Vivarium Question - are rocks dangerous?

My little spotted salamander is loving her new vivarium. It has plants moss, awesome hides, and a nice little dish of water.

It also has three rocks. They are kinda big, one is as long as she is and twice as thick, and like 3 inches wide. The other two are smaller.

I set the two smaller ones of each other so the wieght is resting not on dirt but on the bottom of the tank and each other. I did that so that she could not dig beneath them to make them fall on her.

The largest rock is mostly resting on the two rocks but the smaller edge is coming out and resitng on a biiig pile of packed dirt.

I made a little cave underneath it next to the other rocks.

She LOVES the hide that has created. I can see her really well too because I have a sheet of dark foam over the whole area to make it super dark but I can still remove it to check on her.

But now she has a new project. She is digging between in the corner where the large rock meets the stacked rocks. It will not fall on her if she continues but there is a small chance that if she keeps digging all around the large rock could shift.

I am assuming they have a sense for these things or they would be crushed all the time in the wild, has anyone had problems with this?

Thanks! :happy:

JKoz said:

I am assuming they have a sense for these things or they would be crushed all the time in the wild, has anyone had problems with this?
Thanks! :happy:

Click to expand...

I doubt they have any sense about it - in the wild mostly spotted sals will be in the soil under roots and not so much rocks. And if there's rocks, they are most likely pretty stable and unlikely to topple down on them. And, after all, accidents do happen to animals in the wild.

Just use your own best judgment: if you think there's any chance her rock shelter could fall on her, maybe it would be better not to have the rocks. You could use some nice cork bark instead....

...another option would be to use aquarium silicone to glue the rock roof to the rock supports so that the whole thing can't come apart.