I've always had a love for animals, I recently started a new hobby with an aquarium. I've had plenty of aquariums in the past but I wanted something for my office. There has definitely been a learning curve when it came to this particular aquarium. The new part of it is plants.
Here is Jaws, the great white.
So, I have a betta in the tank. We have had 2 bettas in the past at home. Scout and Benton both had betta fish that lived for a few years. They had each of them in a 1 gallon tank with a filter. What I've learned since then, is that betta's actually prefer warmer water, around 78-80 degrees. I also discovered that a 1 gallon tank, although larger than the cups they're kept in at fish stores, is too small.
I'm going to share my fish tank journey.
I started out thinking an aquaponic tank would be cool. I got this one on Amazon. It started out with an anthurium on the top of the tank. It would help if I would have researched a bit because anthurium's need full sunlight.
So of course the plant began looking sad, so I repotted it and stuck it by a window. The plant began growing new leaves and loved it's new potted home. Then I tried lucky bamboo. Well, it turned out Jaws didn't care for the big stems being in his home. So the bamboo got put in a vase.
You can see in the above picture that I have a small plant planted in the rocks. This plant is called an anubias and as it turns out, it isn't supposed to be planted. I have since tied it onto a piece of wood with some thread so it's roots are exposed to the water.
In this photo you can see 2 new plants, these are called java ferns. They were also planted originally but then I found out, these too should not be planted in substrate. You really don't have to anchor these plants to anything and they will free float near the bottom of the tank, they really don't move around too much. I would catch Jaws resting on the java ferns in the smaller tank (but I haven't seen him do it in the larger tank yet).
The more I looked at the aquaponic tank, the more I realized...with the sponge filter, the heater, and a couple of java ferns, the poor fish really had no room to swim. Plus, the tank began looking dirty with the natural rocks on the bottom. I think I was really looking for an excuse to upgrade the tank to a 5 gallon, since the aquaponic tank was only 1.4 gallons.
Since this new 5 gallon tank is plastic, it shows his reflection. I never had a problem with Jaws seeing himself in the other tank, but when I moved him into this one he would flare all of the time. He did it so often that it appeared he was truly scared. I ended up buying some frosted window cling on Amazon and put it on the back and the sides of the tank. That resolved the flaring issue and he doesn't do it anymore.
I ordered a bunch of aquatic plants from Modern Aquarium...turns out, too many. After putting them all in there, and realizing I was back to the original problem....not enough room to swim, I decided to take about half of them out and give them to a friend.
Here are the plants I purchased from Modern Aquarium:
Update after taking half of the plants out. I have to say I was honestly surprised with how many plants came from Modern Aquarium. I ended up being 5 different plant species, 3 background plants,
Now my problem is keeping the plants in the substrate. I chose black sand, not only for it's eye appeal but also to try and make the tank look as clean as possible. The issue is, the stemmed background plants don't want to stay in the sand. I need to come up with a way to either weigh them down (fishing weights) or perhaps glue them to rocks or getting a different substrate.
The other thing I needed to mention is the fish health that I've learned about. So Jaws decided to do a thing called fin nipping. Sounds like there are various reasons for why they nip their own fins, I've read it could be because their tail is too heavy, they are stressed or even out of boredom. I've slowed the filter down, thinking this could have been stressing him. I added lots of hiding places with the new plants and a rock hide (which he never uses). The water is always at 78 degrees. I put the frosted glass up so he wouldn't flare anymore. I added an Indian Almond leaf to use the tannins to perhaps heal his tail. I'm thinking I may end up getting Kanaplex and seeing if that makes a difference.
Here are some photos of Jaws' fins...poor guy.
Here's a tank update, after rearranging some plants.
Well, I did end up moving Jaws to a hospital tank. It has a sponge filter, a heater and a thermostat. A betta hammock, a pink hide and an Indian almond leaf were also added to the hospital tank. I added the KanaPlex as per the directions. I decided to move him to the hospital tank after noticing 2 pinpoint sized holes in his dorsal fin.
I'm going to follow the instructions and try to do 3 doses of the treatment before returning him to his normal tank. Wish us good luck. He's been there a day so far and he appears to be really active (per usual).
He has since been moved back into his permanent tank. He still has signs of fin nipping. Overall still a really happy guy though.
It's been a while since we've had a good project. My son was dying to have an "exotic pet". We made him research quite a bit prior to allowing our new spiky friend to come home. He thought he wanted a bearded dragon, then it was a guinea pig....after those were ruled out for various reasons, he got down to 2. A chameleon or an hedgehog. Well, the hedgehog won out, meet Theodore, Teddy for short.
Before we get started on the build, here are some interesting facts we learned about hedgehogs:
Their quills make them float in water
They are nocturnal and run up to 12 miles a night
They need bonding time with their owner
Their habitat needs to be around 75-85 degrees Fahrenheit
They are perhaps the cutest creatures
You may recognize this piece of furniture from a prior restoration. We still use this to hold a tv, but don't have anything inside the drawers. We figured we could spend $100 on a really tiny cage or use that money to renovate this dresser. We drew up the plans, originally we wanted to keep the 2 upper drawers to store supplies, but we quickly realized there wouldn't be enough space for 2 levels and his 12" wheel.
Here is what we started with...
We took all the drawers out and gutted the inside.
We cut out new flooring (for the upper level and lower level) out of 3/4" plywood that we already had in the garage. The top level had an extra cut because we wanted to make a ramp that led down to the lower floor. Originally we wanted 2 openings, 1 for a ramp and the other for tubing....but again, the size of this dresser didn't allow us enough room to do both.
He purchased linoleum at the Home Depot. This was an important step because we wanted something that would be easy to clean and prevent the hedgehogs potty and poo poo's from seeping into the wood. Here he is tracing out the flooring. We used an adhesive for the vinyl (that we had from a previous project) to attach it to the wood.
We used some wood scraps I had from a prior project to frame out the dresser. Unfortunately, this dresser isn't square, so the cuts differ from piece to piece. You can see the new additions, as they are not stained. We secured all the flooring and new framing with screws.
We had more wood scraps that we used for the doors. We made them a "picture frame" style and cut out plexiglass that we got at Home Depot. We ended up getting 2 sheets of this.
With some of the left over pieces of plexiglass, we hot glued them on to the opening for the ramp. We left 1 side open so Teddy can actually go down the ramp. These were added for safety reasons, so Teddy wouldn't fall into a hole and hurt himself.
We also installed the ramp, which looked to be a little steeper than I originally planned. We ended up buying this really cool tape from Amazon so Teddy could have traction when he climbs up and down the ramp. It feels a lot like sandpaper.
Then, he began staining all of the new wood.
I thought this video would be fun for him to look back on. Hard work pays off.
Now we are in a waiting game. We are letting the fumes air out and everything gets time to dry.
Teddy was kept in a temporary cage in a different part of the house so he wasn't around the fumes. My son told me that hedgehogs don't like a lot of extra space....I'm not sure I believe that. I think he's going to love his 2 story home.
Something special we learned about hedgehogs is, they need light during the day (so we got a couple of push lights, 1 for each level) so they know when to sleep. Then you get to have bonding time for a little bit prior to turning their lights off for the night. When the lights go out, these little creatures run a marathon on their wheels.
Ok back on topic, the heater is simply that. It looks like a heat lamp (the kind with a light inside) but it's called a ceramic heat emitter and it actually produces zero light, it's sole purpose is to create heat. We found a 2 pack on Amazon.
Teddy in his new home.
The boys enjoying their hard work.
A message from Benton, don't mind the cute little monster that interrupts the video. He's sweet and really loves Teddy.
UPDATE: After Teddy went inside his new home, we realized there are a few fixes we need to make. We have to make the heat lamps a little safer and block off the area so Teddy can't get back to the lamp. He hasn't done it yet but I would hate for him to get burned, those ceramic heat emitters get REALLY hot! We also are going to make a longer ramp so it's not as steep for Teddy to get up and down. You can't see it in the pictures, but we ended up adding the bedding inside the home so it was cozier for Teddy.
So we are waiting on new lamps, thermostats and looking for some sort of screen. We'll update again soon.
Update:
Another update (we laughed so hard because of the Night at the Roxbury reference):
Recent photos:
Last order of business is cutting strips of fleece to go in his igloo so he can burrow in it, but other than that we are officially done. I'm happy to say the ceramic heat emitters (CHE) are working great! I'm so glad we went to a lower wattage. We started out with 150 watts and went down to 75 watts. The 75 watt bulb is smaller than the 150 in size which worked out nicely too. I'll take a photo of the size comparison soon. I've read everywhere the recommended wattage for CHE is 100-150, well the 150 was beginning to burn the linoleum on the upper floor. I think due to the dimensions of our enclosure and that it has doors (instead of an open top), that it keeps the heat in nicely. Don't worry about Teddy, he can breathe just fine. There's space between the doors and the frame and there are holes cut out of the back of the enclosure for cords.
Teddy is still sleeping in the back right corner of the enclosure instead of in his hut or his new dome hut (with the stars on it). We didn't witness him playing in his ball pit yet either. I think it will just take him time to adjust. I think he's a big fan of the fleece flooring though, I'm really happy we aren't using paper bedding anymore. It was really messy. I think my son will really enjoy his hedgehog now that he doesn't have to vacuum every time he gets him out of his enclosure.
Hope you enjoyed this project. I had the best time building this with my son.
As you can see in the video, we made some great updates. We installed some under the cabinet lights on each levels ceiling. The lights are now plugged into a timer so Teddy has some consistency about when the lights come on and when they turn off for the night. Lights were necessary for us to install because my son's room is always very dark unless he has his room lights on and it would be difficult for Teddy to tell day from night. Did you know that hedgehogs need both a heat source and day/night time or they could go into hibernation? We learned that hibernation can be lethal, so this is very important to keep an eye on everything working properly.
I even titled this video, hedgehog final update.... but it probably won't be the last update. The next thing we are going to work on for Teddy is a homemade wheel that's built in to the cage (instead of a wheel on a stand). To view the homemade wheel project, click here.
I'm not sure if it's helpful but I wanted to put links for everything down in one spot. Clearly, you can see throughout this post we changed multiple things, so I wanted to share the items we ended up using.
Cage Build Supplies:
3/4" plywood (1 for top level, 1 for the bottom)
1x2 boards (already hand on hand in various lengths, I would guess we used approximately (4) 12' long boards....that could be an overshot but it's my best guess. This was used for the framing of the cage and the picture frame styled doors)
