Hola everyone, I'm planning out a fairly large paludarium with a roughly 400 gallon pond area stocked with fish and the rest will be the terrarium part. I'm working out a food web to limit my intervention with the tank and let the fish act somewhat more naturally. I have a rough draft for the pond to provide a housing area that the fish can't get to for Daphnia and Mysis to for decent colonies and having Tubifex or some other worm in the substrate. Some MTS or other snails to control Algae and also assist in substrate aeration. I will have some Loaches to control the population of the snails but provide places for the snails to effectively hide so as to not eliminate the population completely. I'm going to have some RCS's to help with the clean up and algae control as well as the shrimp fry providing another source of food for the few Bettas (Trust me, I know what I'm doing here) and the Guppy population. I was wondering what other semi-flashy or cool looking fish I can keep in the pond area. For the Terrarium I will have a population of Springtail and some crickets if possible. I am not too sure about the food web for this part and want some help. I want to have a tree frog or two, a tropical gecko, and/or an anole or something along those lines and I would appreciate and input on potential food sources for them and the food sources for said food sources. This whole tank will be heavily planted so I am also looking for some ideas about the lighting. I want to set the lights up on timers to simulate daylight, sunrise and sunset, nighttime, and twilight for the tank so if I can get any suggestions on that, then it would be much appreciated. As with all of this, I would like any suggestions for any part of this, whether it be substrate suggestions, lighting, species, plants, plumbing, equipment, whatever.
Sounds really cool! I mean, you're not really limited as to the prey invertebrates you could put in there, are you? What about earthworms, isopods, beetles, and the like?
Well, I personally don't keep any frogs, but from what I've read on forums, people don't recommend feeding them beetles, or even beetle larvae, for that matter, because of the risk of impaction due to their tough exoskeletons. I did read that people suggest using beetles in gecko tanks as detritivores. Apparently their geckos don't bother with the beetles, but they will eat their larvae. Forums say that mealworms/waxworms are fine for geckos while they are not recommended for anoles, unless it's a treat. Seems for these little frogs/lizards, crickets, springtails, and fruit flies are the items of choice. I have a fire skink, so...he pretty much slaughters whatever he wants and drags it down to his burrow of death. >__>
As for the lighting, what is the intended height of the tank? That tends to be a determining factor. I only know about lighting for the standard-sized tanks, but if this thing is going to be a few feet high, I'm assuming you need some next level stuff, lol.
With a tank that size why not go with a herp that will utilize the water area. I would go crocodile skink or water skink if going with a lizard. If you go the frog route mossy frogs are pretty damn cool. I can also appreciate a tank where there is little interaction between the land/water inhabitants so whatever you like really if you go that route.
Also you could consider vampire crabs if you're not married to the idea of herps.
As far as flashy fish that can be kept with guppies and bettas. Killifish!
I decided that if I get a herp then it will be a Crocodile Skink, for the very reasons you brought up. Is there no way to have both the the Skink and a tree frog or two? or the Skink and Vampire Crabs? What would be the biggest problem with this? I'm purely asking to see the conflicts that could result because Vamp Crabs are another species I've been heavily considering.
The killifish looks pretty awesome, I'll look into them.
Generally mixing species in the herp world is frowned upon as it can introduce different pathogens to the inhabitants that they cannot handle and also cause stress in the animals. As a general rule of thumb if you are going to mix species it is best to have them occupy different areas of the tank (tree frogs would be up high croc skinks ground level) it is also not a bad idea to have the mixed species from the same general location as to not introduce any foreign pathogens.
As for the crabs with crocodile skinks I personally would not do that. I saw a video recently with both in the same set up but not sure how long they were in there together (There was also a turtle which I would have to think would eat any and all crabs in a short amount of time). I wouldn't risk the crabs becoming a very expensive snack.
Ahh yes, I'm aware of "General rules of thumb" but this is why I'm doing my research on it and will be going about this in a very deliberate and careful manner. Croc Skinks are typically solely insectivores so I wouldn't imagine they would be too much of a problem for the crabs and since I will have plenty of places set aside in the setup of the tank for the different species of different sizes to safely hide. the tree frog will have it's areas and the skink will have his with enough room for safe overlapping since this is going to be a decent sized paludarium. I'm going to slowly introduce every species and keep very close eyes on each. the way I have planned for the introduction is a slow and easy way and each will have their quarantine tank. This build is still about 6 years off at minimum and it will be running for at least a year before I add the Skink or Frog so still plenty of time to do more research. I'm still set on the Frog, Croc Skink, Vamp Crab combo but we'll see where it all leads before I even began to set it up.
Not sure what the crocodile skink would do, but my fire skink almost certainly ate a tree frog. I didn't intend to get one, but someone found it wandering around a store and asked if I might want it. I thought it would be okay since it could climb and hide in the log while my skink is typically underground. I named the frog Kagutaba and was quite fond of him. After a couple months, at most, there was no sign of the tree frog. Poor thing. I have a betta in the water section of the tank. My boyfriend said he has seen my skink swimming around in there...hopefully not looking to devour my betta. x__x That Sarth is one voracious guy.
Well from the looks Crocadile Skinks get about 5 or so inches shorter so if I get a young Croc Skink and a larger tree frog I would think they'd be alright...hopefully
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