nice to meet you all!

[Heather]

Hi,
My name's Heather I live in Calgary, AB Canada. I make my living creating things out of solid gold. mostly jewellery, but sometimes when you say "I make jewellery" people think you mean out of glass beads or something. 
 I got my first crested gecko...four years ago. I worked in a fish and reptile store here in calgary for about ten years. My first love is tropical fish, but i might be turning to the dark side (ha ha, the reptile side anyway). i just caught myself the other day thinking how many more cresteds I could fit if i sold my 240gal. (a lot.)
 I have a lot of fish, 4 cresteds, a red foot tortoise, and a fiance who thinks reptiles are slimey (and he has a cat).
 i've been on the forum a couple of times before but I didn't feel like I really had anything to contribute...But now I have my first batch of eggs...and i've finally come to terms with the fact that they might actually hatch! So i guess I feel like i'm part of something different in the pet trade, and I'm really excited about it!

[justanotherfroginthepond]

Welcome, Heather!  Congratulations on your clutch....once you start actually putting them on the ground, you DO definitely feel a little different!

Do you only do freshwater or do you have any saltwater, too?  I have a girl who is from Canada that volunteers in my store doing my saltwater maintenance once/week, and she said marine tanks are pretty big up there.  What's your most exotic freshwater fish/invertebrate?

[Heather]

So far i've only ever done fresh, venturing into brackish...I just find fresh water fish fascinating, but i'm thinking of creating an all invertabrate tide pool...maybe. if my fiance doesn't loose it too much with the expansion of the gecko project! i'm keeping Clown knives (regular and albino) a fat,friendly fire eel a leporinus and a school of sorta-big clown loaches in the 240gal. I had a few other things that didn't make it last time I went on holiday...the motoro for one, and the green royal pleco...oh, and the polyprterus. I can't blame her(my mom) though. She meant well. Bigger community stuff. nothing really crazy at the moment. She's right though. marine's the thing. especially in the land locked provinces. Plus, most of the tanks (I do aquarium maintenance and design) are set up bigger and many are virtually self sustaining.

[justanotherfroginthepond]

Self-sustaining salt tanks are an achievement!  Granted, the larger the tank the more chance of getting there, but people still want to do smaller no matter what you tell them. 

I took in a leporinus that was HUGE (the lady on the phone said he was about 5 inches...ended up being at least 12) about 9 months ago, and I forgot how much I liked them.  It had been so long since we had them that I had forgotten about them being head-standers, and I thought he was dying in the bag. The next morning, every plant in that tank had huge bites taken out of it!  He was cool, though.  He ended up selling to a lady with a huge tank, so he was probably very happy.

I don't do fish at home anymore...except for my little five gallon with 2 lemon tetras/2 pencil fish/1 otocinclus/1 algae eating shrimp/ and two snails.  All extra space is devoted to the geckos!

[Heather]

I bought that leporinus after I got back from brasil.  I went with a bunch of fish/reptile people on an eco tour and while we were there James got whacked in the face by a 5" one that came flying out of the water when the boat spooked him. So it was for fond memory that i got him. But i like him so much now that he's face whacking size that I almost want to get another one...I'm on the fence now though. I'm having such a blast with the cresteds now...and that 240 takes up a good amount of space. Even if I scale down though, there's still the one aquarium built into the wall...and it's less effort to just keep a community in there than to remove it.