Multi amphibian tank

Hello all,

I have aquired a 100 gallon tank for free. i would like to make 4 dividers that have holes/slots for water to pass through but not newts. Therefore having 5-20Gallon tanks. In an ideal world, if the caudata were quarantined before hand, dewormed and healthy, which if any can be in the same water filtered by the same filter? Or are their toxins too much for other species? Could you have different firebelly subspecies, (gold dust and regular firebelly), or axololts and Ribbed newts? As long as their environmental needs are the same.

Looking for information, not reprimand, i am not interested in interbreeding, and want all my critters to be healthy, so if there is any danger it will be a single species tank.
Thx

Well in theory you could be able to but I would just build one awesome huge paludarium! That would be cool. I dunno, I am not that experienced so mabye some of the mods and other more experinced members could pitch in.

First, the dividers would need to be very carefully engineered. Not only do the vertical dividers need to stay in place well, but you also need to think very carefully about how to stop animals from climbing over the top of the divider and into the next compartment. The divider needs to have a secure seal against the lid somehow, and this is not easy to do.

If you are considering some of the larger species such as axololts or ribbed newts, you should consider fewer dividers and larger areas.

Most people aren't very careful about not-spreading water from tank to tank, so I don't think you'll have a serious disease worry (although it would be bad if a disease did happen, as it would spread very fast). Regarding the toxin question, that's hard to answer. Some species might produce enough to bother another species. I don't know. It would be a shame to build a complicated divider system and then find out that toxins are a problem.

I would suggest the other possibility of having a really awesome colony of one species, such as axolotls or ribbed newts, or using the big tank to work with a large species, such as amphiuma or sirens.

One solution to creating a seal on the top of the tank is to use a windshield wiper blade, take the rubber part off and secure it to the top of the divider with the part that would touch the windshield facing the lid of the terrarium, this creates a good seal if you do it right. :happy:

also listen to all the advice from the other members of caudata.org, this site is great!

Another solution could be to provide each compartment with its own filtration system. I know that would increase the cost of the project but that way you wouldn't have to share the water, so toxins and disease wouldn't be a problem.

I think logistically, having the same water run through 5 setups with potentially different temperature and water level requirements (depending what's in them) would be very cumbersome. I can see this work only if you have basically the same critters with the same requirements in each compartment, and then you might as well have just one tank. I would either completely separate all 5 compartments with dividers all the way to the top and construct a separate lid for each one, or turn the whole thing into one giant epic paludarium with a large breeding colony of something cool and cute.

Heck, if I could fit a 100 ga tank into my place, I'd turn it into a jacuzzi....

If each individual section is big enough, you wouldn´t require any filtration at all, and so comunication between sections would be redundant. You could then separate them completely, avoiding risks.
While i doubt that toxins would be problem, it doesn´t mean contact with other species is completely harmless. Depending on which species you chose, the chemical signals of one could well cause stress to another.
I´d either go with the huge monospecific tank (niiiiiiiiice....) or with fully divided sections.

Dividers are not a problem as i work with Acrylic/plexiglass. I would definitely only keep species with the same temperature and water requirements (fully aquatic or mostly aquatic {could put some land in some sections}). Maybe paddletails, gold dust and cfb's. Hopefully toxins are similar. Or maybe just 3 or four pairs of axolotls. I just don't want to buy a whole bunch of filters and i prefer filtered water. Maybe just fill it with axolotls, if i can find some or get mine to lay eggs. A divided tank with axolotls, A. andersoni and Necturus would be a site to behold.

Jennewt, would love it if i could find a siren in Canada. finding axolotls is hard enough.

Like Molch's idea of a jacuzzi:happy:

Salamanders don't do so well in mixed species tanks, but dart frogs certainly do! You could make quite the colorful display, if you're inclined.

I don't think you would have enough space to divide the tank for Necturus and anything else. You could put a couple of Necturus in it though.

mizzerman said:

Dividers are not a problem as i work with Acrylic/plexiglass.

Click to expand...

is the tank itself glass or acrylic? I'm asking because plexiglass or acrylic does not glue well to glass with silicon; it'll come loose or leak. I've tried.....

Tank is glass, but if you silicone glass strips on the sides or 2 heavy beads of silicone you can slide the dividers up and out for cleaning or to have more or less compartments, have done it in a smaller tank and worked well. Have also made a whole internal structure of acrylic all fused/welded together that needed no support and could be removed from tank. Thinkin maybe huge awesome axolotl tank now, was watchin some vids on the tanks at Royal Tyrell museum in Drumheller, neat seeing a few different colors all living in harmony.

Jacuzzi still an option too.

I would do one big tank with one species in it personally. I find tanks with dividers to be unappealing and distracting, maybe that's a personal preference. you could keep a pretty impressive group of whatever inside and fit some pretty big plants, pieces of wood in there if you left it undivided. Just my opinion.