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General Meeting: November 14, 2026

CANT DECIDE BETWEEN AN AQUARIUM OR A TERRARIUM? WHY NOT HAVE BOTH!

Nick Esquivel

November is the last meeting of the year…..we have a great presentation for you from Nick Esquivel.

PALIDERIUMS – A Lifelong Passion for Aquatic and Terrestrial Life

ABOUT NICK AND THE PRESENTATION:
For more than 40 years, I’ve been passionate about keeping fish, reptiles, and amphibians. What began as a childhood hobby, saving my allowance to buy new fish, grew into a lifelong journey of learning, experimenting, and creating environments where different species could thrive.

Over the years, I’ve kept a wide variety of aquatic setups, including tropical freshwater aquariums, outdoor ponds, and saltwater reef tanks. Although reef keeping was probably the most rewarding and exciting experience, it was also the most expensive and demanding in terms of maintenance. Eventually, I returned to tropical freshwater fish, where I continued exploring everything from small nano tanks to larger community aquariums. Each setup taught me something new about compatibility, behavior, water quality, and the balance between peaceful communities and aggression.

My experience with reptiles has been just as diverse. I’ve kept everything from small anoles to Argus monitors and from garter snakes to Burmese pythons. At one point, my collection grew so large that I built an additional rack to accommodate plastic storage bins of various sizes for my snakes. Beyond maintaining my own animals, I also took in rescue reptiles, working to rehabilitate them and provide them with a better quality of life. My dedication to animal care was recognized when I was chosen as **Keeper of the Year** on an online reptile forum.

Life eventually brought another change. I bought a home in the Sierra Foothills while continuing to work in San Jose. Now I have 2 places to keep tanks! During a visit to a thrift store, I stumbled across a small tank measuring 12 × 12 × 18 inches. What caught my attention was its design: it could hold water in the bottom section and featured an opening front door that made it ideal for creating a mixed land-and-water habitat.

That little thrift-store find sparked a whole new chapter in my hobby. Excited by the possibilities, I built my first paludarium, combining aquatic and terrestrial environments in a single enclosure. This also tied in my horticulture background, as I have been managing retail plant nurseries for over 30 years. The small paludarium successfully housed vampire crabs, pygmy Corydoras, and White Cloud Mountain minnows. Seeing the different species coexist in an environment I had designed and built myself reignited the excitement I remembered from my earliest days in the hobby.

Today, I have a 45-gallon paludarium featuring mourning geckos in the upper terrestrial section, with tropical fish and African dwarf clawed frogs inhabiting the aquatic section below. This setup brings together decades of experience with aquariums, reptiles, and plants into one living ecosystem.

For me, the hobby has never been just about keeping animals. It’s about understanding their needs, observing their behavior, building better habitats, and sharing this small piece of nature with others to observe.

Note: When visiting us at the meeting at Parktown Pizza, you are entitled to 15% off your pizza and Happy Hour beer prices by simply mentioning you are with our club on the day of the meeting, so make sure you jump on that deal.

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Get here early and get your pizza and drink and remember to mention that you are a PCCA member and you get 15% off the food and Happy Hour Beer pricing. See ya Saturday!