Meet A Sandfish

[dgwebster]

Thought I would introduce something right up the aquatic alley, a Sandfish! This photo is of Sandy (from Rise of the Guardians) and we discovered an egg today so having a bash at getting it to hatch.

Not a lot of information is available on these creatures beyond the fact many people have difficulty keeping them alive. We try to maintain a natural habitat setting, using a bulb to reach daytime temps of 35º+ and allowing a nightime desert drop of 10º-15º and it seems to be going well. A water dish is supplied sunk into the sand along with a worm dish for food and we chuck in crickets frequently too.

These fish are like other fish: for viewing not for handling!

 

[TallTree01]

Cool sand fish!

Just and FYI here, if you want the egg to hatch then bashing it is not a good idea.

 

[dgwebster]

Boom boom

The Mrs says, "funny booger eh?" haha

She feels it is pertinent to point out these guys are members of the skink family and are called sandfish because you need to supply a substrate of several inches of sand as they "swim" through it.

 

[techen]

Ohh, I do like that o:

 

[dgwebster]

Hehe Techen, you are going reptile!

 

[techen]

I love my reptiles

 

[Blondielovesfish]

She is really cool!
How big is her "enclosure"?

 

[dgwebster]

We have a pair in a 24" x 18" x 18x viv. The height is a bit pointless but we got it second hand for cheap. Most information say this is fine for a trio but we think it would be a bit of a squeeze. If this egg does hatch, we will call it fate though.

 

[dgwebster]

Some more photos just taken on my phone and an update. We found a second egg, but that and the first one have proven to be infertile, rapidly collapsing. Ah well.

 

[tropicalmumma]

Wow that is awesome! I'm too scared to take on anything like that, but she looks happy there

 

[dgwebster]

These guys are nice in that they dont have teeth, but it would be easy to fret over whether they are eating etc. If you are doing it right and so forth for a beginner. Bugs are also mandatory.

Beginner reptiles who dont like bugs much are crested geckos. Their primary diet is fruit and you get two really good complete diets that you mix with water to make it. They still benefit from crickets, roaches and meal worms though so good to have every now and then. After some training, they are usually happy to be held by the person that has trained them up and developed that relationship.

 

[dgwebster]

In case anyone is wondering, I am sitting reading a book beside the viv, hence the extra photos. But I just caught something rare: both the sandfish out on top at the same time, in the same frame.