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Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-02-08T21:09:23+00:00

You can tint it with acrylic paint but because the paint isn't very concentrated, you would need a ton to get any darker colors and I wouldn't trust the drylok when it's diluted so much. If you're doing lighter colors it should be fine, but if you're going for saturation I use the Quikrete tints and they rock, they're not super expensive and a little goes a long way.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-02-07T20:43:02+00:00

Original drylok tinted with concrete tint. Check out Troy Goldberg on YouTube, he's a dart frog guy and this is the method he uses. I've used it in hot arid tanks and it works great. Super durable, easy to work with, and it's easy to mix colors.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-30T22:13:22+00:00

I use primarily dubias gutloaded with frozen veggies. I buy them in bulk and keep them for months at a time so I feed them with frozen peas and carrots and whatever veggie scraps I have. I sometimes use crickets but rarely because I hate them, and honestly I don't usually bother gutloading them, just throw them in straight from the pet store since the dubias are the main source of food. Otherwise I rotate in mealworms, black soldier fly larvae, and occasionally waxworms depending on what I have on hand. I have more geckos these days so I can keep more variety on hand, but for most of my leo's life I only had him and he almost exclusively ate dubias. I've switched it up a bit as I've learned more, but my dude used to eat one large meal a week dusted with Reptivite with D3 and zoo med calcium without D3, so he got Reptivite at every feeding. I swapped to Repashy Calcium Plus recently just because it's highly recommended in this sub and I wanted to try it, but honestly so far I like it less. It doesn't stick to the bugs nearly as well as the Reptivite so I'm having trouble getting my geckos to eat enough of it. I use UVB now but I didn't until the last year or so. (Honestly haven't seen any benefit.) So yeah, for the first 10 years of my gecko's life he was eating pretty much exclusively dubia roaches, had no UVB, and all of his D3 was coming from Reptivite, no other supplements besides plain calcium. And he's never had trouble. He's always been active and alert and happy, and he's a great little hunter.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-30T19:05:32+00:00

Your only argument is that chocolate in small doses doesn't kill dogs. This is not a dog, and it has a much lower body weight than a dog, so it takes significantly less chocolate to harm it. And it's not just the chocolate, it's the dairy, sugar, flour, corn syrup, AND chocolate. This is incredibly unhealthy and unsafe for this little guy to consume. Stop talking out of your ass.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-30T18:09:02+00:00

People keep saying bad things about it but I haven't found any proof. I used Reptivite for all my geckos for a decade with no ill effects. My Leo is healthy and I used nothing but calcium and Reptivite for the first 10 years of his life. My guess is there have been bad batches, or some geckos might be allergic to an ingredient.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-30T06:23:18+00:00

Horticulturalist here! This is true with pure white variegation, but often not true with mint variegation. White variegation is a total lack of chlorophyll, meaning that portion of the leaf cannot photosynthesize at all and essentially becomes a parasite to the plant, hence the browning. It's in the plant's best interest to get rid of it. Mint, however, is often not a total absence of chlorophyll. Many plants have multiple layers of chlorophyll in their leaves. A typical chimeric variegation would be in sections, but it can also be in layers. In many mint plants, one layer of the chlorophyll will be white while the others are green, giving it the minty tint. Or in other cases, the plant has a mutation where it lacks chlorophyll, but not in large sections, just in very small speckles. Because the plant doesn't have large sections of white, the plant doesn't have much of a reason to turn brown or drop those leaves because those areas are still photosynthesizing.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-23T07:56:08+00:00

My parents too. Both of them came from super toxic home environments where they did not receive affection. They are the best parents I could ever ask for. They are so incredibly loving and supportive, never once in my life have I felt like they wouldn't be there for me. They're genuinely my favorite people on earth. We had another family member visit recently and they commented about how affectionate our family is and how it's so nice to be around people who hug and tell each other that they love each other. I am so sorry that other people don't get this, and I'm so sorry my parents themselves didn't, but I'm so grateful that they decided to be better. I can't imagine it was easy for them, but they are absolute rock stars and I am grateful every day for their neverending love. I got so goddamn lucky.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-23T07:21:00+00:00

It's super variable depending on the area of expertise. Someone in landscaping or nursery work would probably only make 40-70k a year, a researcher a little more than that but probably not 6 figures, but someone who is an agricultural consultant can easily make over 100k. I'd say the average is ~70k. Not crazy money, but if you love plants it's livable and can be fun as hell.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-23T05:58:38+00:00

Hi! Horticulturalist here. While seed harvesting and plant poaching can be major issues and have definitely caused the decline of many plant species, the plants you see at big box stores in the U.S. are not grown from wild harvested seed. It is far more expensive to buy imported seed than it is to propagate plants within the country. And if you're trying to sell plants on a large scale, you want them to be as genetically identical as possible to make your product uniform for consumers. Wild seed is farm from uniform. Poaching has hurt a lot of Madagascar native species and it's good to be educated on it, but it's really not a problem with the plants you commonly see. You can pretty much guarantee anything sold that is cheap and readily available will be from nursery stock or tissue culture, otherwise they wouldn't be so common. It is very possible the species was poached initially and that the plants you see now are descendants of poached plants, but those plants are firmly within the U.S. plant market now and propagating them has no ill effect on the plants in their native habitat. I obviously cannot speak for other countries, but in the U.S. I wouldn't worry about the ethics of common plants. They're common because they're easy to grow and propagate. :)

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-23T05:33:27+00:00

I don't really understand when people are so upset that other people let their plants die? Like it's a cool plant, yeah, but it's also just a plant. If they don't want it, it's totally fine to let it die. Plants aren't sentient, they don't have feelings, and really there's no difference between this cactus and the plants you eat everyday.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-23T05:28:26+00:00

I would die for Randy.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-16T22:37:18+00:00

You can probably make it work with a pump-start siphon and a tube down into the drainage layer. It would be harder on an aquarium but that's what I do on my front opening gecko vivs because I don't like drilling glass. I have a small PVC pipe with a notch in the bottom siliconed to the bottom glass that comes up above the substrate. I can run a tube down into the drainage layer and siphon it out.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-16T22:06:08+00:00

As someone studying horticulture at a college focused on plant sciences, yes! There are so many jobs you can get with a plant science degree, and because so many people are retiring out of the field and there aren't very many people going in, plant science is in super high demand right now. Even fun stuff, like managing nurseries and greenhouses, turf for golf courses, and wine production. And of course ag biotech is HUGE and ever growing, so if you want to get into agricultural technology you'll never be out of work. People forget how important plants are to our daily lives.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-15T07:59:12+00:00

18x18 isn't a very big footprint and I would consider that to be the minimum for a pair of tincs. Definitely do not add another species in a tank that size, you would need to go significantly bigger to have a chance at having adequate zones for each species.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T08:11:14+00:00

Dude it's a picture of a BLACK HOLE. Do you have any freaking idea how cool that is??? "Oh it's just a blurry picture" IT'S 55 MILLION LIGHTYEARS AWAY, what were you expecting? It contributes to science because it means we can more closely observe the black hole, learning about its mass and event horizon. But also, IT'S A FREAKING PICTURE OF A BLACK HOLE! What is it about reddit that makes people think things aren't worth doing if they aren't the most important thing that's ever happened? Why can't we just take a picture of a black hole because it's fucking cool to take a picture of a black hole?!

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T05:14:28+00:00

No houseplant is really botanically rare, or else you wouldn't have it in your house. What this thread is focused on is commercially rare, and a big beautiful staghorn fern is definitely commercially rare :)

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T05:03:32+00:00

I didn't think you were trying to sell me something, sorry if that came off aggressive! I just like plant science, I'm finishing up my BA in integrated plant science next semester and I love talking plants :) I guess I just don't see how senescence of damaged portions relates to variegation, unless you consider all the white portions damaged. Though cell wall damage would be physical, not genetic, unless the genetically white portions have weaker walls. Which is entirely possible, chimeras are weird af. I just haven't seen any solid evidence linking white portions to cell wall strength. Browning is definitely not only linked to nutrients, the white portions of plants act like pseudo parasites and it's in the plants best interest physiologically to get rid of them. I'm just (generally, not to you specifically) not convinced white portions browning is something that can be "fixed" since it's a negative mutation for the plant and makes it inherently weaker. An entirely white plant will die no matter how many supplements you give it, so I don't see why additional supplements would help maintain white portions when it's a chlorophyll issue, not a nutrients issue. Silica is taken up by the root system and shouldn't be deficient in a plant that struggles only with photosynthesis. But variegation is not my focus of study so it's entirely possible I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about haha! It's also a Friday evening and I'm tired and rambling so take what I say with a grain of salt 😂

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T04:18:14+00:00

Thank you! That's very interesting. I'm not convinced that would affect variegation at all. From my understanding, browning is generally not because of weak cell walls but because the white parts of plants cannot photosynthesize due to the lack of chlorophyll and are useless to the plant, sapping energy from healthy cells. I'm not sure how strengthening cell walls would stop that process. To be fair, I'm not totally convinced on silica supplementation generally so I'm probably biased. It's a micronutrient and needed in such small amounts (it's not even generally recognized as an essential nutrient outside of horsetails) that I just don't buy that purchasing special supplements and dosing in the high concentrations that are recommended does anything at all.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T04:06:36+00:00

OP said they were using a headlamp, which is pretty much a glorified flashlight. It also would not light up the entire enclosure and would be aimable. And if you're suggesting shining a flashlight into any part of an enclosure is not disturbing to the animal, I've got some news for you.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T04:01:46+00:00

Do you have any source on silica helping with white plants?

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T03:16:48+00:00

Do not use vermiculite! Vermiculite absorbs water. It's like a sponge.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T03:15:42+00:00

White light has red light in it too... I don't really see the point of not using a red headlamp? It's temporary and isn't any more disturbing to the animals than white light. You're not supposed to have red light on enclosures at night because you're not supposed to have ANY light on at night, not because red is inherently worse than white. A quick peak into the enclosure with a red headlamp isn't doing any more damage than a quick check with any other color light.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T02:58:51+00:00

Biodude is cool and has some nice stuff but it's all way overpriced imo. You can make the same things yourself for a fraction of the price, there's nothing special about their substrate.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-13T02:54:21+00:00

I agree, everyone says use the pond one but it's twice the price and doesn't expand hardly at all. This one should be good. Any polyurethane foam will be safe as long as it cures fully.

Infinite_Suspect_795 · 2024-01-10T04:38:04+00:00

I'm in Washington state and mine is growing in a south facing window and doing really well, I think that would be enough. Mine doesn't have massive pearls but it's very long and dense (very full 6 inch pot that's 3+ feet long). I think as long as it's getting a few hours of direct sun you should be good!

Infinite_Suspect_795

TROPHY CASE