alanmin4304

Have to agree. They were not lazy when they turned up at my place enquiring about a plant that I bought off trademe that had been smuggled unbeknown to me.

It is not for Erma or Maf to do the research and fill out the forms. They are approval authorities --they say yes or no based on the application that you make.

We are still getting plenty of shakes but not as bad as last season.

They were fed a good mixed live insect diet and I have not seen that problem before or since. and no problems with this years babies being fed calcium with D3 either. It is possible there was one with a genetic predisposition to not utilising calcium but I have tracked the parents of each baby this season and have not seen a problem and they are the same parents as last season.

This country like most others is a user pays society run by accountants trained at the Chicago school of economics. This being the case, if you wish to import frogs or any other animal and have them available to the public rather than only in confinement, you will need to present Erma and Maf with the paperwork they require to say yes or no. They are not there to do all the research and fill out the forms for you. I repeat---E.T would be easier to keep as a pet than a potentially highly poisonous frog carrying Chytrid.

The experiment is already being carried out. Some people feed calcium with D3 and others feed without D3 I raised a number of young ones to adulthood using calcium in a dish without D3 and not added to food and they all turned out to be healthy breeding adults. A couple of their young developed metabolic bone disease so then I swithed to having a dish of calcium with D3 and adding it also to their live food. Have had no problems with young this year and it is almost finished. You pays your money and takes your pick.

I have used sand (greywacke) up to 150mm deep and had no problems.

Dream on. Their status is threatened so you would have a better chance of keeping E.T. as a pet.

In my experience topsoil or potting mix becomes a disaster as it ferments and puts a lot of uncontrolled nutrients in to the water. Better to use a micronutrient source and add CO2 and macro nutrients in a measured way.

With most tetras it is best to breed them young and regularly. I will try to get around and see your setup in the next couple of days if the boss lets me. Trying to build a replacement shed for the one that got munted and now leaks when it rains.

What part of town are you in. There may be a local who could drop in and help.

From a purely business point of view, people install fish tanks to make for a better dining experience. A grubby fish tank would have the same result on customers that a grubby premises or staff would have and would not do anything for the business. They say that for every person that complains there are another 10 disatisfied customers who have not complained but will probably tell their friends. You are doing the owner a favour by pointing this out and helping them make a quid in these hard times. You can usually still only guess what happens in the kitchen while preparing your food.

Hope the weee fella is OK. This is starting to sound like a eulogy.

Looks like it just needs a side view and a number.

There is more than one way that an organism can be unwanted. They can also be declared that by a Regional council, as has happened with blue tounge skinks in Auckland.

Eat the ones in the first pic and give the others to your beardies. The first is lettuce and you can eat both.

If you want something to cuddle why not get a cat.

A bit hard to cuddle if they are in jail

As the wool gets full of detritus it will become more effective as a physical filter as well as a biological filter. I would not clean it unless the flow rate has been seriously restricted as that is when the filter is working at its best.

A thermostat will keep it about a degree each side of what you set it for.

I have never kept afrikans so cannot advise. Others with more experience may be able to help. I suspect you may have a excess of food which they are getting into the sand by churning it over. See what the experts come up with.

Well done and good luck.

I bought a five year old female beardie a while ago which when it arrived was a bit smaller than I had expected and had never laid eggs. Even though it is unlikely to get any bigger I fed it on a variety of foods and this season it laid 3 clutches of 17 eggs each. Most of them were not well formed but I did get a few through which I will keep to see how they turn out.

Everone on here will have different views and that is healthy. In the end people have to work out what is best for them. I am only stating what I do. I encourage people to breed their own food (particularly locusts as they are expensive to buy and therefore I see people only feeding cheap stuff. If you keep babies too hot I think they will behave like "P" addicts. If mine were not hot enough they would always be huddled under the heater, and they are not. People also forget that different materials radiate heat differently---astro turf has pile so that when they are on it there is a lot of air space under them and the material does not radiate heat like stone or metal would. They are therefore heated from above. Having said all that, people should do what they think is best for their reptiles. I raise all of one clutch together with beardies but not leps as I have had them fighting at 3 days old, yet others are OK.

There are some very experienced and in my view expert reptile keepers on this site and the advice given above is from one of them. I still have a lot to learn but I have successfully raised a number of clutches of bearded dragons and have never lost any bits off any of their toes or tails. I think the people who raise the temperature too high to get fast growth are force feeding and making a mistake. The heat source is in the middle and even then they spend most of their time at each end. Beardies cannot feel heat from underneath. Around this way 25 degrees C is a warm day. I raise mine on astro turf and nothing else, with the temperature controlled by a thermostat set at 25deg C and the probe at ground level. I have food in there all the time and a variety of food of suitable size is given. This avoids "who is the king of the castle" and bullying over food. They should not be forced to grow too quickly and should not be bred too early in my opinion.