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  1. #1
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    A tortoise, blue tongue skink, and a bearded dragon.

    I recently started researching animals that can coexist in one cage. So far(from what I have seen) my best option is the three above. The skink can’t be changed out but the other 2 I’m not certain about yet. I’m doing this as part of my capstone(a project needed to graduate high school) so don’t suggest I keep them separate. I know that would be ideal for all of them, but the point of it is to see if I can do it. The tank would be at least 125 gallons, and I know I need to select a sub species of blue tongue skink that lives in a hotter climate or just different animals to go with it. I have 2 years to do this project so this is just some of my initial research, and I don’t plan on doing any of this for at least another year.
    Last edited by skylord0110; 10-18-2017 at 06:33 PM.

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    Tortoises need much larger enclosures than an aquarium can provide unless you're building it yourself.

    A 125 gallon tank is, in my opinion a poor use of dimensions for a bearded dragons I'd like to see 24 inches wide minimum, same for the skink but the skink would be less effected given it's more slender nature.

    The diets are entirely incompatible as well. You can't have a bearded dragon or tortoise eating the things that a skink eats, they would get pretty sick over time.

    The biggest problem is this, if for whatever reason a skink gets ahold of either of those animals it's going to kill the crap out of them. One of the most basic theories of community fish keeping is that everything needs to be equally nice or if that fails, equally matched. In this case you are putting an Oscar Chiclid Fish in with an Angel Fish, not in terms of overall aggression but in terms of fight power.

    When skinks breed they can rip limbs off on accident. That's their love, imagine what's gonna happen if it gets mad at something.

    Tortoises randomly bite as well which can easily cause broken or missing limbs in a beardie or skink.

    Plus a 125 gallon is heavy as crap and difficult to work with and expensive as well. The cheapest I could find was 700 dollars.

    You can get a 72x24x18 cage with the necessary light modifications from APcages for around 500 bucks for a bearded dragon and 48Lx24Dx12H for the skink is around 200 bucks after modifications.

    My point is, the idea is a bad one. I know that some people have done similar things but quite frankly it's just not worth it and in my opinion those people are rare exceptions and the idea is stupid, at least with animals like the ones you're describing.

    To me it sounds like you already have a 125 gallon tank and don't want to feel like you are "wasting" the room you are giving the skink because blue tongues aren't often recommended to have that large of an enclosure. If that's the case, I say just make your skinks 125 a really cool enclosure that everyone will be impressed with. Just have the skink in it. There is nothing wrong with keeping a reptile in a larger enclosure than it's supposed to have.

  3. #3
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    Re: A tortoise, blue tongue skink, and a bearded dragon.

    I know this is all a bad idea. As of right now I know very little about keeping all of these animals. I kinda just threw the tortoise in there because I saw a page that recommended them with beardies and blue tongues. However I saw soon after how much space they needed, but I still wanted to throw it in the title to see feedback on it just in case it could work. I hadn't realized that blue tongues could be aggressive like that(at least the ones commonly kept as pets). I looked around a lot and saw nothing on this previously. I only constantly heard about how defenseless they were, so I figured they wouldn't attack something like a bearded dragon since they are relatively close in size. And no I don't possess any of these things. It's a project I just want to do for my capstone. The only reason I don't want to switch out the blue tongue is because I wanted one prior to coming up with this idea. Now that I've seen they can be more aggressive than I thought though I'm willing to take them out if I don't find any reptiles that can work with them. I know they all have different diets(especially the now removed tortoise), but I was planning on only leaving the food inside that they can all eat as well as dubia roaches and crickets for the skink and bearded dragon. I'm guessing turtles wouldn't go for those, and if they did I could just feed the lizards their protein out of the cage plus I'd be able to individually dust their protein sources with whatever vitamins they need. But that isn't a problem anymore. I'm now looking into different lizards equal in size to both the bearded dragon and blue tongue skink so depending on what I find I'll choose matches for the bearded or blue tongue. I'd appreciate any further feedback on what I just said because I'm sure at least some of it is wrong.

  4. #4
    BPnet Senior Member artgecko's Avatar
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    What is the actual topic for your project....i.e. what were the assignment guidelines, or do you just come up with whatever you want to do?

    Honestly, co-habbing most species is dicey at best. Zoos can get away with it because they have very large enclosures, but most owners can't provide that. The only people I've seen successfully cohabbing year-round are people that have outdoor enclosures that are very large and they keep a group of a certain species together. Many people in Australia keep blue tongues this way, but usually the group is balanced with 1 or 2 males and many more females in a large area (like 10'x10'). Even then, particular animals might not get along and have to be removed.

    If you can choose your subject for this project, I would go with something that is safer and / or more oftenly done in the hobby. Pick a species that is known for usually being ok with cohabbing... White's tree frogs or possibly pink tongue skinks come to mind. Some tortoises are co-habbed, but in larger quarters. I believe Uromastyx live together in groups in the wild, but not sure how people keep those.

    Basically, it boils down to doing what is best for the animals. The project idea, as you've stated it, seems doomed to fail from the start... At the very least, you could end up with hundreds of dollars of vet bills.... Are you willing to make that investment when things go south and then provide separate enclosures afterwards?

    Also of note is what will happen to the animals when you do go off to school. Most dorms do not allow animals and if you are currently living with family, they may not want to care for them, so that is a factor.

    I would re-work your project idea either around doing a breeding project, keeping a single species that naturally does well in groups, or doing a bioactive setup with a single species of reptile / amphibian and also a full clean up crew... insects, isopods, springtails, etc... live plants.

    Pleae note that I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just trying to give constructive criticism,
    Currently keeping:
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    The project can be about almost anything, and I want it to be this. The reptiles don't need to be the species I have listed, and they probably won't be because the more I research the more I find about it being just bad. The lizards don't need to stay together forever. That simply wouldn't be feasible for me. They need to stay together for approximately a year. I'm planning on having them sealed off from each other for a month or two, and having them acclimate to each other a little outside of the cage at first. I'd actually prefer to have smaller reptiles so I can get a smaller cage. They just can't be the same species because I feel that would hurt my project, and make it too simple. The cage will also be bioactive. I'll test it on my snake first to see what problems I run into with that, and then make a similar setup for the reptiles. Until another person responds I'll be looking into smaller species that get along well. Don't worry about being rude. I'm inviting criticism so I don't care. Like I said I really don't know what I'm talking about here so any responses are appreciated.

  7. #6
    BPnet Senior Member artgecko's Avatar
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    Re: A tortoise, blue tongue skink, and a bearded dragon.

    Quote Originally Posted by skylord0110 View Post
    The project can be about almost anything, and I want it to be this. The reptiles don't need to be the species I have listed, and they probably won't be because the more I research the more I find about it being just bad. The lizards don't need to stay together forever. That simply wouldn't be feasible for me. They need to stay together for approximately a year. I'm planning on having them sealed off from each other for a month or two, and having them acclimate to each other a little outside of the cage at first. I'd actually prefer to have smaller reptiles so I can get a smaller cage. They just can't be the same species because I feel that would hurt my project, and make it too simple. The cage will also be bioactive. I'll test it on my snake first to see what problems I run into with that, and then make a similar setup for the reptiles. Until another person responds I'll be looking into smaller species that get along well. Don't worry about being rude. I'm inviting criticism so I don't care. Like I said I really don't know what I'm talking about here so any responses are appreciated.
    In that case, the only two species I've read that have been suggested as possibilities for successfully cohabbing were a pink tongue skink and a crested gecko... This was mentioned in the book "Rhacodactylus.." by RepashyVosjoli.

    In the book, the authors suggested a single PTS and a single crested gecko in a large planted terrarium with a good chunk of vertical climbing space and lots of "furniture" and hiding spots. These species were suggested because one is diurnal and the other nocturnal. One is mostly terrestrial, the other arboreal, and they both eat small insects or fruit / veg as prey. The idea being, they won't come in contact with each other, won't be awake when the other is awake, and won't occupy the same space in the terrarium. I do not know if the authors actually did this or not.

    Honestly, I'm not sure the acclimation you mention will matter. With different species, they won't necessarily "communicate" the same way or understand each other's signals to back off, etc. They can view each other as competition, but not really socially interact. If they have similar needs, they will compete for water, for the best hides, the best heat source spot, etc. Unless you plan on providing a large enough enclosure to have multiple of each of these items, you may be in for trouble and violence (and high vet bills or death). In the case of the 2 species I've suggested above, you'd still want to provide like the biggest exo terra possible (36" x 36" x 18") and have food / water sources for both species separately.
    Currently keeping:
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    0.1 BRB 1.2 KSBs
    1.0 Carpet 0.5 BPs
    0.2 cresteds 1.2 gargs
    1.0 Leachie 0.0.1 BTS

  8. #7
    BPnet Veteran jclaiborne's Avatar
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    Personally, my opinion is mixing a skink with any other animal would be a bad idea. Their jaws are pretty strong, and while they aren't the fastest lizard they can cause some damage. I'm still not really sure I understand the point of this project. What are you trying to prove by cohabitating two different species? The problem is, in the wild the animals have the ability to get away, in a cage, no matter what the size, you are still limiting the animals ability to escape the other. Cohabitating multiple of the same species even causes problems in some (not all) cases.
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    That is actually a really appealing idea. It’s much more feasible than my idea, and much more interesting to people that know next to nothing about reptiles. The concept of housing reptiles together that are active at different times is much more likely to draw their interest than my idea. Thank you. I’ll look into this further myself.

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    Re: A tortoise, blue tongue skink, and a bearded dragon.

    Quote Originally Posted by skylord0110 View Post
    That is actually a really appealing idea. It’s much more feasible than my idea, and much more interesting to people that know next to nothing about reptiles. The concept of housing reptiles together that are active at different times is much more likely to draw their interest than my idea. Thank you. I’ll look into this further myself.

    Do yourself a favor and save some money. Do it in a 55 gallon with green anoles (diurnal) and house geckos (nocturnal). Keep 5 anoles and 5 house geckos. They both eat bugs and I've actually seen them cohabbed successfully before. You can switch out the house geckos for green tree frogs or something if you can't find house geckos.

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    Re: A tortoise, blue tongue skink, and a bearded dragon.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jhill001 View Post
    Do yourself a favor and save some money. Do it in a 55 gallon with green anoles (diurnal) and house geckos (nocturnal). Keep 5 anoles and 5 house geckos. They both eat bugs and I've actually seen them cohabbed successfully before. You can switch out the house geckos for green tree frogs or something if you can't find house geckos.
    This has a much higher chance of success with the limited space you're looking at, skylord0110. As a youngster, I helped my dad maintain a communal 55gallon. He was a 5th grade teacher and this was a setup he would do every year in his class and break it down to release the animals when summer came along. The general setup was a piece of glass that was siliconed on one side to create a water area roughly 12x12x6 inches, the rest of the aquarium land. The land had a short layer of gravel for drainage and then topsoil on top with a couple small tropical plants added for cover/basking. He'd typically stock it with a few local tree frog species, green anoles(limit 1 male, several females is fine), a rough green snake and a few tadpoles in the water area. The key to keeping this setup successfully was everything either being insectivorous, sexually compatible, or not large enough to eat a tank mate.

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