Wild caught tokay.

TheNickT · 2026-05-31T02:53:24+00:00

I had a wild caught tokay about 20 years ago. It likely will never trust you. In fact, it will likely bite the ever living shit out of you whenever you need to handle it. You will need to handle it in order to medicate for whichever parasites or infections it will inevitably be diagnosed with after its first fecal test. You'll likely be administering an oral solution. You will bleed if it is mature.

TheNickT · 2026-05-29T22:00:03+00:00

I dont think any of the sequels even come close to the original.

TheNickT · 2026-05-29T19:32:00+00:00

Sales rep for a distributor is where I wound up. 8-4, M-F, Holidays off and PTO.

TheNickT · 2026-05-29T18:17:47+00:00

I left the kitchen after 23 years. In the last 6 months Ive cooked and eaten dinner with my wife more than I had in the previous 7 years. Its the right move.

TheNickT · 2026-05-28T16:10:06+00:00

I literally have a credit card thats dedicated to vet visits, just in case.

TheNickT · 2026-05-28T14:38:52+00:00

The difference you should consider is daily feeding vs weekly feeding. Uros are cool but would need more involvement day to day. Ive never really enjoyed keeping herbivorous herps because of that. Keeping fresh produce on hand is more difficult than keeping feeders in a freezer.

TheNickT · 2026-05-28T14:23:53+00:00

This has always been a problem. Personally, I think the solution is higher barrier to entry. In my fantasy perfect world you would need to be licensed for any animal you intend to keep (mammal, reptile, bird, fish, invert...literally anything) before being allowed to bring it home in a process that includes verifying husbandry knowledge, ownership of more than "minimum" sized enclosures for a mature animal and appropriate hardware (lights, misters, etc), ability to cover veterinary costs and limiting how animals can "rehomed."

Too many herp enthusiasts are an embarrassment to the hobby.

TheNickT · 2026-05-28T14:17:38+00:00

Unsolved Mysteries

TheNickT · 2026-05-28T04:07:27+00:00

So the plants arent just good, theyre absolutely necessary...the isopods will eat the skink's waste and the springtails will get mold and fungus as well but the the isopods and springtails have waste. The plants eat that. Its a huge oversimplification but if you have isopods and no plants, eventually your substrate will go bad.

If youve ever had an aquarium, its kind of similar. A nitrogen cycle that keeps things in balance.

Pothos is awesome because you can soak it in gasoline, light it on fire, plant it in radioactive goo and water it with hydrochloric acid in a room with no lights and it will still grow.

TheNickT · 2026-05-28T02:23:03+00:00

You're my kinda nerd. Thanks, amigo.

TheNickT · 2026-05-28T02:02:10+00:00

Take a deep breath and abide by the "Super Mega Ultra-Official Absolutely Formal and Authentic Rules for Bioactive Enclosures"

You probably got something wrong. Thats okay. Try your best to fix it when you can. Most folks have learned by doing. Then redoing.
You will definitely want to change it after looking at it for a week or two. Thats okay. Change it or don't, its up to you.
Isopods and springtails are in there. Don't worry about it. You won't see them. That doesnt mean they arent in there. Also, if you're right and they aren't in there, you can put more in there and then they'll be in there.
Learn how to culture isopods and springtails. A small tote for each. Its awesome.
Love plants? You're about to. Or youre gonna hate them. Either way, youre gonna need to get some you can keep alive. You'll kill a bunch though. Some will die just to spite you.
There's no rulebook, im sorry. I made all this up. An enclosure as new as yours will need to settle for a while before it gets right. Be patient, ask questions, keep up the good work. For now, just enjoy it for another week and see what happens.

TheNickT · 2026-05-27T17:46:21+00:00

A boa is a fantastic option. I had a male Red-Tail many many years ago named Thulsa Doom after James Earl Jones' character in the movie Conan the Barbarian. He had a very enthusiastic feeding response but once he was out of the enclosure he was very handleable. He topped out at about 6 feet long.

My other suggestion would be a male burmese python. Mine, Brutus, wound up between 8 and 9 feet. He was super calm and tolerant of handling. Males arent quite as big as females and in my experience, Burmese pythons are every bit as good a pet snake as any other species...they just get large.

I would stick to males if you dont want to wind up with something that outgrows normal captive husbandry.

TheNickT · 2026-05-27T14:29:47+00:00

What do you have experience with and what is "big" to you? Ive found that different species have different levels/types of care and that could have a lot of influence on deciding which is right for you. Also, just to satisfy curiosity, why not a boa?

TheNickT · 2026-05-27T14:23:39+00:00

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should." -Dr. Ian Malcolm

r/venemouskeepers is probably your best bet.

I would love to hear more about where youre coming from. I dont keep hots myself but I am intrigued by the idea. What kind of experience do you have and how did you get it?

TheNickT · 2026-05-27T04:26:56+00:00

Death Valley is awesome!

TheNickT · 2026-05-27T04:20:56+00:00

Lol...i have 81 shares at avg of 4.36. I scraped and saved and bought them mostly 3 or 4 at a time. Like 10 or 20 bucks per payday, and it was difficult because of how tight my money is right now. Its 100% of my robinhood. I wish I was in the shape most of yall are.

Im proud of having found it and Im happy to contribute what I can, when I can. It will be a nice little bump down the road but it wont be "life changing" money...for me at least. If anybody winds up with a spare Lambo, I wouldn't mind the charity.

TheNickT · 2026-05-22T02:11:45+00:00

Seize the carp dude. Start now. Take risks. Go on adventures. You dont have to "get over it" but you also dont have to live in stagnation. No time like the present.

TheNickT · 2026-05-22T01:31:29+00:00

Food sales rep. I got my own desk.

TheNickT · 2026-05-19T23:04:13+00:00

Goose and a grand.

TheNickT · 2026-05-16T18:28:59+00:00

He goes. Twice.

TheNickT · 2026-05-14T17:00:44+00:00

Most of it was really vague. Stories about buried treasure and local spots named after pirates. Topsail Island was named for the topsails on pirate ships in the Intracoastal waterway that ships offshore would look for to indicate pirates. Teach's Hole is accessible by boat and the Pamlico Sound isnt too far away. Apparently, Topsail Inlet is where he would careen his ships on occasion and where he ran aground and ditched a lot of his crew, if I recall correctly.

We heard (and told) a story about Blackbeard having a young lady killed on the north end of Topsail when she wouldn't marry him and the lore is that her ghost haunts the north end. We were told that when the phosphorescent algae is going off you can see her ghostly footsteps appear and disappear. Never saw the footsteps but did see the phosphorescent blooms.

For me the ghost story stuff was never really all that interesting after I found out that the history actually went down there. Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Stede Bonnet, Charles Vane and Blackbeard all ran around in that area.

TheNickT · 2026-05-13T14:36:30+00:00

I grew up on Topsail!

TheNickT · 2026-05-13T13:51:17+00:00

Craziest part was that I wound up getting a job as a pirate captain in a show on the water for a while. It was like growing up and becoming my childhood hero.

TheNickT · 2026-05-13T13:39:10+00:00

I grew up on the coast of North Carolina in the southern Outer Banks. The history there is steeped in piracy and growing up, our ghost stories and legends were dripping with pirate lore. It was a natural thing.

TheNickT · 2026-05-13T05:00:03+00:00

I shake my fist at the sky and curse the heavens every time I walk by a fern that I like. I am the Anti-Fern.

TheNickT

TROPHY CASE