Plants???

R

rebecaa

Guest
What kinds of plants can I have in a 30g salamander and frog tank?? They would be planted right into the potting soil I have in there. I just don't want to buy one and find out the hard way that it's toxic for them and kills them. Thank you for your time.
 
It's a very bad idea to mix frogs and salamanders. Generally you're needing plants which are tolerant of lots of moisture and low light levels. I don't know many names of plants that you could buy at nurseries or whatever. I use native plants. I go out to creeks and suitable environments and transplant a few plants which are already in such conditions. If you live in BC, you could easily find some too. In my experiences, these usually do far better than any plant I could buy.
 
But won't wild ones possably have parasites, or mites or something dangerous to them?? What about plants being toxic??
 
Sure, there's the possibility, but really no more than with commercially grown plants, which can have pests AND pesticide residues. I've been using native plants for some 15 years now, and never had a problem with introduced mites or anything like that. I HAVE, however, inadvertantly introduced aphids, snails, leeches, predatory beetles, and hydras to my tanks with pet store bought and nursery bought plants. As for toxic plants, don't worry about it. The only possible plants I can think of that might be a problem would be something along the lines of poison oak or poison ivy, but these don't grow in the correct habitat anyway.
 
The place where I buy plants does not use pesticides (mom and pop place). I think getting wild is a awesome idea, I just feel better knowing the plant I put in their tank is for sure clean. It's a lot of money to get anything other then fire bellied newts because of where I live, I have to ship them here.
 
Ivy and pothos are both great terrarium plants. Don't need much light and spread readily.
 
Thanks!! I got a plant that is just called poka dots!! They lady said it's safe for all newts, lizards and salamanders. She has it in her tank!! Thank you for the ideas!! One question is do the pothos have any color?? I want to add more color and that to my tank!!
 
Nate, I have had wild tree frogs in my newt tank for a year now and have had no problems.
 
Yeah, this is a an age-old subject of debate. Surely it's possible to keep both newts and frogs alive in the same tank...but I feel this is most often done by compromising the ideal conditions each would prefer with marginal conditions which allow for the survival of both. Amphibians can be stubborn survivors, so I don't necessarily consider simply keeping them alive as a yardstick for overall success of captivity. As a general rule, newts are cool temp creatures while frogs are warm temp creatures and so housing them together in a fairly small glass box is fundamental conflict of interests. Sure, I realize there are exceptions and some mixes are feasible, but most people are doing mixes like green-eyed treefrogs and paddletail newts in a 10g. For these reasons (and many, many others that I won't bore everyone with because we've hashed them through a million times), I think it's a bad idea to house them together.

If you get breeding out of both animals in the same setup, then that will go a long way to changing my opinion ;)
 
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