Why all these monster stories about paddle tails?

[mike]

i've had my paddle tails for over a month now and nothing has happend out of the ordinary? i keep hearing people say don't put 2 in 1 tank and don't put them with dwarf frogs and yada yada. my paddle tails have done nothing to my dwarf frogs. at first my paddle tails would take some nips at each other then everything settled down i made them there own hiding spots and now they have there own terrortories. so what's up with all these stories?

 

[erik]

Once they settle in (2-3 months?) I have had very few problems keeping Pachytriton in groups. That has been my experience-currently with 7 tanks of Pachytritons (4 types) and over the last 10 years. Others have had different results. A month isn't a very long time however and you might run into a few problems on occasion as specimens reach maturity,or as the breeding season approaches, etc... Just keep an eye on them.

I definitely would not recommend keeping them with "dwarf frogs" as they have different temperature requirements and you really are puting the frogs at risk of being eaten. I think there is even a picture somewhere on this site of a Pachytriton eating a frog.

 

[jennifer]

Gender may be part of it - are your paddletails male, female, or a pair? Having plenty of hiding spots and a large enough tank is probably helping them to behave well. I agree with Erik that a month is too short a time to judge. I had two male warty newts that lived together for 5 years before one started to bully (and ultimately injure) the other. They had to be separated at that point.

Here is the page with the photo Erik was referring to:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Mixing_disasters.shtml

 

[diztorcion]

i read they are agressive because there ins't too much food where they live in the wild , so if you feed them well enough i think there is a good chance they won't harm the tank mates

 

[flyangler18]

I realize this is an OLD thread, but a few comments:

I have seen Pachytriton housed in groups in a zoo setting while spending some time with Ed Kowalski. He reported that they had been housed that way for several years, and he never reported any aggression. The territorial aggression is an adaptation to compete for food, and by feeding well and often, you can potentially diminish aggression between the individual animals. However, you are certainly rolling the dice if you don't know what to look for.