Could a leachianus and tiger salamander live together?

[godzillizard]

Yes, you could, but I wouldn't...i have kept tiger salamanders for a 1/4 of a century, & kept & bred leachies for 6 years, but you'd have to make sure the Tiger salamander has PLENTY of substrate depth--they are a mole salamander, living primarily in earthworm-like burrows/subterranean dwellings. Even as big as they can get, they're still no match for a leachie. If you had a HUGE naturalistic setup, & kept all inhabitants very well fed, yes, you could theoretically keep them together, but at best, it'd be an accident waiting to happen. Besides, Leachies can dig like badgers when they want to. Plus, being from totally different "worlds", they could kill each other just by contacting each others fecals and/or water source. There are thousands if not millions of invisible microbes for every creature our eyes can see. Just think of what happened when the "1st" settlers came to the new world, & were "introduced" to the native Americans...Nature & captive husbandry are about balance; & putting these 2 together would be like Verne Troyer trying to 'seesaw' with Andre the Giant

[kbartman]

Originally Posted by godzillizard

Yes, you could, but I wouldn't...i have kept tiger salamanders for a 1/4 of a century, & kept & bred leachies for 6 years, but you'd have to make sure the Tiger salamander has PLENTY of substrate depth--they are a mole salamander, living primarily in earthworm-like burrows/subterranean dwellings. Even as big as they can get, they're still no match for a leachie. If you had a HUGE naturalistic setup, & kept all inhabitants very well fed, yes, you could theoretically keep them together, but at best, it'd be an accident waiting to happen. Besides, Leachies can dig like badgers when they want to. Plus, being from totally different "worlds", they could kill each other just by contacting each others fecals and/or water source. There are thousands if not millions of invisible microbes for every creature our eyes can see. Just think of what happened when the "1st" settlers came to the new world, & were "introduced" to the native Americans...Nature & captive husbandry are about balance; & putting these 2 together would be like Verne Troyer trying to 'seesaw' with Andre the Giant

I think that's a good way to look at it. My suspicion in the first place was whether the two could possibly live together given a very large enclosure. I thought they would in theory be able to, even though it would be an accident waiting to happen. It seems that you share my point of view, but again I would not and do not want to actually attempt this. This is kind of a off topic question to you, but seeing as you have plenty of experience with tiger salamanders... My sal is about 2 years old and 9 inches. Do you suspect he could grow more than this or is that pretty much full grown? Im not sure what age they reach adult size at.

[Paradon]

Leachies just love little tasty morsel of small animals... That's why I think it's disaster waiting to happen.

[godzillizard]

Plus, tigers generally snap at anything that moves, & even my most gentle GGs wouldn't hesitate to snap back. Even though tigers can pretty much regenerate anything (except their head), it'd be like a knife through warm butter...

Try doing an "ant farm" style enclosure for your tiger. I used plexiglass to make a secondary inner wall, (running 1/2-2/3 up the front glass) to hold about 2-3" of dirt, vertically oriented. Use aquarium safe silicone to affix the plexi. Then you plexi from the top of the secondary wall, back to the rear wall of the aquarium. As long as you leave enough space, they will burrow into the dirt filled front wall, just like an ant in an ant farm. I'll post pics of my old salamander setups if I can get them off my old computer.