# Frogs & Toads > Fire Belly Toads (Bombina) >  Tank mates for my Fire-Bellies?

## tearsmith

I am going to start a viv build soon and I will want to add more herps than just my two fire-bellies.  Are there other herps that can go with them?  I am wanting to keep the build horizontal so I was thinking of ground frogs like pacmans or something.  If not, can I go vertical and add tree frogs or darts?

Also, I wanted to add color to the water without the complication of little fish and pumps.  Can I put a beta in there?

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## Niels D

Never put a pacman with another specie. You won't have any bombina's left. I'm not fond of mixing species. It delivers a lot of stress to most of the animals and there are a lot of things that can go wrong. The following link mostly describes accidents involving caudatians, but none the less:

Caudata Culture Articles - Species Mixing Disasters

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## JeffX

Do not mix any species.  It's just a disaster waiting to happen.

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## John Clare

This is very sound advice.  Mixing amphibians usually reduces the health and lifespan of all concerned.

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## tearsmith

Thank you all.  I guess more than one vivarium never hurt anyone, right?  Of course, my roommate may disagree.  Hee Hee.

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## BG

I would think that the fish might die down the road. Eaten or die from the toxins. The pacman would eat the Fbt, and maybe die from toxins. The tree frogs who knows. so at the end you will have a ETS,empty tank syndrome.lol

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## xXPinkFlamingo

I'm still new but wanted to know the same thing you were asking. I read around and everything comes back like other members have said...don't mix! I thought about a Beta, however after reading about that, frogs have been found missing toads when they have beta's in their tank, so I nixed that idea. The only thing I have in my tank with my babies are Mystery Snails in the water for clean up. They come in yellow, which added some color. One has been in there a week in a half and is healthy and growing and I just bought two more because of the brown algae bloom from the aquarium finishing cycling. There are many different types of aquarium snails, some with spikes and different colors or different shell shape that could add some texture and color. However, I would read about the snail and their hardiness. Just a thought  :Smile:  Oh and you would need to give them some algae wafers when algae was down, because they will die quickly.

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## maranda

I have 3 FBTs in a 10 gallon aquarium, with plenty of dry land for the toads, a waterfall and about 3 inches of water.  I have 3 white minnows ($.13 each at petsmart) that have been very happy in there for about a month.

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## missfrogger

i wouldn't suggest a mystery snail - we had one with just 1 fbt and i noticed after a while his shell started to deteriorate and he eventually died.  it may have been a fluke, but my guess was the snail couldn't handle the fbt's toxins.

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## FireBellies

I realize that this thread is pretty old, but for those who are reading forums searching for info...I have a 30g tank with about 6 inches of water and lots of rocks and plants for the toads. I use a Whisper in-tank filter made for 20gal.  I have had my 5 fire bellies for about 6 years and put some feeder guppies in the tank with them right from the start. I thought the toads might eat them, but they did not...soabout three months later, I bought 5 fancy guppies (1 male, 4 female) and they have thrived. The feeder guppies died off pretty quickly, so now I have all fancy guppies. They breed like crazy, so now there are close to 40 of them in there at any given time. I have also tried a Mystery Snail, it did well and grew for about a year and a half then died. I didn't notice any signs of illness before it died, not sure how long they live. I put a few Ghost Shrimp in there, but after about a week I haven't seen any. My tank has a lot of little hiding spots, so who knows! I hope this is helpful! :Frog Smile:

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## TheRealJovA

A koi fish or feeder fish. Koi fish survived for like 8 months will feeder fish survived 3z


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## Heather

I would like to say if you're going to add fish, it would have to be very resilient ones. Firebelly toads secrete a toxin which can build up in the water. It is not recommended to add gold fish or other pond like fish due to their history of carrying parasites. They also produce a lot of waste. 

Mixing frog species is never recommended. They secrete different toxins based on their species. This is to protect them in the wild. Our enclosures are much smaller than in their natural habitats where they can move to another location if feeling threatened or at risk. This is not possible in terrariums and vivariums. Toxin exposure over time even in small amounts and stresses may occur, leading to further illness, cessation of eating, territorial issues of both terrarium areas and food, and sometimes death may occur. It's never really worth it in the long run. 

If desiring more than one species I would recommend adding another tank  :Smile: .

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## kh2odragon

i had a fire belly untill a couple years ago  :Frown:   but i keept it with feeded gold fish(bout 1inch and 15cents each) and i keept it with chinese fire belly newts witch are nativly found together and live well together  :Smile:  .

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## TheRealJovA

> i had a fire belly untill a couple years ago   but i keept it with feeded gold fish(bout 1inch and 15cents each) and i keept it with chinese fire belly newts witch are nativly found together and live well together  .


I'm surprised my Feeder fish survived ! They are so delicate .  Last time I had one , it died but when I put it with a frog, it survived


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## Kelsieb

> I realize that this thread is pretty old, but for those who are reading forums searching for info...I have a 30g tank with about 6 inches of water and lots of rocks and plants for the toads. I use a Whisper in-tank filter made for 20gal.  I have had my 5 fire bellies for about 6 years and put some feeder guppies in the tank with them right from the start. I thought the toads might eat them, but they did not...soabout three months later, I bought 5 fancy guppies (1 male, 4 female) and they have thrived. The feeder guppies died off pretty quickly, so now I have all fancy guppies. They breed like crazy, so now there are close to 40 of them in there at any given time. I have also tried a Mystery Snail, it did well and grew for about a year and a half then died. I didn't notice any signs of illness before it died, not sure how long they live. I put a few Ghost Shrimp in there, but after about a week I haven't seen any. My tank has a lot of little hiding spots, so who knows! I hope this is helpful!


Do the frogs eat the baby guppies?

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## Flying Dutchman

It is possible that they will eat the baby guppies. Personally I wouldn't add any other species or fish in the tank.

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## None505

I added 3 male Endler/Guppy hybrids in with my last two Fire-belly Toads and the Fire-belly Toads avoided the water until the fish were removed. The fish later died which I am assuming was from the toxins from the toads. Also with koi you would need at least 1000 gallons of water and feeder goldfish need at least 40 gallons of water and a strong filter and they grow so big that they might be able to eat a Fire-belly Toad unless they died from the toxins first. With the feeder minnows you would only need about 20 gallons of water but as with any feeder fish they tend to be loaded with parasites.

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## Spoket

I have 8 fire bellys with small fish, i bought the fish for about 1 year ago and i havn´t had any problems (it´s an old pic of my aquaterrarium)

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## TheRealJovA

Don't the FBT's in the wild live with fishes or other animals. It's amazing how you can't find any type of fish to mix them with.  There is barely any information about FBTs in the wild . I wouldn't really like to know what type of animals come from same region as FBT.


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## MantisMan

> Don't the FBT's in the wild live with fishes or other animals. It's amazing how you can't find any type of fish to mix them with.  There is barely any information about FBTs in the wild . I wouldn't really like to know what type of animals come from same region as FBT.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


this is exactly the issue. how often does a pet store sell another animal that can be found in the same place as a firebelly? I kept a green treefrog with 2 firebellies once and they all did fine, but they had plenty of space and I kept the water bowl clean and I separated them at feeding time. the only other time I've had anything living with firebellies is when snail eggs would up on plants from petsmart and snails invaded my firebelly tadpole tank. firebellies do just fine with each other though and you really can never have too many firebellies. I have 30 of them! lol

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## TheRealJovA

> this is exactly the issue. how often does a pet store sell another animal that can be found in the same place as a firebelly? I kept a green treefrog with 2 firebellies once and they all did fine, but they had plenty of space and I kept the water bowl clean and I separated them at feeding time. the only other time I've had anything living with firebellies is when snail eggs would up on plants from petsmart and snails invaded my firebelly tadpole tank. firebellies do just fine with each other though and you really can never have too many firebellies. I have 30 of them! lol


My lord ! 30 FBT ! Dang ! Lol Did you Breed them? And By the way you cannot find any information about their "Wildlife" online. It's as if people are keeping FBT's real life a secret . I'm probably going to have to go to japan an observe FBT's in the wild myself . Lol


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Cliygh and Mia 2

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## MantisMan

> My lord ! 30 FBT ! Dang ! Lol Did you Breed them? And By the way you cannot find any information about their "Wildlife" online. It's as if people are keeping FBT's real life a secret . I'm probably going to have to go to japan an observe FBT's in the wild myself . Lol
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


i did breed them
26 r toadlets
they are found in deciduous forests in east asia south of korea

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## NoFroggoButIHaveDoggo

> i wouldn't suggest a mystery snail - we had one with just 1 fbt and i noticed after a while his shell started to deteriorate and he eventually died.  it may have been a fluke, but my guess was the snail couldn't handle the fbt's toxins.


Okay, this snail most likely died from calcium deficiency. Lack of calcium causes snail's shells to deteriorate and eventually die.

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## Xavier

Hmm, interesting. I did not know snails could be affected by that. The more you know  :Indecisiveness:  :Smile:

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## Twalker2194

Can fire bellied toads and yellow bellied toads live together

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## AAron

The comments at the beginning of this thread are not as accurate as they claim to be. There can be many benefits to having mixed species setups. 

Fish in a paludarium for Whites Tree Frogs or others would not have any effect on the frogs because you would have to change the water anyway. Also some fish will eat things out of the frogs poop that even though is disgusting the fish get added nutrients from crickets and such. Millipedes and Snails benefit their inhabitants because they eat poop, decaying plant matter and I know the Millipedes eat mold up to some point. The Millipedes can clean the setup if bioactive and they can do a better job at us finding poop that may be hidden to us.



 If you keep some frogs and toads together depending on a few variables like native environment, size, temp and humidity requirements among other variables it can work out with little problems. Same species setups have problems as well with competition for food, social hierarchies and stress. In an article from Frank Indiviglio he talks about toads and wood frogs how they can be kept together with ease because of the variables between both species being favorable. This can be the case with tree frogs and toads native to the US as well. 

Southeastern Five Lined Skinks and some costal tree frogs like the Squirrel Tree Frog have a unique relationship as the Skinks sleep the tree frogs can eat and as the tree frogs sleep the Skinks can eat so they won't see each other. 

This was very taboo but over the past few years has become more acceptable due to keepers doing more research and asking good questions. Also there have been more positive stories that have come from keepers with these setups. Keeping mixed species setups is something that has been evolving and been a growing trend with keeping herps now especially more then ever. It's good to see the hobby progressing and branching out. 

As for your question about the toads you might want to put that in the toad subforum!

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