New pet

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Eat your pets?! What kind of monster ARE you?!

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Eat your pets?! What kind of monster ARE you?!

A carnivore, obviously. With an appetite for seafood.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

You're disturbed.... In a good way, lol.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

You're disturbed.... In a good way, lol.

If he got frogs as well, he could make a nice Cajun gumbo with frog legs as an appetizer.

[IndigoErth]

If you're eating the pets, then I just suggest a ton of pet gummy worms. (Or gummy anything.)

Shrimp sound interesting. Fancy guppies could be nice for a small tank if you're into aquatic critters. Maybe both as long as the shrimp aren't small enough for the guppies to eat (although they might help keep the population down if the shrimp try to breed).

[ProactiveMan]

I've seen some really neat shrimp setups at the aquarium shop I used to frequent. They had some neon coloured shrimp in a little waterfall tank on the front counter.

A friend of mine kept marron, which is a kind of freshwater crayfish. They're cool, but they're bastards. One of them waited until the other was malting, and then pulled all its legs off. They're quite messy too if memory serves, and they stink up the place if you feed them too much, or don't have a good enough filter.

[Metalwolf]

I used to keep fish when I was younger, but they'd often die after about a month or two. I would try to treat the water, change it, add plants, take out plants, fiddle with the filters, all to no avail. After a while I thought I just sucked with fish, I'd always be amazed at the people who seemed to have some knack for keeping their fish alive past a month, so eventually I quit trying and gave the tank to my brother. He started to have the same 'bad luck' as I did, a pet fish he had for year or two died a few months after it was put into this tank, then a pet lizard after that. Nothing would stay alive. After a while me or my brother came to the conclusion that the tank itself must have some poisonous chemical or residue (probably in the glue or sealant) that was killing whatever was put into the tank, he (being a better fishkeeper then I) couldn't even keep his critters alive in it. Sometimes this happens with tanks during their manufacturing, and it happened to be that I ended up being the unlucky recipient of one of these.

Hope you don't ever find out you got one of these tanks during your first aquaculture attempts. They are such a motivation killer if there ever was one.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Yeah that'scsome thing to watch for. If you keep losing critters, despite all effots, ditch the tank and get a new one. Personally, I'm tired of fish. Had them all through my growing up years, and they just got kind of boring after a while. And a hassle. I'm thinking a land critter.

[Mew]

I'd get a tarantula.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by MewMeow

I'd get a tarantula.

Eew. You'd have to be REALLY hungry to eat one of those.

[IndigoErth]

I dunno, on a grill and burn all the hair off? Might not be bad. Maybe as part of kabobs, but not sure they'd have much meat on them though. lol

Always thought tarantulas were sorta cute (I mean it's a spider, but it's big and furry enough how it is not cute), but I could never feed it what it needs to eat. Loved crickets and other little critters as a kid - not to eat! lol - I could never feed them to something as live food.

Yeah, fish are nice but they're harder than they look and both ease and enjoyment really depend on the species. (Reminded me I have a 30 gal. to go clean shortly... My weekly workout.)

The only land critters I've had (at least what were strictly mine and not family pets) were gerbils and hermit crabs. Gerbils are cute and easy enough. I don't recommend them in a bedroom if the wheel is noisy. Mine sometimes found themselves removed to the hallway in the middle of the night or the wheel taken out. lol

The hermit crabs were fun, but aren't easy to keep imo. (Though my larger one once clamped down on my thumb nail and refused to let go for a while... so I just held it in my hand and went and did stuff I needed to get done at home, one handed. )

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

I dunno, on a grill and burn all the hair off? Might not be bad. Maybe as part of kabobs, but not sure they'd have much meat on them though. lol

Always thought tarantulas were sorta cute (I mean it's a spider, but it's big and furry enough how it is not cute), but I could never feed it what it needs to eat. Loved crickets and other little critters as a kid - not to eat! lol - I could never feed them to something as live food.

Yeah, fish are nice but they're harder than they look and both ease and enjoyment really depend on the species. (Reminded me I have a 30 gal. to go clean shortly... My weekly workout.)

The only land critters I've had (at least what were strictly mine and not family pets) were gerbils and hermit crabs. Gerbils are cute and easy enough. The hermit crabs were fun, but aren't easy to keep imo. (Though my larger one once clamped down on my thumb nail and refused to let go for a while... so I just held it in my hand and went and did stuff I needed to get done, one handed. )

You make a good point...

Some pets eat some pretty nasty stuff. Turtles eat pellets that come in a green and yellow plastic can. I imagine shrimp eat pretty non-nasty things, too.

And what do WE eat? Anything we want! Top of the food chain!

[IndigoErth]

lol Us? All that processed junk we dare call food.

Fortunately the grossest thing my fish eat are the tubifex worms, but at least those are just little freeze dried blocks.

Press them against the glass for them to nibble at, but anymore I have to put up at least two because they both figured out how to purposely tear the whole thing off the glass and steal it all for themselves. Do you see what I live with? lol

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Sounds like some of my fish in the past. I mostly kept mollies, sharks, swordtails, tetras, and guppies- and over a dozen bettas. Mostly males, but I had about four or five females, too. The males each had their own bowls (they are SO easy to keep you don't even need filters or aerators!) to avoid fighting, but I kept the females together. They don't fight. We also had gouramis, cichlids, more tetras, danios, and a huge placostamus(sp?).

[Amaranthus]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Sounds like some of my fish in the past. I mostly kept mollies, sharks, swordtails, tetras, and guppies- and over a dozen bettas. Mostly males, but I had about four or five females, too. The males each had their own bowls (they are SO easy to keep you don't even need filters or aerators!) to avoid fighting, but I kept the females together. They don't fight. We also had gouramis, cichlids, more tetras, danios, and a huge placostamus(sp?).

Bettas are healthier when you use a proper setup though.

[Amaranthus]

Just finished setting up my tank. Feels good mang.

[Metalwolf]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Yeah that'scsome thing to watch for. If you keep losing critters, despite all effots, ditch the tank and get a new one. Personally, I'm tired of fish. Had them all through my growing up years, and they just got kind of boring after a while. And a hassle. I'm thinking a land critter.

Yeah, I learned that the hard way, plus I stopped wanting to have fish after all that trouble (my fish kept dying so much, my stepfather started calling me the Fish-Hitler. ) I think I'd love to grow and keep aquatic plants, along with some snails though, as anything more then that (frogs, fish, or turtles) would be too much hassle, and the cat would constantly be trying to get to them to eat them.

Originally Posted by MewMeow

I'd get a tarantula.

I used to have hissing cockroaches, but I dunno if Aramathus's folks would go for those (or the giant spiders.). They aren't hard to keep, but they would creep some people out

[Ecto Jedi]

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by Amaranthus

Bettas are healthier when you use a proper setup though.

Actually, as long as you keep the bowls clean, they don't need any of that, since they also breathe air. In fact, in their native habitat, they are known to survive for weeks in stagnant puddles no more than a couple of inches deep. They are some of the hardiest fish you can keep, and mine were being kept for breeding purposes- which, unfortunately, is the HARD part of keeping bettas. Little did I realize at the time, but males can be as violent toward the females as toward each other, though for different reasons. Mating can be a brutal affair, and most of my females either never mated (several were killed in the attempt) or if they did, the eggs were promptly eaten- by BOTH parents. (Males are SUPPOSED to retrieve and guard them in the bubble nest- another reason they DON'T need an aerator, since it can break up the nest. Unfortunately, my males never got the memo....)

[Amaranthus]

Who missed me?
Buying my shrimp today.