Posted by Mika on June 19, 2000 at 05:35:30:
A Rule of Thumb: "Mixing species is NOT a good idea". Why?
- Diseases spread from species to species, even if they are captive bred but from different sources this can easily occur. What diseases one species and easily
tolerate, other may have no tolerance to.
- Skin secretions of one species of frog may cause harm to another species, even if the secretions cause humans no harm.
- Different species may vary in size so much that one sooner or later becomes lunch to the other. This can also happen within the same species if size differences are
great.
- Different species are different in behavior, i.e. some are more efficient and agressive feeders than others. Some are more active than others. All this can cause one
species to stress out or not get enough food and simply die.
- A terrarium, even a large one, is much smaller environment than mother nature is. So even if 2 species live in same area in nature, they still maintain their own
ecological niche and rarely interact - at least not in a positive manner (one may be the food of the other for example - I would not call this a positive interaction from
a terrariumist's point of view!).
- Imitating nature's great variety is not desireable in a terrarium. After all, we do not want the tank to be full of insects, pests predators etc. either!
Those are the main points I can immediately think. I know many people have aquariums which have a variety of fishes in them - and sometimes this works out ok for
a long time. But even in these tanks there can be big problems - one friend did an "Amazonas-tank" with fishes from the Amazon region - tetras and cichlids. Weell,
the tetras were just food for the cichlids, and eventually one pair of the cichlids established themselves as masters of this tank and all others were treated with
extreme hostility - up to the point where they died.
Some people insist that a group tank they have had is working fine - has been for the past six months! I only ask, what is SIX MONTHS? A relatively short time
period if you ask me. Come and tell me of your group tank success when you've had one for 6 years without a loss! Then we can speak of a real success...
I wish this question of keeping species together would not constantly pop up, and that those who read answers would REALLY believe that keeping different
species together is most likely not a good idea, so why risk your animals life IF you really care about them? If you have children, would you keep them in the same
room with free living cobras, thinking "weell, Iäm taking a known risk here, but MAYBE this will work and its cool to keep kids with cobras..."? I think not (I
certainly HOPE NOT!!!!). So if we are to presume you love your animals and are really interested in their well-being, WHY - WHY take the risk when you know
there is a risk involved?!
Nothing personal, but I believe even in this forum several of us have answered this original question of keeping different species together and its possible
consequences many times during just last 2 weeks. So if anyone REALLY doesn't wanna know the truth, do not ask - go ahead and keep the frogs together with
alligators or killer bees for all I care - but do NOT come and ask if it is ok, please - it isn't, we tell you so, chances is you'll see that soon - but I don't wanna know
about this.
Sorry for the moral lecture there but this is an eternity issue it seems. This same answer should be posted here twice a week as preventive measure or eternal answer
also.
All the best, Mika