What should I house in it?

Mount_Prion

Piranha
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Haven't been on much, as I haven't had too much fish stuff going on in life recently.

Anyway, I sort of ended up with an unplanned terrarium/vivarium setup in my apartment and I'm deciding what to put in it. It's 36x18x36 (LxWxH) glass setup, with a lot of cool custom fake rock in the background, and I've set it up so it will have a little waterfall and a smallish water feature taking up about 1/4 of the bottom, connected to a 10g tank sump. Will probably put fancy shrimp in the water.

Planning on lighting and planting it heavily, but not sure what kind of fauna to put in.

Originally I was going to go with dart (or similar) frogs, but I think it gets too warm in my apartment for most species, and I don't want to keep fruit fly colonies.

So here are the requirements:

-Can tolerate temperatures into the mid 80s (or likes it warmer than that, generally).
-Doesn't require fruit flies or airborne prey (otherwise I'd try an orchid mantis).
-Doesn't make much noise (if any) at night. During the day is OK.
-Is OK with live plants and bioreactive substrate

I know there are a variety of gekkos I could keep, but the large ones tend to be mean and if I'm gonna put up with something hissing at me, it needs to be super exotic.

Open to any and all suggestions, though. Thanks, y'all!
 

krausch

Exodon
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With an enclosure that size, i would go with day geckos, either a pair of giants, or standingi. They are not agressive, pretty tame, and eat insects and fruit. They are colorful and do well in heavily planted tanks. They are active during the day, hense the name. These are the large day geckos, you could house probably 4 of the gold dust day geckos, or neons.

I would like to see an update once you get it up and going. Good luck.
 

CTU2fan

Feeder Fish
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Day geckos would be cool. Maybe mountain horned dragons could work, though offhand I'm not 100% sure if they might not like it a bit cooler than that.
 

903Herp

Jack Dempsey
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Nov 23, 2014
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another vote on day geckos. Also a chameleon would be cool. They have a lot of different species and coloration. Also they feed on crickets.
 

Mount_Prion

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another vote on day geckos. Also a chameleon would be cool. They have a lot of different species and coloration. Also they feed on crickets.
Don't they generally require screen enclosures? This is glass.
 

Dieselhybrid

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Ya chameleons do best in vivarium settings. Most species (the pretty ones) are arboreal, so a large screened enclosure works best so they can climb. You can exponentially increase their climbing surfaces by having screen for walls instead of glass. Their fused feet are meant for wrapping around branches and grip screen just fine but aren't like geckos. They can't climb glass.

I've seen many a pet store chameleon in glass enclosures trying desperately and frantically to climb the walls. They need height and space to feel comfortable.
 

Mount_Prion

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Ya chameleons do best in vivarium settings. Most species (the pretty ones) are arboreal, so a large screened enclosure works best so they can climb. You can exponentially increase their climbing surfaces by having screen for walls instead of glass. Their fused feet are meant for wrapping around branches and grip screen just fine but aren't like geckos. They can't climb glass.

I've seen many a pet store chameleon in glass enclosures trying desperately and frantically to climb the walls. They need height and space to feel comfortable.
When you say they do best in vivarium settings, what do you mean exactly? Because I'd describe this as a bioreactive vivarium, but you could also call it a terrarium. And it's definitely got the dimensions for a chameleon (36''Lx18Wx36H), plus I'm adding fans for air flow. I dunno, though, couldn't I just attach mesh to the sides?

I'm just not huge on day geckos. Too plain/common for the amount of effort I'm putting into this.
 

Dieselhybrid

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If you put enough airflow and enough places to climb it could work. With glass enclosures it's hard to set up a basking area because they trap the heat inside. With screened enclosures they can go bask, then go to another area to cool off giving them the ability to regulate their body temperature as desired.
 

Dieselhybrid

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I like having screens for walls because their prey lands and climbs on it, so more hunting area. More area for them to climb so if you have multiple specimens it reduces stress. It also keeps humidity down.

I'd recommend a smaller species like montium, quadracornis, johnsons, or carpet. Possibly a single Panther.

I'd avoid Jacksons. Most of them are wild caught from Hawaii where they were introduced decades ago. Because of this they're all from a small gene pool, and weak genetically. Don't live long compared to the African caught Jacksons.
 
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