Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had an idea that I would like to try,but thought I'd run it by Kingnsnake.com to see what others thought.I would be keeping a pair of Green Anoles and Rough Green Snakes for sure.I would also like to add frogs as well,but I don't really want to breed them.To solve this,I will just get 1 Green Tree Frog and 1 Gray Tree frog.They will be housed in a 20 gallon long tank with lots of pothos and other plants for cover and looks.I would like to eventually have a little waterfall,but will just have a Large water bowl that is easily removed for easy cleaning to start out.I'll make a background out of foam insulation covered in silicone caulking and then coated with coco fibre.I will be using coco fibre as substrate as well.I will also have a UVB bulb and basking lamp for the Anoles,and a place where the substrate goes down where their will be a UTH.There will be a hide above this spot.Does this sound good so far?

Another thing I would really like to try but would like your opinions on is something that my friend did to his leopard gecko tank.I didn't agree with using it for Leos,but thought it could be a cool idea for a more tropical species.He used a leaf litter substrate,and put some meal worms and crickets in quite a while before the gecko(a couple months).He was letting the meal worms and crickets breed and reproduce in their.The mealworms would eat the crickets poop and dead bodies,therefore taking away the smell.It seams like it could be a really cool thing if you made sure to take out crickets if/when it starts getting over populated.What do you guys think?The problems I see with this is that the cricket may get hungry and munch on the herps.To solve this,I figured you could either buy or make one of those rock looking things with the little holes in them that the crickets can go in and get food and water.This way they are not eating your animals.I also see that the mealworms would probably not be very nutritional if all they were eating was cricket poop and cadavers.To solve this I figured I could just put carrots down in the substrate so the mealworms could be eating them as well.Do you think this could solve these problems?I think it would be cool because you would have a little eco system going in your tank.

I really appreciate any feedback.This is just the brainstorming session,so please,no hating!I'm not necessarily gonna do any of this.I just thought up some ideas that I though would be cool.I don't wanna jeapradize(spelling?)the health of my animals(which I haven't purchased yet).Thanks for reading through this.I'm really looking for people with experience with doing multispecies vivs with these guys,but anyone elses 99 cents on this is just as treasured!

I am going to try not to hate, but the bottom line is that neither of these ideas will work well.

First of all a 20 gal is WAY to small for a mixed species vivarium of just about any kind. If you wanted to attempt this I would say a bare minimum would be a 75 gal. Secondly, while the green snakes are mostly insectivorous, they definitely can and will occasionally eat amphibians and small lizards. If the anoles and frogs were big and the green snakes on the smaller side you may be able to pull it off, but it would always be risky.

While mixed species vivs sound cool, and can be incredibly interesting if done right, they are also the single most challenging way to keep herps for dozens of logistical reasons. If you do not have extensive experience with each of the species listed, you should not try this.

As far as the insect cultures... sounds like it would be a gross mess to me. It would be very hard to get the breeding rate and the eating rate to be equal, so either the predation would be too strong and the insect would die out, or the insects would overgrow and stress out an obese predator. It also just seems unhygenic. The only time I have seen this work is with springtails in dart frog vivariums.

The two types of treefrogs you mention will do fine together but no way would I keep a snake with them or snake with anoles both will live in fear and the anoles will just hide at best be stressed all the time.

Tree frogs need it more humid than anoles because even in places where anoles are found they bask and dry off completely for hours while treefrogs hide during dry day and out during humid nights.

House geckos the common small type and anoles work well or treefrogs of similiar size (NEVER Cuban tree they eat same size frogs) but no way would add any snake.

I don't know difference between green snakes as think 2 types but have seen here green snakes in yard grab anoles.