Photo Gallery :: Skipper, 12 years in

[Skippah]

It's going pretty good. The main downside is that she's strong enough to actually cause some bleeding when she scratches you lol

Skipper hanging out in some baby water lettuce. It's transplanted from another tank; she eats it way faster than it can grow.

She likes to eat all kinds of things now, she's not a picky baby anymore. From time to time I throw in some Malaysian Trumpet Snails from another tank because they're becoming a Problem over there, and with her big strong jaw she can crunch their very hard shells. This information makes me fear for my the safety of my flesh whenever I do maintenance.

She has never laid eggs, even though I was convinced that she would. I had several different sand bins for her over the years when I thought she was gravid but she just never was I guess :P

Skipper in her 75g, feat. my DIY basking platform.

She lives in a 75 gallon aquarium, which feels right on the verge of being too small. I'm lucky that she seems to have stopped growing at around 9".

She really likes this random drawer organizer shelf thing I put in the tank!! She likes to rest on the rocks I put on top of it and poke her head out of the water, as well as hang out in the lower sections. As a bonus, it forces her to slow down when coming off of her ramp instead of slamming into the glass, which has become very nerve-wracking as she's gotten heavier!

Also she loves to scratch her shell on the filter intake (the same fluval 406 from 2015 lmao - JUST replaced the O ring for the first time today, as well as the aquastop valve) and it's very cute but I can never get a photo of it smh

Last spring I set up a 150g stock tank in the yard for a few goldfish, and it went very well. My dad suggested that I should get a second one and do the same for Skipper in the summer. I think it's a good idea but also it seems scary to leave my child outside unsupervised.

My 150g stock tank goldfish pond. By September, the plants had grown a lot, but the water lily never bloomed. It sent up exactly one bud in late fall, but then got too cold and went dormant before it ever opened. The NERVE!!!

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Mainly I'm just posting here because I appreciate that I was able to be a part of this community as a kid. I was never super active, but the experiences I've had on here are important to me, even though 75% of the time it was just me embarrassing myself. It makes me happy that this forum is still around.

[steve]

Thank you for the update! Glad to see Skipper doing well. And I'm jealous of that stock tank! As for eggs... it can surprise you. I was gifted 2 eggs over the summer after around of 20 years of nothing since she has been separated.

[Skippah]

Thank you for the update! Glad to see Skipper doing well. And I'm jealous of that stock tank! As for eggs... it can surprise you. I was gifted 2 eggs over the summer after around of 20 years of nothing since she has been separated.

Yeah, she's doing great! There have been no more real health scares since the pneumonia thing in 2017. Sometimes her plastron does look a little pink, which sends me into a panic each time because all the search results are like BLOOD POISONING THAT'S BLOOD POISONING SHES GONNA DIE VERY SOON, but then it always just fades back to the normal yellow after a while, and there are no other symptoms.

The goldfish pond was surprisingly cheap and easy. I regularly tested the water all summer, and it literally never needed a water change - the plants ate all the nitrate right up. The only bad part was that I had decided to situate it under 2 pine trees, so there was a lot of needles in the water, which made cleaning the filter media a little treacherous and painful ;o;

And damn, I'll keep that egg thing in mind. That gives me hope for my weird dream of preserving eggs from her and proudly displaying them in a jar on the mantle lol.

[steve]

If it looks a little pink on the shell or skin, see if you can wipe it off. Often it's harmless bacteria, I think it's the same kind you might see in the sink or toilet.

The main issue for me with the pond is that I need 2 of everything. I have a lawn area for them instead, so I can at least ensure they get their UV.

I like the idea of preserving eggs... my RES usually gets to it first necessitating a water change.

[Skippah]

Life update: I saw her using a plastic plant to try and scratch her shell, as she does on the filter intake,

Skipper using a blue plastic plant to scratch her shell.

so I got her a suction cup brush,

Skipper cautiously approaching the brush.

and she likes it,

Skipper scratching her shell on the brush.

but she's big enough to shove it around, so she moves it too high ;-;

Skipper trying to scratch her shell on the water below the brush.

I tried moving it into her little shelf-house, so that the top of it is weighted down by the rocks on top, but she has yet to use it in this position.

[Skippah]

If it looks a little pink on the shell or skin, see if you can wipe it off. Often it's harmless bacteria, I think it's the same kind you might see in the sink or toilet.

Yeah I don't think this is the case here, it doesn't wipe off. If I look closely at the plastron when this is happening, I can see a faint pink outline of what I believe might be the underlying bones? Like, it's shapes similar to the scutes, but not actually lining up with where the scutes are.