What could live in a 20 gallon long that is semi aquatic ?

I want to make a community tank out of my 20 gallon long aquarium make it have a land section but also be a living eco system any ideas on what i could have?


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This is quite the undertaking... Just want to let you know this will be extremely intensive, in both time spent to build it and maintanence. I would probably go with a larger aquarium. Do you want it to house species that will be restricted to land or water, or something that can use both? You could do something like a firebelly newt with a few small fish.

Frogs.

Ya i basically want a vivarium with a water section an some fish and another animal that can live on land and in water


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What kind of frogs


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Originally Posted by dillymann

What kind of frogs


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You can have several dart frogs in there (they're super colorful!) or a couple pacmans (very cool looking too).

Are they semi aquatic?


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I don't know about dart frogs, but everyone I have talked to said Pacmans are terrible swimmers. I built a viv that is 60% water and 40% land out of a gallon and it is still sitting empty because I haven't heard of anything I could really put in there other than a fire belly toad or a newt. I wanted dart frog, but keep getting conflicting stories about their ability to swim.

Everything I've read on PDF says they're fine in a paludarium. They're not really semi aquatic, but they do sometime sit in shallow puddles of water. The biggest threat is that they'll fall into the water and drown. But if you have properly sloped sides and plenty of footholds, and the water's not too deep, they should be able to get back onto land safely. But PDF are pretty sure footed, and I haven't come across any instances in which they've fallen into the water.

If you're looking for an animal that uses both water and land portions, you're very limited in your options. Best bet would be a few fish plus a terrestrial animal on the land side.

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Originally Posted by jclaiborne

I don't know about dart frogs, but everyone I have talked to said Pacmans are terrible swimmers. I built a viv that is 60% water and 40% land out of a gallon and it is still sitting empty because I haven't heard of anything I could really put in there other than a fire belly toad or a newt. I wanted dart frog, but keep getting conflicting stories about their ability to swim.

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PACMANS AND DART FROGS CAN DROWN IN STANDING WATER. Although pacmans love to soak in shallow water- water does not go past their mouths. They have really high humidity requirements so they do well in rainforest set-ups - waterfall effect over river rocks. I've seen super awesome eye catching setups.

If you want standing water, there are really stunning Southeast Asian semi-aquatic frogs. Dunno how easy they are to find in the US but they're super common in the Philippines.

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Originally Posted by MootWorm

Everything I've read on PDF says they're fine in a paludarium. They're not really semi aquatic, but they do sometime sit in shallow puddles of water. The biggest threat is that they'll fall into the water and drown. But if you have properly sloped sides and plenty of footholds, and the water's not too deep, they should be able to get back onto land safely. But PDF are pretty sure footed, and I haven't come across any instances in which they've fallen into the water.

If you're looking for an animal that uses both water and land portions, you're very limited in your options. Best bet would be a few fish plus a terrestrial animal on the land side.

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That could work what are my options for that


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Fire belly toads & newts are a good choice for a 20 gallon.

There are semi-aquatic lizards that do well in a terrerium with land and water such as caiman lizards, basiliks, and sailfin dragons, but they need larger enclosures and more for advanced keepers.

I would suggest a turtle, but they would outgrow a 20 gallon.

There are thousands upon thousands of options, design schemes, and materials you can use. I'd check out the dendroboard forum, they have a ton of DIY and step by step builds for paludariums. It'd take hours to write up all the steps here. But basically you'll need to build the terrarium, incorporate a filter and possibly a heater if required, plant/scape it, culture feeders and/or cleaning crews, test and retest everything to make sure it's leakproof and functioning properly. Plus you'll have to cycle your water to make it suitable for fish.

If it were me, I'd go darts. It's been years since I've kept them, bur they're wonderful. For fish, you'll definitely want smaller species as you have a limited amount of space. My all time favorites are endlers. I'd get a small colony of males, they're bright, playful and very hard to kill lol. And if you want to breed them, they're livebearers and pop out babies prolifically. I've got an endler tank going right now, I can't recommend them enough.

Here's a pic of male and female endler. The girl is the ugly one lol. Sorry for the crap pics, they're ridiculously fast.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/10/01/gyzevydy.jpg
Don't mind the dying plants :)

Here's a lyretail, I believe it's a hybrid
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/10/01/yhu4aqys.jpg

The males only get about 1" long. Perfect for smaller tanks

I know it's been said before but fire belly toads would my first option they use land and water are great eaters and are super cool looking mine were amazing just wash your hands after holding them there really toxic my eyes would burn like hell if i did not wash up after handling them. I guess fire belly newts would work but when i had them they were fully aquatic except for perhaps once i saw them out of the water. Among others leopard frogs and bull frogs might work a 20 gal is way to small for a bull frog works for leopards though at least for mine it did. I don't think pacman frogs would work well now i have never kept them but they seem to loaf in the dirt all day the ones i said all are at least kinda active if only sitting in plain sight. Hope i helped and again fire belly toads are your best bet.

Would newts and toads be ok together ?


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Never had a newt, but I think it's unwise to mix amphibians. Some (most?) of them have toxins that can kill each other. Also, you've got to consider the size of your tank. 10 gallons, especially when most of it will be taken up by your land feature, hiding your equipment, etc, is not a whole lot of space. You'll probably end up with 5 gallons of water, tops.

I personally think the only time you can mix species is if they occur naturally together or have overlapped territories in the wild. Other than that, I'm not a fan of cohabiting multiple species together either.

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What you could do is house a single male dwarf African bullfrog (Pyxicephalus edulis) in a setup like that. Pyxies are good swimmers and IMHO they're awesome animals.

Gentlemen and or ladies. I give you my 20g fire belly toad vivarium. I spent more time with growing a pothos, amazon sword, and tall tropic grass than it did to build the tank. I also made the water feature. About 2 months of work went into it before i even considered putting frogs in it.

Currently in the process of setting up a 55g vivarium for frog breeding...


Theres 5 fire bellys in there


http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/...ps973fa367.jpg

http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/...psdc2ab49e.jpg

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Originally Posted by dillymann

Would newts and toads be ok together ?


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NO!!!!!! It takes many years of experience and extensive research to mix any kind of species in a tank. Natural parasite, germ, feeding, behavior, and many other things can lead to disaster! Amongst all else you are mixing very sensitive moist and sometimes toxic skin types together. This is a universal no no all around.

Water snake.

i have kept firebellies, and fish together with tree frogs, in a 4ft aquarium, filled about 40%. I had a pump that turned itself on and off according to water level. It would pump water back in about every 5 minutes which i made run down a log and splash a little at one end causing a misting effect. I had to replace the aquarium lid with a narrow gauge wire mesh to prevent condensation.

I aquascaped and landscaped with plenty of plant for hiding places.I had a disguised feeding table at the back just above the water line to place live food items onto. Mostly worms. The firebellies ate them and those that fell into the water were eaten by the fish.

I would love to say this was a huge success and to an extent it was. The fire bellies and the fish flourished ...but...the tree frogs never really got going and in the end i removed them and just kept the fire bellies and the fish.