PlanetCatfish.com

I'm a fish person by heart (and technically by trade too, if we count my job), but I also have a great deal of other pets: boas, pythons, turtles and tortoises (all terrestrial now), geckos, and various mammals, including dogs and a dwarf hamster.

What other pets do you keep/are kept by?

I have a staffie called shola, funny story, i had a jurense in with my stingray's for a couple of year's but a few week's ago it got spooked and jumped out of the tank, My Staffie dog was try'n to pick it up , my girlfriend had to pin her down while i got the fih .

Kev

I keep a few other animals:

Snakes:
1.1 ('89 and '90, correction '90 and '91) Elaphe taeniura friesei (Taiwan Beauty), (~16+ years old! The male is 96"+, retired as of last season)
0.2 E. t. friesei ('03 babies from the above pair)
1.0 E. (Panterophis) obsoleta rossalleni (Everglades Ratsnake). Screamer orange male. Still trying to find a comparable female to pair with him.
1.1 E. (Pantherophis) g. guttatus (Okeetee Corn Snakes), cycled and ready to breed in ~4 more weeks.
1.1 Antaresia maculosus (Spotted Pythons) that I might breed this season.
1.1 Liasis mackloti savuensis (Sawu Island Pythons). As many Macklott's do, these started as feisty little devils! The only problem is, they aren't little anymore, they are 36" adults and are still far too defensive!
1.0 Morelia v. variagata; A 60" Carpet Python I ended up with mid-last year. Not quite trusting this one yet. Still a bit snappy yet but coming along. (FOR SALE!)

Other Herps.
Adult (1.1) pair of Leopard geckos I got for my two older boys.

And a 14 year old English Springer that still wishes he could be in the field flushing birds!

I currently keep apart from the fish in their 12 aquariums (catfishes, cichlids, cyprinids, poeciliidae, goodeidae, polypterids, mastacembelids and killi's):

-3 adult Axolotls (2 wildform, 1 albino) who often lay eggs
-3 species of beetles in breeding colonies: Chlorocala (former Smaragdestes) africana oertzeni, Eudicella smithi bertherandi and Pachnoda marginata peregrina
-3 species of millipedes: 1 pair Achispirostreptus gigas, 1 Mardonius spp and 1 Polydesmid spp
-1 species of stick insect in breeding colony: Neohirasea maerens PSG173
-1 species of giant African landsnail in breeding colony: Achatina fulica fulica
-4 species of roaches, all breeding: Achrimandrita tesselata, Blaberus spp, Ellipthorhina chopardi and periplaneta australisae
-4 individuals of tarantula's: Brachypelma smithi (adult), Grammostola rosea (adult), Acanthoscurria geniculata (halfgrown) and Lasiodora parahybana (halfgrown)

I got a new home for a snake, and plan to get a bunch of gartersnakes in there either Thamnophis marcianus or Thamnophis sirtalis. I kinda like the spotted species more than the ones with only stripes.

There's no such thing as too many pets

Alex,
How prolific are the Pachnoda? I have been looking for another food insect (for fish and herps) after my wife VETOed my Blaberus colony.

I wonder if Pachnoda grubs would be a suitable replacement?

my Pachnoda are extremely prolific!
they share their 'tank' with the Peppered Roaches (Achrimandrita tesselata), a huge 3" roach of the Deadhead-roach-tribus; and they're outcompeting them in sheer numbers....

I gotta cull the beetle-herd pretty soon.
However, you need a large group to have a goodly supply of imago's or larvae as food for reptiles. few animals tackle adults (Pachnoda's stink! , they're not yellow/black for nothing), but the L3 larvae (grubs) are good food.

you have to feed the grubs by hand (or pincet) to your reptiles though; they're really great diggers, and "sink" into any substrate with ease. only a true burying lizard (like some Scinc species or a Worm Lizard) can get at them, once they escape.

Too bad your wife vetoed the roaches! pound for pound roaches are THE best feeders for any insectivore. they're clean, they don't smell (most of them) and they're quiet.....
Maybe after you kept a Pachnoda colony she'll turn; because a healthy Pachnoda breeding tank stinks to high heaven
the male beetles fight over the females; the female beetles aren't always in the mood and any beetle flies into the sides of the tank or bumps the bulb. they're hardy and withstand it all, but.....they release their stinky fluid at ANY occasion

A blaberus colony is clean, doesn't stink, doesn't breed in the house, doesn't escape easily because they cannot fly or climb smooth walls or glass (unlike for example Gromphadorhina's; the wellknown Giant Madagaskar Hisser, wich is an escape artist).

I keep them like this:
I converted an old 35G tank to terrarium; just made a wooden hood with fine mesh for ventilation and added 2 60watt bulbs for heat and light.
there's a few branches for climbing and a rough terracotta saucer for food.
the substrate is about 4" thick and consists of:
-1/3 old leaves and bits of semi-rotted wood (no pine!)
-1/3 peat
-1/3 horse manure (!!)
adding dry catfood in the mix and some sepia for building up exoskeletons.
I feed lettuce, carrots, apples, oranges, melon, banana, curly kile, cucumber, strawberries, brambles, raspberries, grapes, tangerines, cantaloupe, pear, paprika, courgette; any other fruit or veggie I get my hands on; as well as brown bread, catfood, leftover fishfood, bits of old muesli, pie, cookies, leftover sandwiches, you name it

ANY veggie or fruit should be rinsed thoroughly...one bit of pesticide and ZIP no more bugs.

They eat EVERYTHING.......and once in a while I add a few bits of horsemanure. good thing I know a couple of guys with a horse!

I got more beetles than I can possibly feed!

I keep Eudicella's and Chlorocala's (Smaragdestes) exactly the same; except the Eudicella's share their cage with the PSG173 (stick insects), tanksize similar; and the Chlorocala's have a small 5G tank of their own.
I would rather breed one of these if you have a sensitive spouse; these two are just as easy as the Pachnoda, but they don't stink.....

I used to keep many, but they have been replaced, along with most of my fish tanks last couple of years by a brand new, life long(I hope) hobby called a wife.

when the summer comes, i usually help out a few frogs, by catching flies, pulling off a wing, and let them float on the water in a box with a frog in, and the frogs looooooooovve it

Alex,
Duely noted about the aroma of Pachnoda. That means they're out!

The Chlorocala would be an option except for the fact that I believe they are still fairly expensive here in the U.S. If memory serves a small starter group of beetles (not sure what kind) was something around $40. Likely more, last time I saw them I wasn't in the market for them and didn't pay alot of heed.
Simply put though the bug hobby here isn't nearly what it is in Europe.

I totally agree with you about the Blaberus colony though (productivity, smell, ease of care, etc.). They couldn't be beat and now I am all out of frozen roaches to make my next batch of blender mix with! Not good.

I think my wife's veto was based more on the irrational fear of the word "Roach" than anything else. There was no reasoning with her on this one.

Paul, I used to kepe and breed (well, rather they convict-bred themselves) both the Blaberus and the "hissing" roaches, and my mom hated them both. However, she did like the former when they molted/metamorphore'd into the adult form, before the chitin had a chance to harden, leaving a very fragile white insect with long wings. I think seeing a youth-to-adult Blab saved my colonies overall, until I donated them to the zoo I now work at several years later.

They couldn't be beat and now I am all out of frozen roaches to make my next batch of blender mix with!

A man's tastes are all his own, but.....

blendered roaches?
you just pigued my curiosity; wth do you use it for?

I've kept Hissers a long time as well; and they're prolific breeders. And especially the "dwarf hissers" I keep now (the Ellipthorhina's) don't look like roaches at all. I tell most people they're just Dwarf Hissers without adding the "roach"label.

Paul; the bug hobby here is huge and growing. people keep anything. from tiny beetles to huge monsters. last time I visited a big "bug & reptiles" auction, I finally saw that it's a much bigger scene than fish these days.....

and yes, some are cheap. you can easily buy like 10 L3 Smaragdestes larvae for 5 bucks. Pachnoda's (the common ones) are half that price.

But the best way to get bugs aren't shops (except for the obvious spiders and scorps, shops often don't carry bugs at all) or even auctions (although better priced tha shops), but fellow bugbreeders!
I got mine through internet (many bug forums; maybe someone even set up a "planet beetle" ); many breeders always end up with too many, and then it's easy and cheap to get some. know some buggy persons?

Smaragdestes/Chlorocala's breed just as simple as Pachnoda's and just as fast.

Sidguppy wrote:

A man's tastes are all his own, but.....

blendered roaches?
you just pigued my curiosity; wth do you use it for?

http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7213
and
http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5815

I make my own fishfood from them. I use the old sausage grinder in the above post to mince them up.

High Protein Blender Mix Recipe:
1 lbs fresh ground earthworms (yum! )
1 lbs Blaberus roaches (even more yum! )
1 cup pulverized freeze dried krill (pulverized in a blender)
1 lbs. Sweet potato, nuked til soft, then ground
Enough flake food to dry out the mix
3-5 packages of Knox brand gelatin (two didnâ??t seem to be enough).

Chop, blend and puree vegitable and animal ingredients. Mix it all together in a large bowl.

Add enough flake food to dry out the mix (we'll be adding more water later)

Mix the 3-5 packages of clear gelatin in hot water and dissolve. (use only enough hot water to completely dissolve the powder) perferrably no more than a cup or so.

Blend well into the mixture.

Fill plastic bags with a couple inches, smear the bag out flat 1/4" thick. Lay on a cookie sheet.

Refrigerate until firmed up. Once gelled, seal the bags and freeze for later use.

YUM YUM!
tasty, very much so

its a very good recipe. I make my own fishfood on occasion. but more often I just feed all things at the same time in some mix.

for large Pims (Cephalosilirus, Pseudoplatystoma, Merodontotus etc) I suggest to feed live roaches!
that way the fish need to "fight' a bit with their prey and dismantle it etc.
instead of just "gobble" the whole thing and passively grow fat while doing nothing.....

once you've seen an adult Polypterus wrestle for half an hour with a halfgrown roach or even smaller fish with live crickets (like Pantodon bucholzi), you might change, it's worth it and much fun to watch. I for example would love to see adult Arowana's crunch my roaches; but I miss the 500G tank and the Arowana's. plenty roaches though.....

I won't bother listing my fish but for non-fish I keep...

4 cats
2 ferrets
Rabbit
Red Eared Slider...have had him for 14 years
2 Salamanders, a spotted and blue spotted
Giant African Millipede
Dareing jumping Spider