Anyone know safety of these unlisted plants?

[Cydonia1]

Aeschynanthus lobbianus
Ficus pumila 'Quercifolia'
Hoya carnosa variegata
Hypoestes phyllostachya
Nematanthus gregarius
Pilea glauca
Pilea nummulariifolia
Scindapsus pictus ( this is a type of pothos, but the only one listed is golden pothos and those are bad, is this the same?)
Tradescantia fluminensis
Tradescantia zebrina

These are all vining plants for sale at neherp that I'd like to add to the tat. The BIG one I want to know about are Tradescantia, Scindapsus, Hypoestes, and Hoya carnosa. These are all ones that can handle a lot of abuse from animals without bad damage and they grow back fast. I'm going to start google-fu with the area of origins, if they're toxic to any species, ect ect ect. But if anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate it! I know the crabs will eat anything they come across so I want to be careful.
Thank you!

[jclee]

I do not know off-hand, and I want to know what you learn. I would add that you could ask the folks at NE Herp about known toxicity to herp species in order to have a better sense of what to avoid. While planted vivs are often popular for dart frogs (who don't eat crickets or plants), some people have tried plants in enclosures with plant-eating crickets, which means some people have learned (the hard way) that a given species is toxic after a reptile/amphib eats crickets that have eaten a plant. That's the lore, anyway. It's all a bit tough to prove, particularly since people come into the hobby with varying degrees of experience, and their care practices range as a result. It can be hard to determine for certain whether insects gut-loaded toxic plants were really a cause of death when many other enclosure parameters may easily have been amiss.

See what NEH has heard, anyway.

I know that pothos and many ivys are toxic, so I would be very careful about any trailing vine sp. in an enclosure with animals that eat plants. I would also add that, for any plant endeavor, unless the plants were guaranteed to be safe (I've sprouted celery/lettuce nubs, for example), I would keep a close eye on the food bowl. The less that the tasty and appropriate food runs low, the less likely the crabs are to explore elsewhere.

Good luck, and let us know what you learn.

[Cydonia1]

Aeschynanthus lobbianus: Southeast asia, rainforest. Said to be nontoxic to people and pets on one blog, but no sources. http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/houseplants.htm Nontoxic to tortoises.

Ficus pumila 'Quercifolia': East Asia, Southern Central America. Moderately Salt tolerant according to this http://manatee.ifas.ufl.edu/FFL/Dazzlin ... lorida.pdf Possible dermatitis to tortoises, no other specific toxicities that I could find.

Hypoestes: http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds ... tachya.htm
These are fond in Hawaii, Madagascar, and invasivly in Australia. Non toxic to dogs, cats, horses and chameleons. Bigger maybe than the other ones as these seem to have a bigger chance of getting to a shored area and meeting a crab.
I'm going to keep going through the list to see if there's anything notable in any of them.

[Cydonia1]

I do not know off-hand, and I want to know what you learn. I would add that you could ask the folks at NE Herp about known toxicity to herp species in order to have a better sense of what to avoid. While planted vivs are often popular for dart frogs (who don't eat crickets or plants), some people have tried plants in enclosures with plant-eating crickets, which means some people have learned (the hard way) that a given species is toxic after a reptile/amphib eats crickets that have eaten a plant. That's the lore, anyway. It's all a bit tough to prove, particularly since people come into the hobby with varying degrees of experience, and their care practices range as a result. It can be hard to determine for certain whether insects gut-loaded toxic plants were really a cause of death when many other enclosure parameters may easily have been amiss.

See what NEH has heard, anyway.

I know that pothos and many ivys are toxic, so I would be very careful about any trailing vine sp. in an enclosure with animals that eat plants. I would also add that, for any plant endeavor, unless the plants were guaranteed to be safe (I've sprouted celery/lettuce nubs, for example), I would keep a close eye on the food bowl. The less that the tasty and appropriate food runs low, the less likely the crabs are to explore elsewhere.

Good luck, and let us know what you learn.

I've already got a draft up asking them about springtails, so I'll ask them about that too! Their soil cultures include activated charcoal with other crab safe dirts, and I found crustacean raising book excerpt on google that mentions activated charcoal, I I was considering buying some cork chunks, dumping the springtail culture, putting the cork then throwing leaf litter over it to avoid immediately picky crabs.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Tao80 ... YQ6AEIQzAK

[jclee]

I love this thread. I can't wait to see what else people dig up about plant species.

[nepenthes]

Pilea and Tradescantia should be non-toxic. There are always exceptions but I know for a fact that tradescantia zebrina aka wandering jew hasn't given me any problems with tortoises. It's an easy plant to grow and propagate.

I've also grown a type of aeschynanthus (aeschynanthus radicans aka lipstick vine) which is non-toxic. Again, not sure if your listed one is an exception. The related-to-pothos plant is one I'm not familiar with, but pothos (epipremnum aureum) is not toxic. There's conflicting info out there for pothos but I haven't had any issues with it for tortoises either.

[aussieJJDude]

-snip- Tradescantia should be non-toxic. There are always exceptions but I know for a fact that tradescantia zebrina aka wandering jew hasn't given me any problems with tortoises. It's an easy plant to grow and propagate. -snip-

I can vote that my crabbies love the tradescantia. They pretty much ripped the plant out of the soil and proceeded to dig in the soil (which as just plain EE like the rest of the tank) and stamp the last chance of survival that my plant had.