Red Eye Croc skinks living with Red Eye Tree frogs? Vivarium ideas

[Wes]

Ok. So my first reptile (My 12 year old ball python) passed away recently. I had him in an Exo-Terra Large Wide tank (36x18x18) and I really want to go big on a living vivarium since i've only made smaller ones in 12x18 or 18x24 Exo-Terras. I want to make it just really nice with plenty of growth and a pretty decent sized pond/waterfall. The only thing is im not quite sure what to put in it. I have been really interested in getting some new day geckos, red eye tree frogs, dart frogs and especially red eye crocodile skinks. I thought since Red eye croc skinks need a swimming area, that this would be a great enclosure but its very roomy for a pair (Which doesn't hurt, but I would rather just go all out) Which gets me thinking about including a couple red eye tree frogs as well. All the requirements match as far as humidity and temp. the only problem I can think of is how these will react. There's not much known about Croc skinks yet, let alone how they would react to tree frogs. The Croc skinks don't get all that big and a full grown RETF is a bit bigger than its head. In all honesty this is what im thinking about doing, But i figured i would get as much feedback as possible before doing this. I don't want to harm any herps, but unless given any good argument Im going to go ahead and try it. Mind you I have owned RETF's and I will monitor them very closely. If I do notice them being stressed or ANY aggressive attempts from the skinks I will just remove the frogs and probably add some small day geckos instead. So what do you guys think? Any feedback would be awesome!

 

[DragonGecko]

Never mix different species together....

 

[jenniferbright112]

Ok. So my first reptile (My 12 year old ball python) passed away recently. I had him in an Exo-Terra Large Wide tank (36x18x18) and I really want to go big on a living vivarium since i've only made smaller ones in 12x18 or 18x24 Exo-Terras. I want to make it just really nice with plenty of growth and a pretty decent sized pond/waterfall. The only thing is im not quite sure what to put in it. I have been really interested in getting some new day geckos, red eye tree frogs, dart frogs and especially red eye crocodile skinks. I thought since Red eye croc skinks need a swimming area, that this would be a great enclosure but its very roomy for a pair (Which doesn't hurt, but I would rather just go all out) Which gets me thinking about including a couple red eye tree frogs as well. All the requirements match as far as humidity and temp. the only problem I can think of is how these will react. There's not much known about Croc skinks yet, let alone how they would react to tree frogs. The Croc skinks don't get all that big and a full grown RETF is a bit bigger than its head. In all honesty this is what im thinking about doing, But i figured i would get as much feedback as possible before doing this. I don't want to harm any herps, but unless given any good argument Im going to go ahead and try it. Mind you I have owned RETF's and I will monitor them very closely. If I do notice them being stressed or ANY aggressive attempts from the skinks I will just remove the frogs and probably add some small day geckos instead. So what do you guys think? Any feedback would be awesome!

So first of all, the guy down there doesn't know what he's talking about. I have had a red-eyed crocodile skink, a crested gecko and a red-eyed tree frog living together, cohabitating, for almost a year now. The most important thing if you're going to have different kinds of things in a tank is to do your research first. I know for a fact that my red eye crocodile skink is the star of the tank and I could not put a chameleon or some type of other aggressive species in there. I know for a fact that my skin is a tropical lizard so I can only cohabitate with other tropical species that have the same habitat requirements. I also know that frogs secrete their own liquids, so it's very important to keep clean water at all times, ideally changing it every morning and night. I always use warm water just because reptiles are cooler-blooded. I personally don't have any heat on my tank, just my UVB strip so everybody gets plenty of vitamins. Also you want to keep in mind that you want all docile non-aggressive species if they are going to be cohabitating. Mine have never fought nor tried to eat each other, you also have to remember with frogs and lizards and geckos if you put a little baby with a large adult the baby is likely to get eaten. If you do your research, it's actually pretty cool! Originally, I also had a American Green tree frog, but it kind of escaped.. so I learned to always keep a piece of glass on the front and back of the tank on top, even with the screen top above that so that it keeps the humidity and everybody safely inside the terrarium, but still ventilation so bacteria and fungi isn't as prone to overgrow. You also want to keep everything very clean, using either bleach or a hydrogen peroxide cleaner and always rinsing any chemicals off with water to ensure that the frog doesn't absorb any chemicals. Also, a side note for the frogs, they are very sensitive to any oils you excrete and they are very highly sensitive to any nylon product, so if you use gloves they must be latex or you could risk killing your tree frogs. Always keep plenty of food so nobody ever has any need to fight each other, but always make sure no matter which species you choose that they are all docile & non-aggressive.

 

[acpart]

I'm not going to weigh in on whether the combination the person was suggesting (way back in 2015) is appropriate or not, but I did want to post links to a pair of Gecko Time articles we ran in 2013. The idea was to present a controversial idea in an article and then to get responses and publish them the next month. The first one of these we ran was "multi-species enclosures". Here are the articles in case you're interested:

https://geckotime.com/prose-and-controversies-multi-species-enclosures/

https://geckotime.com/multi-species-enclosures-comments/

Aliza