Ircksome Problem

I'm a little disappointed in the fake vegetation I bought so far. I was cleaning out my habitat the other day and noticed that the wire insert that keeps the plants positioned has broken out of the plastic casing. There was this fair-sized piece of jagged metal jutting from the stems of two of my three plants. What's more, these pieces were right where Rocza chills out. Obviously, I removed them from the tank. I'm thinking a small drop of acrylic on each would solve the problem. Just got to find me some and buy me some. I also though of maybe taking some of the plastic stem off and maybe melting it onto the metal shard.

I might end up getting some real plants sooner rather than later.

Product Review 4: Super Scrub by Fluker's

As promised, today I'm doing a review of Fluker's Super Scrub, which I use to clean out my tank and as well as my plants and other decorum.
What I'd also like to do if I have the time today is write up a piece about my current findings on terrarium landscaping and what I'd personally like to try in my future habitats. That piece might come a little later though, since I've only really got vague ideas and a couple (dozen) YouTube videos of knowledge so far.

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Product Review 4: Super Scrub by Fluker's

Cleaning is an important part of any animal care in order to maintain good health and well-being. Not to mention the fact that a dirty tank is a smelly tank. But it's really hard to find good cleaners that are viable, non-toxic options. My family's had zebra finch die just from using a scrubber which had come into contact with some harsh cleaners a while before and had since been washed and rinsed several times. Since then, I've been super anal about what I use to clean and dry my tank and habitat objects.
Since the very beginning, I've been using Fluker's Super Scrub for my cresty, and I've had no issues. I would think it's safe for any reptile. Amphibians might be a different story, what with their extreme sensitivity to their environments.

Overall Rating: 9/10


Pros:

Cleans organic off fecal matter well and leaves a nice fresh smell that isn't at all overbearing (at least to me). Also hasn't so far left any streaks on my glass.

Cons:
The brush that comes with the cleaner is pretty rigid and should NOT be used on foam backgrounds. I've already damaged mine a bit by trying to give it a scrub down.


Comments:
Despite the brush issue, I still really like this product so far. In truth, I don't use the brush for much else. I find just dumping a bit of the cleaner in a tub of distilled or treated water (JurassiSafe for the win) and scrubbing with my fingers to be more than adequate.


Images:
This product can be seen in lots of my images, off in the peripherals. But, in case you were wondering, this is what you get.

 

Links:
Flucker's Super Scrub - products page

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Short and sweet, I hope this can help someone out there. I wish I would of had it before that one person searched my blog for an answer, but hind sight is 20/20.

I think I will wait for tomorrow to write up my summary of my research into custom habitat design, so that I can do a bit of research into what kind of plants would work best in my case. Also, there are some pretty good documentaries on Oasis tonight, and I have the house majoritarily to myself, so a bit of rest is what I shall have tonight.

Also, personal note, I really enjoyed the open house on enviro-tech yesterday! I'm going to make my online application either later tonight or tomorrow, but there shouldn't be any issues. I should have all the qualifying high-school courses, as least on paper. In any case, there are some refresher courses I can take. Always a possibility.

First Clean - First Feeding

Cleaned out the terrarium earlier today. Figured that Rocza's had a couple days to settle down some. He was pretty good about it, as far as i can tell. I was pretty nervous handling him; didn't want to lose a tail or anything. After a couple seconds it was all good.

Terrarium looks a little different now, especially without the log hideout. It's too bad that wood wasn't treated for humidity. It looked nice. I kind of have a small hill in the back right corner that I put the new gecko dish on. I also changed the way the croton plant hangs, mostly to encourage him to get out more. I have it sort of draped over the jungle vine. Well, see for yourself.

On a side note, having had him out and in my hands, he's not looking thinner, though I'm fairly certain he hasn't touched his pellet food. I fed him three gut busters Saturday, and I had his pellet food in with him in the faunarium today while I cleaned out his habitat. He's almost looking... pale though. Like his colour has diminished. Maybe the UV light is just washing it out. Or maybe he's shedding. I think I'm going to go chit chat with Emily tomorrow, see if she has any advice as to why he's so reclusive and all that.

I ordered some Repashy on Amazon.com the other day as well. That should be in soon, for which I will be very grateful. It's much easier to present him with a popsicle stick of goop than to try and pitch pellets at him.

I think I'm also going to invest in some feeding tongs. The kind that are long and plastic-coated on the end to prevent injury. It's tricky getting him to notice crickets from way up the trees and I don't like just leaving them in the enclosure. Too many bad memories or rogue crickets singing long hours into the night. He really gobbled them though. I just don't want him to get hooked on them and eat nothing but. I think I'll give him some tomorrow though. Twice a week doesn't seem so bad.

Another item I think I'll be getting is some sort of wall-mounted feeding tray. If I can't get him to go to the food, I'll bring the food to him.

Prepping my Terrarium (part 2)

Step 1: Cleaning

After opening the Exo-Terra Rainforest Habitat kit, I gave everything a good wash-down. The starter kit manual suggested the following :

Soak all plants and decoration with a solution of 1 part bleach to 30 parts water for about an hour once a month, which I did, except for the foam background and the jungle vine. I thought they might be too absorbent.

I find this kind of high on the bleach. One of the PetSmart reps said I could definitely get away with a smaller amount of bleach, but I decided to get Fluker's Super Scrub, which is an organic cleaner that "cleans and sanitizes" tanks, branches, rocks, vines, and bowls. To be fair, I did try to the bleach solution on my first batch of plants and decor, but I left them rinse well and sit for, so far, four days.

A point here regarding the Exo-Terra Jungle Vine (show in the image to the right):
I let my vine soak, not in the bleach solution though, for well over an hour to get the excess dyes out. This would be especially important if I were going to have it in an aquatic environment to avoid discolouration of the water, and maybe even negative effects to the critters.

Once everything was clean and free of the smell of plastic and bleach, I cleaned out the tank with a 50/50 mixture of water and vinegar (also recommended in the manual). The vinegar smell goes away pretty quick, too.

Weather or not I will continue to use these two home-brew solutions now that I have Fluker's Super Scrub, I haven't decided yet.

Just for the record, this is also when I installed my Exo-Terra Heat Wave, since it adheres to the bottom outside of the tank. (See Step 3)

Step 2: Decorating

So next, I added the Exo-Terra Rock Background in and placed my plants more how I wanted them to be in the final product.

I'd like to point out here that, although I do like Exo-Terra products, the suction cups that were provided for the Exo-Terra Croton and the Exo-Terra Amapallo were pretty useless, which suited me since I wanted to have the stems wedged into the background foam. Also, you have to kind of take all advertisement with a grain of salt; the rock background shown here on their website looks MUCH more realistic than the actual product, which is still nicer than having a picture taped to back of the tank.

You'll notice in the picture to the left, the jungle vine has been removed temporarily.

This is also when I placed my two thermometers and hygrometer. (Step 3)

Also, I want to add how much I really like the Boston Fern included in the kit. All the plants really, I found to look very good for plastics.

The final result was something to this effect:



Notice in the close-up what I mean about the background looking a little less rocky and a little more foamy. Still though, like it!



The last step of decorating was the addition of a small fake branch by All Living Things. You want suction cups? This thing has two, and combined, you could raise the Titanic with these them! I added it to the left-hand side of the tank to assure an artistic look of symmetry that my future gecko will have plenty of things to climb on. I'm not sure what plant the branch tries to emulate but it looks like ivy to me.

Huzzah, the final product! Please note that I will be waiting till the last minute to add the Exo-Terra Plantation Soil Tropical Substrate, which was also included in the kit.


To be continued in part 3 (because it's starting to take too long to upload these damn images into one post.)