# Mixed Invert tank?



## Javeo (May 4, 2008)

Please dont rant!
I have a spare viv and Im just going through a few ideas so constructive points only please. Its a corner viv, all glass and I want to plant it up and mayhap keep a few various inverts in it. Im thinking fruit beetles, milipedes, roaches maybe, weta or armoured ground crickets, mantids or small orb spiders, any other suggestions you may care to make?
thanks all


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

Mixing carnivores/omnivores with herbivores will have one result: predation.

Weta are veracious eaters that will eat anything (even solifuges) so mixing them will only lead to disaster. Mantids and spiders with beetles? Not easy.

Most of the animals you listed need, and occupy vastly different ecological conditions from one another, so you need to thin it down a little or the tank needs to be a lot bigger.

If you want to go for a 'mini ecosystem' then try picking several species that occupy the same sort of conditions and play similar roles in a habitat. 

E.g. - Mixing woodlice, springtails and small soil arthropods such as pseudoscorpions should work well. Millipedes could be added, although they would likely be the main focal example. Crickets could be added, but not a weta. Remember that crickets do eat meat as well, so will munch other animals.

Personally, I wouldnt mix too many until you get a bit more reading done on what each species requires, and the habits of each.


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## Javeo (May 4, 2008)

Of course I understand your above points but its just a list from which I will mix a few species not all of them! 
Lol springtails and woodlice and crickets! please I want a display not a live food culture.


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

Well, if you mix weta with anything soon you will have a weta only tank.

Orb weavers need fairly specific conditions, so you'd need a tank that caters to them. You won't be able to mix mantids and orb weavers easily, so its one or the other really. Then a weta would attack/be attacked by mantids, or it would eat orb weavers (unless they are huge like nephila, but i'll assume your tank isnt that big), so they can't be mixed...

That leaves herbivores, which could also fall prey to weta (or less likely mantids). fruit beetles need specialised substrate, deep, so I guess you could combine them with millipedes and the other soil fauna I mentioned, but you need to bare in mind that fruit beetles need the soil replaced every so often as they eat it. 

So, you need to find a species of mantid or orb weaver that will appreciate the similar climatic conditions to fruit beetles and millipedes.

So....all in all none of the species are really massively compatible in one viv, and whilst all of them may exist within a small area in nature, they utilise massively different niches and environments. That was my basic point really.


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## enlightenment (Dec 14, 2006)

Told ya mate!

I agree with GRB.

Sorry!

:blush:


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## herpzane (Apr 1, 2008)

i love the idea of a communal setup but you just have to find some inverts that are compatible. What about some stick or leaf insects. I would have though they would be ok with some millipedes or roaches.


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## Javeo (May 4, 2008)

enlightenment said:


> Told ya mate!
> 
> I agree with GRB.
> 
> ...


Yes, quite.


Well I did ask for suggestions, did I not? Im sure there are many things that could be mixed, and live happily. Adult fruit beetles eat very little soil, and mostly fruit. 
Please read my op properly and understand what it says, else your answer comes over as patronising.


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## DannyLeigh (Aug 4, 2008)

Javeo said:


> Yes, quite.
> 
> 
> Well I did ask for suggestions, did I not? Im sure there are many things that could be mixed, and live happily. Adult fruit beetles eat very little soil, and mostly fruit.
> Please read my op properly and understand what it says, else your answer comes over as patronising.


Yeah, but if you have grubs, you are going to have problems. They breed like mad! :whip:


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## enlightenment (Dec 14, 2006)

Javeo said:


> Yes, quite.
> 
> 
> Well I did ask for suggestions, did I not? Im sure there are many things that could be mixed, and live happily. Adult fruit beetles eat very little soil, and mostly fruit.
> *Please read my op properly and understand what it says, else your answer comes over as patronising*.


I did.

And I wasn't.

I was just trying to persuade you not to make an error that you might regret.

I'll shut up then.


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

Javeo said:


> Yes, quite.
> 
> Well I did ask for suggestions, did I not? Im sure there are many things that could be mixed, and live happily. Adult fruit beetles eat very little soil, and mostly fruit.
> Please read my op properly and understand what it says, else your answer comes over as patronising.


Your post actually comes across as under researched, and seems to want to compress several vague ideas.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but I am growing tired of people expecting an answer on a plate for them, when the answer is freely available if they are prepared to do a little reading beforehand.

Most of the animals you list need different conditions, so its just a fruitless pursuit. 

If I were you, I'd stick to a tank of herbivores - Stick insects, millipedes and the like. Mixing a bunch of carnivores with prey items will have only one outcome.

Any old "spare tank" is no good either. A communal tank needs careful consideration, and the best method I have seen is to get a large tank that also has height - the millipedes etc were on the ground layer, and some large plants (2ft) were placed onto which food was placed for stick insects. This provided two distinct areas of the tank - low and high. The millipedes were allowed a refuge, and the stick insects were not harried by the actions of the millipedes.


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## Cosmicbug (Sep 28, 2008)

It could work, with proper care and research and depending on the size of the viv.

If you have a 6" deep sub, made of leaf litter, rotting wood, coir, then this will provide a great base for the milli's and also ideal for the beetle grubs if (and they will) beetles lay. May even beable to keep a few hissing roaches in there.

I would leave out the spiders, weta's, ground crickets, but I can't see a problem keeping _Phyllocrania paradoxa _(Ghost Mantids), they would thrive in the humid conditions, as long as ventaltion is kept up. They can be kept communally with each other without to many problems, and you would probabley get away with keeping a few large phasmids too, as the Ghosts would not bother with them unless extremly hungry.
The fruit for the flower beetles would also provide a source of food and breeding site for fruit flies, which in turn would provide some of the food for the Ghost mantid nymphs, the rotting fruit would also be eaten up by the millis and roaches.

The only problems I really see is when the ghosts turn adult, the females may start to eat the other inhabitants, but get them mated, hatch the ooth's and start the cycle again with the nymphs.

So it could work, if will fed and plenty of space.


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## gizzard (May 5, 2008)

if your tank is big, then i would put some hissing cockroaches, giant millipedes and jungle nymph stick insects in there. they are all massive, require similar conditions (correct me if im wrong about the jungle nymphs) and are all herbivores. so a good display


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## Ozgi (Jun 1, 2008)

do scorpions climb? would they eat stick insects?


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## Javeo (May 4, 2008)

Sorry if I sounded rude or ungrateful, im not. As I said it was an idea I was considering and have not researched at all so your right on that point. If you look at my pet list you can see I have darts and retfs, both in their own naturalistic vivs (see gallery if you like). I wasnt asking for answers on a plate, far from it. Ive never really asked on here about general set ups, I research myself and even research individual plant species before I use them in my vivs.
I may just use the viv for leucs, which was my initial plan, I just wanted other peoples experiances/thoughts and suggestions. 
And if they eat each other so they eat each other. I feed plenty of inverts to my other pets anyway, it'll just be a more expensive meal!


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## Javeo (May 4, 2008)

I have scorpians, yes they climb and they eat anything


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## enlightenment (Dec 14, 2006)

Javeo said:


> And if they eat each other so they eat each other. I feed plenty of inverts to my other pets anyway, it'll just be a more expensive meal!


 
Well, in_ that_ case, it is your money, and you may as well put in anything you like.


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

Javeo said:


> I feed plenty of inverts to my other pets anyway, it'll just be a more expensive meal!


I thought maybe I had went a little harsh, that is until I read this^. 

If you don't want to treat the inverts with the respect they require, then I think you should go for the original idea you had, as you'll just be wasting your money and killing animals needlessly.


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## Harbinger (Dec 20, 2008)

I kept phasmids fine with horse headed grasshoppers, and ive had a peacock mantis do fine living with my hissers


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## gizzard (May 5, 2008)

i suppose a small predator can go with a large herbivore... but didnt the mantis eat the roach babies??


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## Harbinger (Dec 20, 2008)

Its a tiny male peacock mantis and only sub and adult roaches


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## Javeo (May 4, 2008)

GRB said:


> I thought maybe I had went a little harsh, that is until I read this^.
> 
> If you don't want to treat the inverts with the respect they require, then I think you should go for the original idea you had, as you'll just be wasting your money and killing animals needlessly.


That wasn't entirely serious, but do you not feed inverts to your other animals? I feed locusts, crickets, roaches and grubs everyday. Alive, and they get hunted down and eaten alive so tell me the difference other than I pay 2.50 for 30 locusts or £10 for one rainbow locust?
And how would it be needless if they are being eaten by something that will need to eat anyway?


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## herpzane (Apr 1, 2008)

Javeo said:


> That wasn't entirely serious, but do you not feed inverts to your other animals? I feed locusts, crickets, roaches and grubs everyday. Alive, and they get hunted down and eaten alive so tell me the difference other than I pay 2.50 for 30 locusts or £10 for one rainbow locust?
> And how would it be needless if they are being eaten by something that will need to eat anyway?


thats a fair point as we all feed live invertabrates to our Ts and scorps anyway.


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## Mark75 (Jan 21, 2007)

gizzard said:


> i suppose a small predator can go with a large herbivore... but didnt the mantis eat the roach babies??


You'd be surprised at what a small mantis will tackle, overpower and eat : victory:


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

Javeo said:


> That wasn't entirely serious, but do you not feed inverts to your other animals? I feed locusts, crickets, roaches and grubs everyday. Alive, and they get hunted down and eaten alive so tell me the difference other than I pay 2.50 for 30 locusts or £10 for one rainbow locust?
> And how would it be needless if they are being eaten by something that will need to eat anyway?


 
Dogs, can technically be eaten, yet in our culture we dont. We give them the title and status of "pet", thus affording a greater level of care.

The following are also items we dont associate with feeder insects:

Millipedes, wetas, orb weavers, mantids, phasmids

If you want an expensive bastardised ecosystem of "feeder" insects running towards chaos, then what you propose is technically ok, albeit somewhat over the top and IMO, pointless. Why stop at those you proposed? You could throw in a tarantula and a couple of scorpions too, maybe even a solifuge. If money is no option, you could go crazy. Since they could all be seen as just feeder insects, it doesnt even matter that they need different conditions either. 

A true mixed invert tank of pets requires a bit of forethought and consideration. Simply throwing a bunch of animals together has been frowned upon in other areas of the pet industry (e.g. fish, mammals) and I dont see why not in the Invert side of things. My main point is that, yes, you could just chuck stuff together - but it wouldnt work. You can't have everything all jumbled in one tank.


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## GRB (Jan 24, 2008)

To summarise my main gist:

Quoting "In the wild" and applying it to the hobby captive environment is a completely flawed anaology. Its a captive environment, far removed from the wild, so what applies in the wild has to be uinterpreted with caution.

In the wild, the vast majority of spiders fall prey to other spiders. Tarantulas are parasitised often to a high % and many dont survive past juvenile instars. We filter this out in captivity as best we can.

I don't agree with suddenly picking and chosing when to disregard the respect we offer towards any arthropods. IMO, any and all animals in care (even feeders) should be treated with respect, and that includes making at least some effort to house them in favourable conditions. 

So, my advice to was to group animals that would at least form some sort of semi-coherent community. It just seems pointless to send a bunch of inverts to an already foregone conclusion - stress, then death. You'd eventually end up with a culture of only a couple of dominant species, and it seems pointless to try to ram more than that into it in the first place when its obvious that the end result will not change.


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## Javeo (May 4, 2008)

I never qouted the infamous "in the wild..." point as I agree with you fully on that. To be honest I agree with most of what you said, but I have a love of debating the opposing view regardless of my own true opinion, esp if I feel someone is questioning my intelligence, at which ppoint I descend into sarcasm. Money i not really an issue but I do draw the line at feeding a £10 locust to anything! 
I just wanted a few suggestions on inverts that would occupy the variuos levels in a planted viv, and perhaps at different times of day. Im not going to put my AGC or wetas in with anything as I have seen it eat, and the size of its jaws!
So lets say you were creating one, what would you stock?


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## enlightenment (Dec 14, 2006)

It's an interesting idea, in principle.

Perhaps some large beetle species could be kept in with your AGC?

Stags and such.

Not sure, to be honest.

I'll have a think.


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## dooglefluff (Oct 5, 2008)

hi there
i have had hissing cockroaches and giant millipedes together for about a year now with no problems at all, they like the same temps, food etc

the millipedes don't come out very often but when they do i think they look at the cockroaches as a rock or something as they just walk over them, the cockroaches don't seem too fussed at all. 

x


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