An End To Negligence On Two Counts

Until yesterday I had been woefully lax in the maintenance of our treefrog Hop’s space. The last time I cleaned it was… I can’t remember when. Months. Upon Months. Maybe even more than a year.

Not cool.

My excuse was two-fold. 1) It didn’t smell, and 2) Hop didn’t seem to mind the increasingly organic nature of the space. Plus there was something of an irrational fear augmenting that rationale. Both of his roomies, Skip and Ajump died shortly after separate cleanings… possibly due to the fact that I used a window cleaner that I may not have rinsed away well enough.

But whether or not I contaminated the environment enough to kill the other two, Hop’s proved to be the hardiest one of the trio, and today I manned-up and degunked his home. There was a pretty impressive algae bloom and some spare cricket parts floating in the water, but other than that she cleaned-up really nice — and this time with just water and a scrubber sponge and without the use any potential amphibicide.

In doing such a good job I was able to do something else I’d been unable to/avoiding: get a nice portrait of the smallest member of our family through the now-defunked glass of Hop hanging out on the back wall of his freshened-up digs (click it for the bigger picture):