you gotta post some pics now!

Seriously! That sounds really cool! I'd love to see it, and pics of the turtles, too!

i snapped this a day or two ago.. pardon the mess, i just capped it to show my friends.

http://indecline.net/tmp/foggy.wmv

its mostly the same now, except ive shrink-sealed all the plastic up tight, awaiting a trip to the hardware store to pick up a dremel to cut the last sheet of lexan.

on the right there are all my warm growers.

heres a link to a picture of the turtles. theyre too cute for words. you can see the third one just barely in the back there.

Here is a link that might be useful: the turtles

Oh, I've always wanted some painted turtles! So cute! They're SO expensive here though? Didn't you pay a fortune for three of them? What part of Canada are you in? I couldn't see your terrarium pic though! I just got a bunch of computer gibberish. I'll try again later.

oh sorry about that. heres a link to a couple photos.

i dont know if its even technically a terrarium, since a lot of it is open air.

i live in edmonton (ugh) and i found the first turtle just swimming in one of our celebrated potholes in the middle of a road during a rain storm seven years ago. i thought it was a lady's turtle shell purse until it reached out and tried to bite me. ;) then later my gf insisted she was lonely, so a friend of mine who was a bit enraptured with the one i had, went all the way to saskatchewan and brought back three. i got one of those ones, and that was the second female i got.

the third, the little male, i just got this past summer from a friend who was moving to columbia. he puts the moves on the females constantly with his claw dance, so im hoping this july i should have a clutch hiding in my peat bog.

Here is a link that might be useful: terrarium pix

The file foggy.wmv opened Windows Media Player but only made some white noise and a black screen.

I've seen an ultasonic fogger in someone's living room and they are really great. Totally quiet too. A quick internet search shows simple small units for $24.95 USD and up.

The digital pH-nutrient-temp thing sounds interesting. Is it "off the shelf"?

I've been wondering what kind of pump would provide a slow stream with 80cm lift. Most pumps seem to be higher volume and less lift.

I got some paper birch bark and I'm going to try to glue it to the back of my terrarium and finally get it estetically right.

-----David

Here is a link that might be useful: terrarium

david:

the video was really not that important. its just much easier to see vapor that way than with a still image.

i use a 1500 gph pump to lift water about 5 feet. it does clog up a bit though, affecting performance.. so unless you want to clean it out every couple weeks, its probably better to get something just a bit more powerful than you need. a little plastic flow diverter can keep the water pressure where you want it.

the meter i use is made by nutradip. it was a bit of an indulgence, but it really helps me keep everything consistent and orchids seem to appreciate that.

your terrarium looks great! that tillandsia is beatuiful. i think youre right on with that birch bark idea. you may even get some moss growing on there. :)

im working on something more landscaped, along the lines of yours. im pretty excited, its being built inside this goregeous prayer case i got from thailand. ive got the recessed lighting in now, and just need to seal up the base and fill it up. ill be sure to post some pictures when its done.

Here is a link that might be useful: trimeter

Hey, I'm in Edmonton too! I've never seen those turtles in the wild here though, I thought they couldn't survive our winters. Guess I was wrong! Won't they need a dormancy in the winter? And, um, you do know that it was illegal for your friend to bring some across the Alberta/Sask. border if they are wild-caught, right?

oh thats cool. :)

ive seen sliders at hawrelak park actually. i doubt theyre native, probably released pets, but they seem to have established a little colony in that artificial lake.

the ones my friend picked up were from a pet store. you can get them in bc as well, but salmonella concerns apparently are behind their prohibition in alberta. its silly, since it really has more to do with the dingy conditions people keep them in than the animals themselves. it is true that they do contribute alot of "wastes" to the water, but ive been using that water to grow fantastic hydroponic tomatos every summer and im not complaining.

I have seen them in pet stores here, but they're at least $300 each. Ridiculous! I'll have to look for them next time I'm at Hawelak park though! I'd love to see some. What side of the lake are they usually on? And I know about the great water aquatic and amphibious animals make. Last summer I used fish poo water on all my plants, and they loved it!

I am pretty sure that they do not import red eared slides into Canada anymore. They have been breeding locally (london Ontario) and displacing the native species like the spiny softshell and some of the more timid species. I wish people would be more responsible pet owners and not discard their pets once they are not cute little babys. I am glad to see that you are not one of those people and are giving your turtles the respect that they deserve.

I noticed you have orchids as well, a Vanilla planifolia and mabey a mounted Bulbophyllum species? What types of orchids are you into growing?

i wouldnt be surprised by that at all, theyre very adaptable and aggressive colonizers.

yeah, there are a few people here i know that have turtle rescue operations. one guy has like thirty of the things, all of which were given to him under circumstances like you describe. its really too bad, but its nice there are people who are willing to open their homes to them. they have a good life though, and get fed whole smelt. :)

as for the orchids, i'm still in that "get everything" stage. my favorites though are chinese cymbium species and phragmepediums. i am really starting to get into bulbos and cirrhos now that i can grow successfully on mounts (being free from overwatering anxiety is a major boost there.. ;) i'm counting down the days till our orchid show and sale (two more to go) so i'll be coming back from that with alot more of those, as well as some cold growing species now that i have appropriate conditions for them through the summer.

there is a more or less complete list of what ive got on the go in my profile page if youre interested.

sohoyaref, i remember seeing them on a wooden raft in the main lake there, piled up on top of each other as theyre cutely apt to do. but it was a few years ago and i havent been back since.

ill probably check in on them this summer sometime.

I know I'm severely dating myself here, but does anyone besides me remember "way back when" baby Red-Ear Sliders hardly bigger than a quarter were sold by the thousands in pet stores & five-&-dime stores like Woolworths? Some of them even had scenes painted on their shells, which was outlawed (thank God!!!) after it was found to deform their shells, prohibit growth, & ultimately kill them.

Not to mention the tiny kidney-shaped plastic basins with the plastic palm tree & the boxes of Hartz Mountain "dried flies" that were supposed to be nutritionally complete for these poor little things. If there's such a thing as an animal heaven, there must be MILLIONS of those baby turtles up there.

It's shameful to think how many of us - myself included - contributed to that. Luckily, as I got older I was addicted to nature/pet books & learned quickly how to care for them better - at least better for that time.

Hey, I went to the orchid show too! Wasn't it great? I got two minis for my terrarium, and three bigger ones for my orchid collection. Phrag. Paul Eugene Conroy, Bllra. Unicorn Splendor, Dend. laevifolium, Schoenorchis fragrans, and Masd. tovarensis. I'm so happy! They were exactly what I wanted.

And I saw a tiny box tortoise at PJs last week, and oh MY they are cute! $300 though, and already sold. Now I wonder if the new owner really knows how big it will get. . . this is the same pet store that sells PDFs and keeps them in tanks with dry peat as a substrate, with screen tops, under warm lights. Anyone who buys those will be getting a severely dehydrated froggy. . . poor things.

wow, good for you. :)

i couldnt wait till saturday, so i went early on friday and cleaned out alot of the "curiosities".

i picked up more warm growers than i normally would have thought of, so it looks like i need to make a new dedicate shelter for them. probably a three-tier vinyl greenhouse from hd.

heres a list of the take,

kefersteinia tolimensis
embreea rodigasiana
dendrobium antennatum
mastigion putidum
phalaenopsis lindeni
brassia 'webspinner'
paph landmark 'penant' x st. swithin 'jumbo jamboree'
paph rothschildianum 'stupendous' x tigrinum
phrag grande x pearci
phrag caricinum x besseae

that embreea is like a gongora, something ive been dying to try growing. all in all it was a great looking show, and about as decent a sale as ive been too. byron (i think thats his name) from paramount was telling me that because of the competition from other growers producing cheap phals that they were bringing in more exotics and they should start being available next year.

woo!

good luck with your masdevallia, mine hates me.

oh, and just a warning.. if you got your phrags from "martin orchids", mine had bugs so watch out.

No, I got the phrag. from Paramount, though my plants from them last year all had bugs, so I do always check. And yes, there sure were a lot of phals! So tempting to buy one all in flower like that. I'm patiently waiting for my Unicorn Splendour, which they told me should spike in about a month (also from Paramount). And I bet Phrag. Grande x pearcei will be a nice cross! I bought my orchids before I looked at the show, and someone had a beautiful little pearci in bloom, so next year I must get one. I knew they were small, but I didn't know they were that small! How cute! I could put it in my terrarium! I also REALLY want a Phrag. Grande 'Maybrook', but at the price Zephyrus sells them for, I'm afraid I won't ever be able to afford one. =( I can't even justify spending that much on a single plant. . .