A few trips in and out of the same pot over the course of a week or so I'd remove what brick hard old soil stuff I can from out side inward toward the root with an occasional mist here and there during the old soil removal . for cacti It's a 100% peat free world in some preferences such as mine would suggest the granite chips you have be 45-50 % and perlit be 30 % to equal 75 - 80 % of the new soil mix. No clue about the cactus soil % you might want. Yes the sand you have in pic is to fine but sand isn't the wrong thing to use IF it where more course and bigger in size to fill the rest of the mix to be 100 %. And there are those here on GW who know how to use peat based cactus soil for cactus that are more than welcome to add. What ever new soil you choose for this task rinse it and let it dry for a day or two mix it again and sift to size before adding to or complete re-potting. Perlite being carcinogenic I'd suggest a breathing mask be worn.

MrB: I don't think that alerting the media will do anything. First, I'm not trying to draw attention to myself, and second, they could possibly try to sue me for libel. And also, people probably wouldn't really care that frogs were being mistreated. They also wouldn't realize how important high humidity is to these frogs, so they might fail to see how these frogs are even being mistreated. It's not like piles of dead frogs are littering the aisles. Now if I bought one of the frogs and it died within a few days, and I tried to get my money back because they had sold me an unhealthy animal and they didn't give it to me, THEN I would alert one of the local news-stations here that has a consumer alert feature. PETA *might* do something, but since most people dismiss them as a bunch of zealots and freaks, I don't think that would do much. And mall security would probably throw them out anyways. =P I think I will write a letter to the management. If things don't improve, then I will trash them to everyone I talk to. =) There is a reptile and amphibian society here (TARAS) in Alberta, and they have a forum that I am a part of, but I don't think you are allowed to mention places by name and say how bad they are. Someone did that once, and he got in huge trouble. The bottom line was that the owner of that store was 100% sure that they were right, and knew everything about pets, and was taking care of these animals just fine (even though there were about 20 leopard geckos in one 10 gal enlcosure, and at least one of them was dead and had not been removed). I'm worried that the same thing will happen here. That is, nothing. My letter will get no response, and other people won't really care that rare and endangered animals are being mistreated. I'll still try, and hope for the best, but I'm not too hopeful.

2read - I feel your frustration , but if you'll read btw the lines of jakvis' posts- this is the state of the service industry. Let's look at it the way you feel it should run: Tech comes and takes apart the machine looking for your needle in the haystack. You are responsible for all of the tech's time from the moment he leaves the shop or his last call till he buttons back up the appliance and gives you a written estimate, OK ? Leaves the shop to come to your place at 1:45 and he runs into an accident like we had in North ATL today at 2 pm. It was a 7 car + semi pileup that closed all 4 or 5 lanes plus the emergency lane - until 4:15pm when one lane open and lasted until 6 pm. He fights through that mess to arrive at your place at 4:30 when he starts to dissemble your machine which takes an hour and finds that there is x wrong with your machine. He then call parts to inquire about availability and price and waits on hold for 17 minutes and talks with the rep for another 13 minutes sorting out which variant is needed because there are three different ones for your model. ( That little bit just cost you 50 bucks itself - because the hourly billable rate is not $70 - it's $100 - the $70 is diagnostic lost leader price). At this point you are now obligated for $150 plus the travel time of $300. Suppose I'm generous and only charge you 30 minutes travel time = $50 for a total of $200 to open up the appliance and trouble shoot and run your diagnostic ? This still leaves you with a broken machine and it's now in pieces. Want him to re-assemble it at another hour for an additional $100 ? Even at $70 - you're still into it at $140 and still have a broken machine. Suppose you paid that only to find out the part needing replacing costs $335, plus shipping, plus two hours labor to install it ? You can buy lot of machines for $500 ! The easy way out , saving time and effort seems like a pretty good deal now - doesn't it ? Is it ideal ? Not really, but it's the market we live in now, because MOST people are going to balk at jakvis telling you " I don't know how long it's going to take me to figure out what's wrong with your machine or what the part will cost when I do find out what's wrong, but you just pay me $89.95 for as long as I'm here, OK ? "

FUNNY! think I'll pass this to our safety director & suggest he use it at the next safety meeting (mostly guys; they'll relate!)