Hey guys, my fiancé and i are running out of space and we are thinking about moving our red foot tortoise and our two crested geckos into the same cage. Its a 35 gallon tank that has decent length and height. The tortoise is still very small, smaller than a tennis ball. The geckos are about 4 to 5 inches long. I figured i could have separate feeding stations, one at ground level with tortoise diet and one with crested gecko diet up at canopy level. We will be using live plants for the crested geckos habitat and patches of grass on the cage floor for the tortoise. With one basking spot and a UV strip running the length of the cage. I think it could work. What do you guys think?
It is generally not recommended to mix species for a variety of reasons - I'll name just a few and provide a couple of simple solutions that can help to shave off some cost and space for ya too. Firstly, although these species are both fairly passive and neither would be an immdiate threat to one another, the stress that can ensue from the presence of one another in the same enclosure do real harm. Size differences can result in intimidation and you may find that the geckos may never desire to come down to the lower levels of the enclosure. Despite being mostly arboreal, I do find that crested geckos will spend a fairly reasonable amount of time on the ground. Second - Husbandry differences. Crested geckos like things cooler and more tropical with higher moisture while the tortoise will require a fairly high basking temperature and UVB producing light. Because the geckos are nocturnal, the excessive UVB can actually be harmful to them, and high temperatures kill and stress rhacodactylus species dramatically. These geckos can tolerate lows into the 50's with no probelms, but when you exceed the mid to high 80's for longer periods of time they will perish. In addition, with one species being diurnal and the other nocturnal, they can disturb one another's regular sleeping cycles with activity. Third, these animals come from different niches and locations which results in different kinds of microfauna and normal flora on and within them. This is generally overlooked because microscopic organisms cannot be seen, but it is possibly the most important factor to consider. The bacteria and protozoans that are normally occuring and harmless in the skin and digestive tracts of the geckos may be pathogenic and lethal to the tortoise and vice-versa. No amount of perfect husbandry and setup can avoid complications by this. If one were to come into direct contact with the other or the feces of the other, the result could be detrimental. There are a variety of diseases that can ensue from normal flora interactions. Toxoplasmosis in cats can cause serious problems to pregnant woman, salmonella, E. coli.... Bearded dragons and some species naturally contain small, manageable amounts of coccidea protozoan in their GI as normal flora which can infect a variety of reptiles and cause disease. This all being said, it is best to avoid keeping them together. There are some factors we can control, but there are certain unknowns that cannot be accounted for that can cause serious problems. Some solutions: You could consider looking into building or buying enclosures that stack. You could build a large, mostly plywood enclosure that opens from the front with acrylic or glass that has a wood top that the crested gecko caging may rest on top of. You could also look into large plastic or PVC style plastic caging like this: *Above photo coutesy of GiantKeeperReptiles at http://brongersmai.com Possibiliies are endless if you are creative or handy (or have friends who are). I'd assume floorspace is more of an issue that height, that making enclosures that go vertically will be much more fitting for your situation. In addition, you could take an old entertainment center or something and construct something out of it to rest a tortoise enclosure on bottom or on top and utilize shelving to hold the geckos. I did something like this with my bearded dragon and gecko enclosures here: Excuse the sideways shot and gecko cages, they were in the process of being cleaned and re-planted ; )
Ok thank you. I will try and make some multi-cage shelving. I didnt know the medical conditions that could arise from putting them together. There cages are close enough to eachother where i have caught them actually smelling eachothers cages. I thought they would be friendly towards eachother and it be more cost effective.
