# El Natural planted w/Hamsters



## zer0zax (Mar 25, 2007)

I am slowly building a 40g long aquarium El Natural, 1 inch non-amended soil, 1.5 inch small gravel and sprinkling of oyster shells. It will be 2 weeks before I get any plants so I am taking my time and plan on using 2 T8 Daylight 48" bulbs. The wattage will be 64 watts total and I am hoping that will be enough. I will start with fast growers and after things settle in I will slowly phase those out and move to crypts and mosses.

My main set back right now is that I just went outside of my apartment to smoke and heard a chirping sound, and a little hamster ran by my leg fallowed by a cat:twitch: I know some poor kid is missing his little pet so I put newspaper down in the aquarium and fed it some vegetables and now it is flinging my nicely capped dirt everywhere. Oh well, tomorrow I will post pictures of the hamster around the apartment and eventually rebuild the substrate when it gets claimed. I know the cat is very disappointed in me! 

Does anyone think a little extra ammonia will disturb anything when I fill this thing up with water (minus hamster)? I do plan to photo-document this tank as it progresses(minus addition of hamster).


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## crash_kt (Aug 8, 2007)

zer0zax said:


> a little hamster ran by my leg fallowed by a cat:twitch:QUOTE]
> 
> I hate to laught but dang thats funny got to love the comical releaf. And on the plus-down side you got a new pet if the owner dosent come.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

zer0zax said:


> Does anyone think a little extra ammonia will disturb anything when I fill this thing up with water (minus hamster)?


What do you mean by "a little extra ammonia"? Where is this ammonia coming from? Are you talking about hamster poop in your substrate? If you are, I would def. avoid it. A little extra ammonia is never a desirable thing.

-ricardo


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## zer0zax (Mar 25, 2007)

Yes Flagg I was talking about hamster ammonia. We got the hamster a nice cage and water bottle, all the good stuff so I get the aquarium back! I think you are right, I don't want to mess with fertilized substrate and find out later on that I have to start over, so I will replace the dirt now. 

When the hamster was tearing up substrate a lot of bark pieces and sticks were coming up, so when I redo it all this time I will screen the dirt really well.


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## Raul-7 (Feb 4, 2004)

A little off topic:

One word of caution, hamsters are escape-artists. Make sure the cage door is locked. The worst thing is having to deal with a missing hamster, IME.


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## Squawkbert (Jan 3, 2007)

Hamsters are not an aquatic species, they will die and slowly rot.
 

(someone had to say it)


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## Chuppy (Aug 5, 2007)

LOL hamsters in aquariums.. Hmm speaking of which.. anyone interested to make a habitat?? as in.. An aquarium that houses fish/plants/hamsters lol that will be a laugh


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## zer0zax (Mar 25, 2007)

I really should let this thread die, but I wanted to share my crazy idea. I am working with top NASA people (who can't share their names) on a little hamster aquanaut suit, comprised mostly of sandwich bag material and generous amounts of siliconeainkille .

Our main issue at hand is that the aquarium water is lacking quite a bit of oxygen compared to atmospheric air, but if we hook up a couple bottles of O2 we can at least saturate the water and prolong the life of the hamster (I should quite smoking) so it can boldly go where no hamster has gone before...


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

You could set up a plastic container at the water line, with an air line going in the top and an open bottom, but with some dry resting areas.

Hamsters can swim, and you could train it to dive and get back into the container, perhaps fertilizing the plants as it went.

Uh, on second thought, better check the hamster-swimming part first.

Bill


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## zer0zax (Mar 25, 2007)

Well the hamster passed away todayout:, but she had a happy second life. Better food in heaven then unsalted peanuts!:rapture: As soon as she was in her new cage she looked right at home and was content, she didn't like to be held to much, but she loved being hand fed. My mom told me that 2 days after we rescued the hamster she saw a sign on the office door of our apartments saying someone found a stray guinea pig, so somebody moving out obviously dumped their pets. I honestly think it would have been kinder to shoot the pets than to put them outside and let them get eaten, starve, or ran over, but I am just cold like that:mad2:

On a lighter note, the aquasuit experiment never went through because the hamster never liked to be out of her cage, and NASA cut my funding due to the bad economy:doh:#-o

I'm just glad I didn't get the guinea pig:brick:


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## KraKen (Jul 17, 2008)

Sorry the hamster died

Speaking of hamster aquasuits, when my parents were in college one professor had a pet rat and an aquarium so one day my dad and a couple of his freinds decided to make a diving bell for the rat. They put the rat into a bowl or something and covered the top with a piece of screen then they tipped the cup over and pushed it into the tank so that the rat and a bubble of air were trapped in the bowl. [smilie=l:


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## flillia (Sep 11, 2008)

You might want to double and triple check the seams of the tank

I used to keep mice and hamsters in 10 gal tanks and was always told that once you kept an animal in there you could never keep fish.. since the lil critters love to chew up the seams. I don't know how much damage such a short period of time can do but I do know my pets did a number on the seams over the course of the year or so I had them


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

GET ANOTHER HAMSTER!! 
That habitat idea sounds pretty cool, where the hamster could swim to his little bell/home. 
I just had to say this thread was hilarious to read!!
Thanks for the laughs!


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## zer0zax (Mar 25, 2007)

Thanks guys, but no more hamsters for me (unless they like swimming)! The hamster was only kept in the aquarium for a couple of days before a proper cage was bought for it, but I cleaned the aquarium out and filled it VERY slowly. No leaks! I was really nervous though and expected the worst!:bathbaby:


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## KraKen (Jul 17, 2008)

Just in case anyone got any ideas from this thread I'll point out that hamsters are desert animals so they don't like any water except dew and the stuff from their water bottles.


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## zer0zax (Mar 25, 2007)

I agree! Plus they are not to fond of cats or glass enclosures, they like plenty of air that can move freely.


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## eylk (Dec 15, 2007)

HAHAHA

I had my fun just reading this.


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