What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

My found lizard, bunch of questions

Ok, so I found a "free" anole in my terrarium which probably hatched out of one of my plants that I'd ordered. That doesn't men haven't spent a lot on him already, and will be spending more this weekend.

But, I have a few questions, hopefully you folks can help me out:

1) What kind of water should I be misting my plants with? Normally I'd use R/O or distilled water with some fertilizer added if I had only plants. I know adding fertilizer is out since Anoles only drink water off leaves but should I be using R/O and Distilled or should I be using spring water since spring water isn't filtered of all it's nutrients. (I will water the plant roots with R/O and fertilizer instead)

2) This anole will be on fruitflies and pinhead crickets for some time, I was thinking a 10 gallon aquarium full of egg crates would be fine to house the pinheads, how many can I fit in there or doesn't it matter? I ordered 500 PHs off ebay since no pet shops sell them around here but I don't think the gallon size jar I use for hatching mantids would work for THAT many crickets, would it?

3) I noticed friday there is white ball-like fungus/mold starting at the base of my driftwood that's sitting in moist orchid bark. The tank was setup monday 9/3) Is this dangerous to my plants and the anole or is this natural for new driftwood and it will eventually sort itself out? (I did buy this driftwood it was sold as terrarium driftwood.)

Thanks for any help with these questions!
 
#1 spring water is prolly best...has some minerals but isnt overloaded

#2 prolly doesnt matter, with that many crix your going to get some cannibalism no matter what besides they will prolly grow faster than your anole can eat them anyway.....have you looked into the babyfood angle yet? im just sure anoles dont do well on just bugs.

#3 the fungus is normal, i see it in my terrariums all the time.....generally takes about a month for it to cycle, it wont hurt anything its just eating the sugars in the wood. once the sugars are gone so is the mold

i may be away from the internet for a week im not sure yet......headed to Florida....if i coulda got here earlier i would have looked yah up but we were just in Minneapolis long enough to sleep. maybe send me a pm and if i get back early enough next Saturday maybe we can meet up and chat in person.
 
Rattler always have good advise so I'll just add a little to what he said.

Spring water will probably be best but I give mine tap water. I just spray it on the leaves

I don't know what you paid for the crickets, I never thought to look on ebay.
I get mine from LLLreptile.com. Here is their prices and all the prices includes shipping.

http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog/feeders/crickets/


Here's all their feeders, they even have roaches and fruit flies.

http://lllreptile.com/store/catalog/feeders/
 
Thanks guys! I'll definately make sure I only use the bottled spring water for his drinking mist water.

About Ebay feeder insects:
Including shipping it was $17.50 for 500 pinheads - 3.5 cents apiece (seller Chirp in time), shipping was more than the actual crickets (bugs $8.50, shipping $9) Still they're about 6 cents apiece cheaper than petco/petsmart (who don't have this size). I just called a far off petshop (twin cties reptiles) who says they have pinheads onhand today so I'm gonna go look and get a few if they are small enough.

Yesterday I received three very nice 32 oz fruitfly cultures that I ordered off ebay (one of each species and one of a wingless variant, plus a bag of culture media and 10 extra containers - seller Flygrowers). Petshops could take a lesson from this guy, clean non-sloshed medium, lots of flies, maggots and pupae, and dates on the container! Two of my 4 petco fly cultures have flying flies in them and all of them are gross/dirty looking. His starter fly cultures are $1 less than petco as well. Shipping ads a bit to the grand total but the quality is worth it.

I put a bit of cherry flavored applesauce diluted slighty with water on a disposeable picnic spoon but he showed no interest in going near it. The fruitflies loved it though! I may try with a recipe I saw in a book I got the other day Anoles, Basilisks and Water Dragons that uses apricot baby food and honey. The book also shows anoles lapping the nectar from hummingbird feeders, but that's just red colored sugar and water isn't it or is there vitamins in it too?

Rattler, Thanks for the info about the fungus, today it's turned blue with a white outline so maybe it's dying off already.
I've got a crummy work schedule, I'm off this weekend but working next weekend. :(
My job is basically on 2x 12 hr shifts, off 2x 12 hr shifts, on 2 x 12 hr shifts... Starting Tues my schedule is: 9/11, 9/12, 9/15, 9/16, 9/17, 9/20, 9/21, 9/24, 9/25, 9/29, 9/30
I'll be free any of the dates not listed if you're around the twin cities on any of those days.
 
Hey folks and Rattler in particular you'll wanna read on. I got the one copy left of the Professional Breeders Series Live Food book today at the reptile shop, they screwed up and sold it to me for $4.95 when it should be $35, at least it is on Amazon! No price tag, no UPC code, the guy called someone and typed stuff on the computer and that's the price that came up. So that was awesome!

Heres a real quick look at the book, I haven't really looked at it yet myself though, since I just got home:

Professional Breeders Series Live Food by Bruse, Meyer and Schmidt
142 pages, hardcover, apx. 6" x 9" mostly full color throughout

Contents:
Food spectrum of carnivorous amphibians and reptiles
Remarks about feeding
Advantages to breeding your own insects
Guidelines of large scale culturing
When does it make sense to buy additional insects
How to improve the nutritional value of insects
legal aspects of breeding insects
necessary and percautionary measures

Species:
Introduction
Springtails
Firebrats
large and small fruitflies
Houseflies
Large central european bean aphid
ArgentineCockroaches
Green bannana Cockroaches
Forest Cockroaches
Tropical house cricket
Jamaican field cricket
two spot cricket
House cricket
Desert locust
Annam stick insect
Lesser and larger wax moth
flour beetles and thie larvae (meal worms)
Zophobas darkling beetles and their larvae (superworms)
Confused flour beetle
Sun beetle larvae
White woodlouse
House mouse
Other food insects - an overview

I'm sure you might find some or all of this info online but I like having physical books.

I also picked up a 5.0 UV light, few dozen pinhead crickets and a big cricket keeper and food (orange cubes and calcium/grain mix) for when my shipment arrives. My kittens are just nuts for the cricket keeper trying to get at the crickets! This summer they caught a cicaida and had a whole day of fun with that.

Time to head off to home depot for light canopy wood...
 
Last edited:
I used tap water to mist my anoles and their plants. As you probably already know, the anoles like to lick their water off the plants/glass.

I can't help with insects, i just used small crickets from the pet store, never bred my own. By anoles never responded to any fruit/ necter kinds of things. I tried alot too!

Also, a hint: never get something that the brown anoles can hide behind completely out of view, like a space between a flat rock and the glass. It will dart there whenever it senses your presence. That was my biggest mistake i made, installing a fountain that backed the glass almost but not quite snug...
 
Mine has a ton of hiding spaces but he spends as much time watching me from his perch as I do watching him from my desk. A mutual fascination I suppose! I found a dealer who has captive bred baby green anoles, thinkin hard about ordering him some playmates. Not sure how a brown would get along with 2 or 3 greens maybe they wouldn't care?
 
I can't speak much about brown anoles, I've never had any. I have kept a lot of green anoles though. They are solitary lizards. One male will not live with another. A male will live with two or three females. I guess males are a lot alike no matter what the species. LOL

If you have two or more males they may not actively fight. But the biggest one will stress the smaller ones until the smaller ones dies. I would not advise housing them together.
 
So, you think my best bet is to wait until I know what sex I've got and then buy a tank mate around that?

I was just wondering about how he/she would react when after a year or so another lizard is introduced.
 
  • #10
the exact same as they would react right now. If it was both at the same time, prehaps, but 2 weeks or 2 years, it matters not, your lizard knows its 'turf' well now. my brown anole was really small its whole 5 year life. You MIGHT not have a hatchling but a petite female, like i did. She was never the size of the green anoles in the same cage, smaller by half. I think the whole species might be smaller than greens, thouh i admit that i have only ever seen one (that i bought)
 
Back
Top