# Microgeckos, keeping them with dart frogs, your experience



## Brick_frog (Nov 14, 2020)

Hi All,
I am interested in hearing about your experiences with microgeckos. I see them marketed as safe for cohabitation with dart frogs, but do they cause behavior changes or increased stress on darts, plants, microfauna?

Any that you have had good or bad experiences with? Any favorites? 
Anyone ever keep Hemiphyllodactylus typus?

Thank you in advance!


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Unfortunately, many of the people who might report 'bad' experiences were novices who had mixed enclosures, failed, and left the hobby. They won't report, so any survey like this will be biased.

Also, people are substantially less likely to admit to failures than to successes (and even when they do, the report will be candy coated). That's just human psychology.

Also, I'm not sure that this is really a survey sort of issue. How many smokers didn't die from lung cancer? The vast majority of them. Deciding whether or not to smoke, though, shouldn't be made based on that data

Anyway, here are some past threads on the issue (there are many, many more):









Dendroboard







www.dendroboard.com












mixing of species


I recently posted some questions on the board in the parts section and have become the target of the firing squad. Apparently the mixing of species isn't tolerated. But I have been mixing species of herps for a long time.(well about 8 years) i understand that it isn't recomended but i have had...




www.dendroboard.com












Mixing species?


I wasn’t sure where to put this so I’m writing in here. I am having trouble finding a good thread that goes over reasons to not mix species. I don’t mean different species of darts but I mean darts with day geckos or other non dart type of animals. I have some people saying they are going to...




www.dendroboard.com












Mixing Species, or Let's create a novel pathogen!


It's been awhile since I've written anything for dendroboard. Current events present an opportunity to back up a very real scenario. Is everybody sick of hearing me talk about the creation of a novel pathogen yet? Too bad. I'm going to do it again. If I wanted to create a novel pathogen, I...




www.dendroboard.com





And a really comprehensive description of the situation by a zookeeper:









mixing/multispecies exhibits.


I believe I will take Mr. Yeager up on his invite to continue this discussion. When referring to mixed enclosuresi the use of the word mixed is an inapt description as this indicates that the animals are together in a homogenized fashion. Because this is not what typically happens multispecies...




www.dendroboard.com





The best question to ask, a responsible keeper might think, is "will my frogs benefit from this".


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## sassmastawillis (Apr 16, 2020)

Id agree on keeping species separated.
Also, nice profile pic


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

My most unfavorite online "updates" are the spontaneous "recoveries" without real treatment, that i think is a carry off from our own human experiances of flues and gastric distresses, we "get over." It doesnt work that way rehabing frogs or other herps.

These are harmful shake offs to further questioning that waste time and thwart progress.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

I have a lot of experience with various micro geckso. As has been highlighted by socratic monologue the very strong concensus is that it is never in the best interests of the animals to be kept in enclosed spaces with members of another species - with obvious exceptions for domesticated animals like cats and dogs. The animal specimens will gain absolutely nothing from what is essentially an aesthetic choice for the keepers benefit and there are numerous risk factors associated with mixed species enclosures that can't be fully mitigated. In my opinion these risks are often somewhat overstated on Dendroboard but I encourage you to read the threads socratic monologue has linked to and still strongly advise against mixing species.

That said I recognise that many people will and do choose to do this anyway and I do know people who keep, and successfully breed, both dart frogs and micro geckos together in very large enclosures. The practice seems to be much more common and less frowned upon in Europe and particularly Germany where micro geckos are inexplicably popular. This does include keeping dart frogs with H. typus. which is generally rationalised by the fact that typus are almost toally nocturnal and therefore less likely to interfere with the dart frogs which tend to be active during the day. For this same reason though you will almost never see the H. typus (particularly in any enclosure large enough to comfortably house both species) making it almost pointless for aesthetic reasons. One other major problem is that H. typus are parthenogenetic like mourning geckos and if their husbandry needs are met you will find that you have a rapidly growing colony of geckos sharing a confined space with your darts and that it would be a significant challenge to remove the tiny offspring safely without unduly disturbing the environment of both species / tearing apart your entire tank.

A situation like this will also lead to much higher predation of the microfauna in your tank and geckos produce a lot of faeces which can quickly accumulate in insufficiently large 'bioactive' enclosures and this will be dramatically exacerbated by a lack of microfauna custodians that help in breaking down the waste. It should be obvious that for species with permeable skin, being in frequent contact with the faeces of another animal can only have negative consequences.

I also know several keepers who successfully mix dart frogs with Sphaerodactylus species which, like H. typus, have natural ranges in the wild that overlap with dart frogs and which tend to occupy a very similar ecological niche. My sphaerodactylus tend to move *extremely* slowly much like chameleons and would therefore be potentially less likely to stress other animals in the enclosure however they are capable of taking down surprisingly large prey for their size and I would imagine it's entirely possible that they could prey on thumbnails or froglets depending on how effective their warning colours are when so far removed from a natural environment and patterns of behaviour.

Overall it is fairly indisputably a bad idea based on the potentially negative consequences for all of the animals involved and as a breeder of micro geckos I would strongly advise against. It can be done 'successfully' depending on how you would choose to measure success but the financial cost and effort involved in creating a suitable enclosure is likely greater than you might hope. If you are dead set on keeping a mixed species enclosure I would urge you not to consider doing so in anything smaller than the very largest exo terra or similar glass terrariums and certainly not at all unless you have significant experience in the husbandry of both dart frogs AND micro geckos.


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## Llama (Dec 18, 2011)

Unpopular opinion here on dendroboard, but if you know what you're doing and take the appropriate precautions, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I have a 190 gallon Terrarium with oophaga histrionica and a colony of sphaerodactylus difficilis happily cohabitating. I think size is key here, and appropriate utilization of the available space is also important. If the animals all have the room to establish their own areas then interaction is minimal- but beyond that, even when the animals do interact nothing bad comes of it. The sphaerodactylus usually just walk away from the much larger histrionica. 
The geckos tend to stick to the dryer, top foot or so of the terrarium, hiding in tillandsias and rock ledges, occasionally traveling down to the leaf litter for food. The frogs utilize all of the terrarium, but tend to stay out of the dry tillandsia patches. I have uvb lights, and a wide spectrum of humidity and temps in such a large terrarium, so all the occupants are able to self regulate. I get to see both, which makes me happy, and both species are healthy and active, which makes me more happy. Just my own experience, take it for what it's worth.


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Llama - experience is the #1 thing. 

Size/microhabitats are next.

But if you don't know how they act apart, you have no clue if how they're acting "together" is good or bad. 

Beginners need to start with the basics. Keeping them separate is the basics. Maybe you get enough experience to go in your direction (I have as well, but only after I'd kept frogs for 15 years (no kidding)), you try to mix (with the proper conditions of course).

s


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