My First Reptile Show

[fmueller]

I went to the Cleveland Reptile Show yesterday. It was my first reptile show. I had some red-eared sliders as a kid, but have no other experience keeping reptiles. I find them fascinating though. I am usually more into fish - cichlids to be precise.

Anyhow, since not even my wife wanted to look at the photos - she HATES snakes - you folks will have to suffer. Here we go.

 

[Enigmatic_Reptiles]

Nice pics. Thanks for sharing

 

[animeavatar]

Suffer? More like drool for me. Okay maybe I am suffering. I hate waiting for expos.

 

[fmueller]

Glad you folks are enjoying the photos. Let me ask a question as well. To give some background, I've been keeping cichlids for over 30 years. My favorites are the smaller species from Lake Tanganyika, and I have an 8', 240G tank in the living room. What I like about them is that you can have a little piece of nature in your own home. If set up cleverly, you can stock a tank with colonies of several species and watch intra-species as well as inter-species interactions. In addition, life plants allow a tank to mature and it will look better and better over time.

Now my question is, can a similar thing be done with reptiles, meaning is it possible to house groups of several species together in one large vivarium? I am picturing a large setup built into the corner of a room with water part, maybe even a waterfall, and lots of plants like ficus trees and such. From what I see, most reptiles seem to be loners, and people keep one specimen per setup. That kind of thing would not interest me so much. Is there a particular group of reptiles that live in groups and are comparatively peaceful towards other species that I could do some further research into?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[acpart]

In my opinion, your best bet is to get a nice display enclosure (check out cagesbydesign.com, for example) and put in multiple specimens of one gecko species (multiple females to be more precise, unless you want to be getting a whole lot more cages for babies). There are people who do multi-species enclosures but it's tricky. You need a whole lot of space, to be very careful in choosing the species in terms of habitat needs and competition for food. I'm not a fish expert but I have kept them and I feel that the range of needs of the fish (temperature, Ph, water flow) is smaller than the range of needs of reptiles. It's definitely not a project for beginners. I also enjoy having multiple small slices of different environments in my living space so I can really relate.

Aliza

 

[fmueller]

I agree that fish are a lot easier to keep than reptiles - which is one of the reasons I keep fish

What species are the green reptiles on the piece of wood in the picture below?

 

[ento890]

Great pictures!

The green lizards your asking about look like green basilisks.