Tortoise Skeleton Rearticulation and new Aquarium.

 

Tortoise Re-articulation

My friend rescued a tortoise and gave her a beautiful home. Unfortunately, Tippee had not been cared for properly prior to Dinah's rescue, and she became very sick within a few months of Dinah having her. Dinah had never had a pet die before, and it was really hard on her. She trusted me to bury Tippee and gave me permission to keep the skeleton once it was ready. On Sep 9th (2023), Dinah brought me Tippee's body. I held onto her for a while because Dinah kept checking to make sure she was really dead. After about 12 hours I put her in the freezer, then buried her once I had a chance, with some purple mums because she loved eating flowers. 

A few months ago I pulled Tippee's body back out of the dirt. The flowers had been long gone since the winter froze them, and the skeleton was well preserved. I didn't consider that the shell could be several bones articulated together like a skull, or that the skull of the tortoise itself would be made up of teenie weenie bones that also fell apart. It was a disaster. Parts fell onto the floor and I was furious with myself for dropping and breaking (dropping because I broke) Tippee! I put the parts on a plate (much to my husband's chagrin) and left the project for another day. That was probably about 6 months ago. 

I started a new rotation in September of this year and met an MA who likes hunting, and mounts her own skulls. We had an extensive conversation about tracking (which I'm learning to do with my son for homeschool), identification, skulls, and other similar topics. She texts me later in the week saying "sorry to bother you, but you mentioned about your son and hunting or skulls, correct?" 

OH BOY! I GET TO TEXT YOU ABOUT MY INTERESTS? HOLD ON!

I snap some photos of my cat skeleton (spine articulated) and my tortoise skeleton and she responds with a very dissatisfying "oh that's cool" and then never writes back again. Sigh. I get it. 

September 4, 2024

Note: I dug up this cat a while back. I'll need to check in my photos for when exactly I dug it up. This is just the picture that I used for oversharing with my uninterested temporary coworker. 

Anyhoo, that inspired me to start trying to rearticulate Tippee. It has long been time, plus I was excited about my new office arrangement since I set up the 55 gallon aquarium over the weekend. I've made quite a bit of progress on the rearticulation, and hope to complete the skeleton by the end of the week. 

09/20/24

Aquarium (55 gal) Setup

Last winter I convinced my husband to go pick up a 55gal aquarium for $40. It was an absolute steal, but it came with a thick layer of lime from our city's hard water. It's been in my garage for the past year because I don't have any available furniture that is able to support such a heavy structure. The configuration of my office would need to change if I was going to install it, and I didn't have the time. 

Well a few things happened that made everything line up to clean and install the tank this past weekend. 

1. My pond has bearded algae which is THE WORST. I just had to bleach most of the contents of my last tank because of the stuff and I cannot possibly do that with the pond, so I need a creature that will eat the algae. I found that Siamese algae eaters do eat bearded algae, so I ordered them online, along with some other creatures and plants.

• I need a place to quarantine the new creatures before they go to their respective homes. 
• I need a place for the Siamese algae eaters to overwinter because the pond will get too cold for them if it freezes 

2. My daughter has been sick all last week, my husband was exhausted, and my daughter was chill enough to be in my office, but not out of my sight. That meant that backyard cleanup wasn't an option, working on the shower re-grouting project wasn't an option, and I already knew that the Siamese algae eaters were on their way.  It was time.

It only took about an hour to get the lime scraped away, and another hour to partially fill, empty, clean, and refill the tank, set up the filter, and start the cycling process. 

Edit: I actually took pictures of the whole process but the blog website didn't support the image after a few months and I deleted the photos of grimy aquarium from my phone so I guess it's gone forever. 

Now I just need to wait for the fish and larger filter to arrive!