Quote Originally Posted by musicalKeyes View Post
If I ever had a problem with stress or disease, I wouldn't continue to do it. However, when it's done right, they can coexist wonderfully. I make sure that all the species require very similar requirements before I put them together, and i make sure those needs are met. I wouldn't recommend that anyone do it, but I've had some sort of multi-species setup since my first viquarium (sp? the half water, half land tanks) at age 7, and feel confident in my ability to do it right I also wouldn't put too differently sized animals together, everything's young at the moment, so no one is too much bigger than anyone else, wouldn't want anyone to get eaten! :o
Stress isn't that noticable, sometimes I can't really tell how stressed some of my reptiles are. But those who are very experienced can see it in a split second. But the thing is, you may have species that live in completely different parts of the country (or world, I don't really know any background information on these species) that aren't used to seeing the species that are in the enclosure with them (stress factor). There is also something called cross-disease (I don't exactly remember the word, but I think I'm pretty close to it) and a disease from one species can be passed to entirely different species and that one species can die. Also, with the Ball pythons, there is such thing as cannibalism and it has happened before with this species. I'm just trying to warn you of the stuff that can happen, so don't take this as offensive (which most people on this site do anyway).