Tropical Biotope ?'s

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MyFishEatYourFish

Feeder Fish
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May 15, 2008
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monsterville
i am building a tropical biotope that is 6x4 and will be between 6 and 8 feet tall. the bottom will be an aquarium with inhabitants depending on what will be living above the water. the land portion will have plants ranging from moss and pathos to bromeliads, orchads, and small trees. the substrate will be mainly red cinder that will be worked into the filteration as the bio with orchad bark and coconut fiber on top.
i would love to stock it with anoles, chameleons(baby veilds or pygmys), geckos(days, crested, house, etc) and frogs(red eyes, mossies, various other trees, and arrows). i will also have lobster roaches living amongst them as a sustainable food source part of the natural ecosystem. i know the basics of keeping all the animals but don't have much experience with any of them but the roaches.
i will be removing any veilds as they grow and house them seperately, i just think they would make an awesome addition while small.
with this stocking what will go wrong and how can i fix it? will the frogs try to eat anything they can fit in their mouths, including fellow frogs and small or baby chams? will the chams eat the frogs or geckos? should i not even try to cohabitate such a wide variety of animals and stich with chams or geckos or frogs or even a species only?
i'm taking my time and doing my research on this one and don't expect to be stocking anything for almost 6 months, so i can work out all the kinks.
thanks for any help!
 
What a terrible mix... Many of those would eat each others.
 
I really wouldn't recommend mixing species-especially that many. I'd stick with one species of herp, and then some fish for the bottom. I'd probably get something medium sized that would appreciate the water, like a water dragon.
 
#$%! i really wanted it to work :( i'm not a fan of water dragons, and theyre a little bigger than i'm thinking of. would an assortment of terrestrial frogs like arrows and mossys live with anoles and small geckos? how about all similar sized tree frogs and terrestrial frogs? i really want to have multiple species as you can tell.
 
I probably wouldnt go with a water dragon they would most likely destroy some of your more delicate plants and possibly eat your fishies in the bottom.
And I know how appealing a mixed species terrarium is I have tried with sucess and failures with most of the times having to seperate the species so no one would hve no negative side affects and have just given up on the idea until I have alot more experience and time to try again. You dont just have to worry about them eating each orther you also ave to worry about creating a perfect biotope. Each individual has its own niche and even in that size of terrarium you would have a hard time creating that many niches. Sorry about being the bearer of bad news but multiple specie habitats should be left for the most experienced keepers and preferably zoos at that.
 
dam. well i'm not going to give up quite yet and will start a thread when i try. i think to start i will add fish and let the lobster roaches get setlled for a few weeks or so and slowly add some animals. i'll start cheap, anoles, house geckos, tree frogs, and go from there. any suggestions?
 
I would stay away from big fish as well, you don't want anything big enough to hurt/kill one of your herps if they get into the water! Also be very watchful of those roaches, you do not want them munching on any of the animals while they're sleeping.

If I was going to do this I would make sure all the animals are from the same area, like for example Crested geckos are from New Caledonia (I think!) So If I would then focus on New Caledonia animals. Like for example maybe 2 females cresties and a leachie (I think leachies are from NC) Then you could look into some type of tree frog from that area. Then fish from that area and so on so forth.

Also make sure all your animals can eat the adult sized roaches.

I wouldn't recommend mixing species though, it is too dangerous for all the animals.
 
thats the cool thing about the roaches, they are really easy on the animals and won't chow on them, they are also a smaller species that should be able to be kept in check. any crafty adults will just produce a constant supply of babies anyway. if they overpopulate my savannah and beardie will be glad to lend a helping hand. the fish will definitely be on the easy going side. i am definitely going to try and stay with animals that would encounter eachother in the wild but for what i have in mind that might not be completely possible, but i will try. does anyone know if veilds will eat frogs?
 
First off I am going to apologize b/c most likely I am going to be going all over the place with this. lol Well none of mine that worked well were tropical set ups like yours my best one was a leopard gecko and ocellated skink set up they both actually ended up reproducing which I wasnt expecting. I had a deep sand bed for the skinks to always escape and then several hides for the geckos to get away from the skinks if need be. Another one I had pretty good succes with was a northern water snake, western water snake, and a cichlid(cant remember off the top of my head) Also try and match diurnal with nocturnal and different living habits too and if possible different feeding requirements so you dont need to worry about competition. But once again just offered several spots for everyone to try and get away from eachother and have more then enough room to escape eachother in case they do get in a fight. Also have multiple basking spots to make sure everyone has equal chances of getting some heat. Every time you walk by make sure that you check on everyone and see that they are healthy and happy and always have an empty enclosure to seperate in case of an emergency. Another big thing you need to do is quarantine everyone before you put them in the display enclosure. As for fish I would go with feeder guppies they are cheap and reproduce in case some get eaten also adding some ghost shrimp would give it another dimension. And on herps good luck and make sure you do TONS of research on every species you may buy.

Even with all of this being said I still highly recommend not doing it. This is very advanced form of herp keeping that requires the utmost care. There have been several herperes that have tried and failed horrendously. In no way am I condoning this b/c I hate seeing any herp suffer from our own mistakes so please give this real careful thought so none are hurt!
 
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