A Mixing Species Experience (feel free to comment criticize and ask anything)

[bstiell]

recently i have been looking on the internet for information about mixing species and noticed most if not all people are against it .. as for me i dont have a problem with mixed specie setups aslong as one educates themselvs on the specifics of that animals environment their niche and most importantly their diet and tempermant. i myself have kept mixed species terrariums before one my most interesting one was a 40 gallon tank with a LTG lizard a green anole a brown anole a house gecko a green tree frog and a rough green snake with numerous isopods all of which ate crickets (alive or dead) never fought and lived for a good 4 years (because i had to go away for an internship one summer and their baby sitter sucked) now i just have 1 tank with a leo and a pictus and another with 2 crested geckos and 3 1.5 inch hermitcrabs all of which are growing up beautifully my suggestion to anyone attempting this is

1 read read read all information about all species of interest aswell as other peoples experiences with these animals

2 make sure u have enough room for them

3 try to get them so they can be useful for example hermitcrabs and isopods are scavengers so they clean up the crested gecko poo eat any dead crickets the baby food and so on and stay on the ground while my cresties climb around the top altho sometimes i found them laying with each other

4 when reading especially pay attention to
temperament
diet
habitat
humidity
temperature
lighting
niche
behavior

good luck and look forward to having an intelligent DISCUSSION with anyone who can agree or disagree along with video showing the tank with the snake

 

[Deadly_Kermit]

I'm glad to see someone else that is not hands-down against multispecies enclosures!

If I may, I'd like to edit your first rule slightly: I would say that you should have personal experience with the animals in question. I have several marine aquariums and vivariums, and I have kept hundreds of herps in the past. If I have learned anything, it is "Never take anyone's word for anything". No matter how much sense they make, or how much experience they claim to have. Nothing comes close to knowledge gained by personal experience.

A few years ago I set up a 55 gal paludarium that was pretty cool. It had an aquatic section in the center with a few tropical fish. Each end had a terrestrial area with fire bellied toads and a couple of salamanders (I don't recall the species). Above that was an arboreal area with a flying gecko, several anoles, a red eyed treefrog, and a house gecko.

Overall, I thought it was a great learning experience and a lot of fun. The anoles had a very interesting social structure based around a dominant male and his harem. and the interactions between the different species were interesting.

Right now I have a dart frog viv. housing 4 banded leucomelas and a mourning gecko. They all get along great! The frogs eat the flies on the bottom of the viv and the gecko picks off the ones that climb up the sides.

All of my aquariums are multispecies and the exact same rules apply to these as well, but for some reason the issue isn't as taboo in that circle.

I can definitely see both sides to the argument though. I had a friend a few years ago that had a green Anole housed with a Leo. They were fine for a few weeks then he woke to find a missing Anole and a very fat leopard gecko.
Personally, I think is is probably a bad idea to put any two animals together if it is physically possible for one to eat the other. I'm not sure where that leaves the Leo/Pictus viv. It may be possible for the leo to get excited one day and swallow him whole.

Keeping hermit crabs with reptiles never really crossed my mind, but I love the idea! Of course you need to monitor them and make sure they don't nibble on a sleeping gecko. crabs in general are fearless and will try to eat anything if the opportunity presents itself.

This makes me want to set up another multispecies viv. They just have so many little nuances that you don't normally get to see.

 

[bstiell]

its really not the gecko to worry about (atleast from what i have experienced) the crabs usually hide as soon as the gecko moves to close ( they seem pretty timid but definitely healthy far from fearless ) and once the gecko sees that hard shell (or tries to taste it..) it backs off..and dont keep crabs with reptiles that dig allot .. thats when problems can arise.. and with my leo/ pictus .. i agree with ur statement.. i had them both together as babies but as with any lizard even those of the same species size difference shouldnt be so great that one can eat the other so when that started i separated them that happened i separated them .. thanks for responding .. i look forward to hearing other experiences from people who keep setups like this as well as more educated responses such as the one provided above
also for anyone that wants to do this try to learn basic ecology ull learn allot about the larger processes that go on and would have better success with mixing species

 

[Deadly_Kermit]

Yea, I am really interested in wildlife ecology, and I love to build artificial mini-ecosystems. Since very few people try this, experimentation is where it's at! I'm intrigued by the hermit crab idea, I don't know why that never crossed my mind before... now I wish I had something suitable to house with crabs so I could experiment with them myself. I would try my with my chameleon, but he might just try to swallow one, even if it's bigger than his head.
Ever try earthworms? They are very efficient at cleaning the surface in an enclosure, but they do require a deep soil bed (6 inches or so) to support a good sized population.

Keep it up!

 

[bstiell]

do the earthworms make a mess of the bottom with their castings .. i actually took that idea into consideration in a new setup that i made while experimenting growing moss (from my back yard).. im trying to find a way to make a tiny complex ecosystem with out a false bottom .. its been a couple months and so far so good everything is still green... except for the random worm castings on top of the moss.. in the tank i have some local millipedes, isopods, earthworms, a very fat toadlet, some pond snails and some tiny copopods in the water feature.. .. how are your mixed terrariums doing ? im interested in what different yet logical mixed terrariums are out there

 

[spino1928]

okay when it comes to cross breading i think its cool but i got a question. i have a green anole and a brown or bahama anole. well i found and egg in there water dish. wat shld i do with it. if so i wld like to get it to hatch so i cld c wat it was

 

[bstiell]

I would incubate it and see what happens just don't let bit breed back to anything else if it even gets that big... Ppl do it dredgers and other rhacs so I don't see the difference check out my blog on mixing species n other things A Mixed Species Experience