Welcome to Thingwall Animals.
Hi, welcome to my page all about our Thingwall animals.
I'm Mrs Smith - most of you will have seen me around school. Quite often you'll find me in the school library, cleaning and feeding our assortment of bugs. Or I can be found outside the year 2 classroom, up to my armpits in fish tank water.
At the end of last week - 20th March, I brought all the creatures home to live with me for a while. Snails, cockroaches, locusts and fish are all safe and well, and enjoying their holidays! I'll be posting regular updates about our school pets (and maybe my pets too!) and lots of pictures.
Keep popping back to stay updated!
Our fish enjoy a weekly water change. This water change is really important to remove toxins (made by poop!) from the water. After testing the water, I usually change between 40 and 50%, replacing it with fresh, dechlorinated water.
Dinner time!
Water change for our Thingwall fishies.
Thingwall's fish have settled in and are happily swimming around in my two tanks. They are all fit and healthy and eating well. I have put the Black Widow Tetra in one tank - they are sharing it with a couple of Weather Loaches and my group of Black Widows. In the other tank are the remaining fish - Corydora Catfish, Harlequin Rasbora and Espe's Rasbora. They are sharing with my Pristella Tetra and a grumpy False Flying Fox - aka 'Mr Foxy.'
The grumpy - Mr Foxy.
Florence, Dougal and Ermintrude have all settled in well and are introducing themselves to my snails. They are all happy, exploring their new, holiday home.
Well, I was a bit slow at renewing the vaseline layer and consequently there were a couple of escapee hisser babies!
A bid for freedom!
We have babies! I spotted about 20 baby hissers today. Next job tomorrow will be making sure that the vaseline layer is repaired! The vaseline layer is important as it is really slippy. The hissers can't walk over it as their little feet can't grip the surface.
Baby hissers hiding in the foliage.
Locusts enjoying some fresh, hand picked grass.
Hitching a ride!
Baby locusts having a clean out today. Think this one wanted to come with me!
Beautiful stripes on our freshly moulted Madagascar Hissing Tiger Cockroach.
Colouring up nicely.
Our hissers are continuing to enjoy their holiday. I spotted this one this morning, fresh out of it's old skin. Hissers moult their old 'exoskeleton' up to 7 times before they reach their adult size. The hisser will usually eat it's old skin as this is a valuable source of nutrients. Over the next 12 hours, as the new exoskeleton hardens, the hisser will change it's colour, to brown, black and yellow.
Freshly moulted - beginning to eat it's exoskeleton.
1/2
Beginning to change colour.
2/2
The Hissing Cockroaches have happily taken up residence in the living room. They are kept company by our Dairy Cow Woodlice who seem to be enjoying a particularly tasty piece of cuttlefish!