making the tank with foam bricks no one's done it the way I am so this is a first that I have to figure out on my own and I've already made stupid beginner mistakes. Hope this next time is done right.
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I have been busy again that is why I have been missing. I'm having so much fun raising frogs. I have ordered tadpoles of Anothony's Dart Frog - Epipedobates anthonyi from the Santa Isabella region. The name gets shortened to Santas which is ironic because the are a red and green frog. But to me the stripes look white not green. Here is a video of what they sound like and this is the reason I had to have them.


https://youtu.be/OL9JA89rJfE

I'm not a fan of their looks. Yeah they're cute and small and colorful. But the look doesn't do it for me. But that call. Oh man. And they are diurnal so to have them singing for me during the day as I do things around the house would be so lovely and relaxing. I have NEVER ordered tadpoles or frogs in the mail. I must say I'm nervous. I have ordered bugs and chicks and that's about it I think for live animals. They are supposed to be easy and a good beginner dart/arrow frog. The advantages to buying as tadpoles are they are much cheaper than buying frogs. I also get more time to set up the terrarium which I have yet to buy. I found a guy on Morph Market that had a great package of 10 + tadpoles but he also throws in dwarf white isopods (we all know I needed those for bioactive), spring tails, tadpole food and random plant cuttings. To me that makes it totally worth it for the price of the tadpoles and the overnight air ticket. They are coming FedEx. They should arrive tomorrow and I'll definitely be here waiting. Today is nice and overcast which makes this be "cooler". I hope tomorrow it will be overcast or raining lightly for even cooler weather for this delivery.

My own greenhouse frogs are doing well. Today I finally have my male isolated and added in that new red female I had caught. They both seem to have very nice personalities being colorful and active at night. I have finally named him. His name is Michigan after the Looney Tunes singing frog since singing frogs are what I like. I'm thinking of naming the female Honey because he sings the song "Hello my baby, Hello my honey." But not totally sure about that. I had some old SpongeBob aquarium hides from when I used to have fish. She chose the Krusty Krab so that's what I gave them. Everyone loves that Krusty Krab so I'm going to have to order more of those as they are a big hit. Looks like Mr.s Krab's restaurant is now a franchise in my house.

My videos for greenhouse frogs are kind of becoming popular. No one keeps these or at least talks about them. Seems I'm the first and people are already coming to me for advice. I wonder if there is a market for these things. Well, I'm still learning and don't feel qualified yet to give advice, but I think in a year I should have the basics figured out. So far I think the care is the same as dart frogs and the breeding even easier because no tadpole stage. Although the froglets are super tiny and that can be hard. I think they are getting the fruit flies down but they are the same size. I had bad luck with my culture of springtails and lost them all for a variety of reasons including beginner errors. Even though I thought I read everything mistakes were still made. I also got them in a container that wasn't the best. I'm so glad this guy is sending me springtails. I ordered tropical pinks and enough survived the trip that I hope those will establish a colony I can use as feeders and bioactive too. And I want those Terrible Mint frogs too eventually. Phyllobates terribilis mint.

I'm also waiting on a very special order of isopods Cubaris Murina Papaya. They are a peach colored isopod with red eyes that look like little trilobites. But I had some trouble with the seller. They are also supposed to come tomorrow. I have their box almost set up and ready to go. I made some mistakes with my isopods too but they're way more forgiving than springtails. But I'll talk about that in some other post. Just checked the tracking. They're in Orlando. That's only an hour away. So close but says they'll come tomorrow. WHY? I hate that. Just send them now it's so darn close! I hate that about shipping.

Ok so, I review lights on youtube by a company called Sansi. They are top notch quality lights for plants as well as household. I just got a garage light that has completely impressed me. I will review that soon. So now I'm getting other companies asking me to review stuff that's not even what's on my channel. And I also get scammers who I sometimes yank around to waste their time. But I got an email yesterday that I'm not sure if it's legit. I'd like to think it is. It's from Ubisoft. You guys know that's a pretty big video game company. They wanted me to test the new Far Cry 6. Well yes if this is the case I'd like that because they'd say they'd pay me so long as I put up a video minimum of 5 minutes. The extension on the return address was ubisoft dot com so I know it wasn't a fake. I don't think it is but I'm still hesitant to click the link. I get a lot of fake paypal which I know are fake because 1, they send it to a email that doesn't even use paypal and 2 the url is never from paypal. I report those and paypal has taken some of them down which is hilarious to me. You guys know how good I am at getting jerks and idiots banned. Just look at the track record on DA with idots like borg queen. Anway, I'm getting off topic. If this is legit I'd like to do it other than one thing. I have a feeling it's on PC. I'm not a PC gamer. I hate PC games. I hate keyboards. I'm a console gamer. I want to use a controller. I don't know I have to look into this later on. Not today as I'm not feeling well.

I've been having up and down days with my healthy. I'm always in good spirits. Almost nothing gets me down in life. But physical is another matter. So it's like one day I have good energy and I get lots of stuff accomplished. And then the next day I have no energy and can't move. Those days I end up gaming. I'm really enjoying Conan Exiles on PS4. I am almost done building the Jurassic Park Visitor Center. I've had a few building issues that it isn't quite right but it's amazing still. I want to try to build other things in this game as well. I'm playing as Solan and I have a pet "shoebill" that I have named Kevin. She's pink like a flamingo. I hope to share screen caps or videos of that soon.
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Ok guys, so I made it back from my trip and had a very nice time. Took me the usual three days to get physically better after being stressed from driving half way up the country and back. I can't believe I did it again but I'm glad. I need to drive more. I'm hoping I can make videos showing what I did so I'll post details with that. It's been hard getting back into the swing of things. Some packages came in while I was gone. Chris did a great job taking care of all the plants and birds for me. I dropped off Nitro my budgie at ACTipton's. Well it's her budgie now. I also took Minion with me and he was a decent travel budgie. Bullet was an excellent travel budgie. Minion did not like my aunt's house in Georgia and got grumpy on me both times we were there. He did like ACTipton's house which made me happy.

Before I had left Chris bought me an exo terra terrarium for some greenhouse frogs we'd caught. Here is a video about that.


https://youtu.be/nktzlXofcIk

That little red male has quickly become a fave of mine. He's the pretties greenhouse frog I have ever seen. Mostly they come in ugly brown. But there are natural color mutations. I found this photo which is neat.



I have B. A and E are the most common. Chris caught me a female that looks like E with reddish stripes on her back. I'm thinking females have those stripes. Not much is known about these frogs as far as color and care goes. The reason I wanted them was because they have the most awesome relaxing sound. You can listen to it here.
https://youtu.be/7OyAFglwN28

You wouldn't know those are frogs. They sound like crickets (but way less annoying) or birds. These are tiny frogs too. The "big" females don't get bigger than maybe an inch or 3/4 inch. The little red male (he needs a name. I'm open to suggestions.) is adorable. He was always popping out in my greenhouse and fairly brave. Most frogs hide or jump away. Unfortunately the other males Chris caught me died or escaped except for one. And it's the boring brown one. But the one good thing is this gives higher chance my red male will mate with the female. One thing I also love about this species is they are more like toads. They prefer more terrestrial habitats in gardens and greenhouses hence the name. They don't need water to reproduce. Females lay eggs in moist soil or plants. And the coolest thing is the eggs hatch as frogs. No difficult tadpole stage so I don't need to set up aquariums for babies which I have always sucked at. The only cons to this species are they are not pretty frogs unless you find a red one, and they are nocturnal and shy so you won't see them. Luckily, I got them for their songs not their looks.

Well my frogs did have babies. I found some a few days after I came back. Then it was the challenge of how to catch, house and feed such itty bitty delicate frogs.



Here's the set up that has had the plants rearranged and has been moved to my room now. The reason was that I kept going out each night with a flashlight into the greenhouse. Or I'd sit in the dark and play that video to get them to sing. Not fun or comfortable. The point was to have frogs singing so Chris helped bring the whole tank into the bedroom. The red male is not the dad. The babies look like the mom and were probably sired by one of the ugly brown ones. Actually when I first put them in it was one of the brown ones that was with her. Hopefully now with just one other male in there my red boy will get a chance. I'd love to breed for color.



Here is what I came up with for the babies. I circled one of the babies. They are that small. This is a box for 4x6 cards. I drilled tiny holes for air. I have since taken out the water bowl because the flies drown in it. I'll add it back once they are bigger. Keeping moist sphagnum is enough for them to get water and I spray it every morning which lasts 24 hours. It might be TOO moist but don't want to risk them drying out. Drying out has been the biggest issue now that the tank is inside. I used to mist in the morning and at night. Actually it wasn't too necessary. I think one mist a day would have worked and watered the plants. But now inside the room I have to mist three times a day. The small baby box holds more humidity longer of course. I also put springtails in there for the babies. They are tiny insects that break down wastes. The froglets are about the size of a Drosophilla fruit fly. I do give them flies but don't know if they can eat them yet. The adults like them. And because of that I've had to culture fruit flies too.

Since the tank is bioactive, self cleaning, The soil needed spring tails and isopods. I bought some beautifiul powder orange isopods at a local store. You see me add them in the video. Unfortunately they all got eaten. I thought they'd burrow. I kept half and put half in so I still had some. But I wasn't going to lose my last ones so I kept them for myself as pets.

And that is how I got hooked on isopods as pets and now am trying to keep colonies. Yes some will be for bioactive tanks, but I used to play with rolly pollys (that's what we called them here in FL growing up) in the school yards. I loved them so yes I want to raise some and there are so many cool species and color mutations. I have been learning a lot. All this is new to me so I'm trying to keep species straight and colors straight since sometimes it's hard to tell what's a species name and what's a color name. My collection so far I have.

Porcellio scaber lottery mix
Porcellio dillatatus Giant Canyons Copper
Armadillidium maculatum zebra
Armadillidium peraccae

None of these are ready to be put into bioactive tanks because when you buy you get low numbers. I hope they'll breed for me. Also some are too fancy to risk in bioactive tanks unless they are an herbivore tank or a snake that doesn't care about bugs.

And to top things off as if I don't have enough things to do in my zoo/botanical garden I've started playing Conan Exiles on PS4. Chris was playing and got me into it. The graphics on the game are terrible, but it's a survival game like Subnautica. We like the building aspect of the game. Neither of us have beaten the game or even care about beating the game or the story. We've just been collecting resources for base building, plant keeping and pet keeping. But more on that some other time.

So I posted this year's birthday wishlist. And lots of stuff has to do with plants and pet care stuff. I want to buy more isopods on Ebay so a general card is good for that as well as Jurassic Park stuff. I'm quite excited to have ordered two very rare high end figures of John Hammond and Dr. Grant made by Iron Studios. It has broke me so birthday is coming at a good time. I must rebuild my funds now. And I'll talk more about those at some other time too. Need to get to work now.
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