stress deaths?

about a month ago, i moved my 55 gallon terrarium from one side of my room to the other in preperation for making my new huge viv. the next day one of the golden geckos and the baby rainbow skink that were in the tank died.

the tank was nicely set up, it had good amount of humidity, a heat lamp, water, plenty of crickets and live plants in it. i was easily able to watch the lizards eat, drink, and climb around in the plants.

then, spent an hour moving the heavy thing accross the room and the next morning found the skink dead. that night one of the geckos.

Stress can cause reptiles to behave differently, but rarely death being the outcome. was there any drastic temp changes, or possible exposed to sunlight through a window ?

what type of live plants? you said your 55 gallon..does that mean you only had one tank..both lizards in it?

Was there more than one species of herp in the tank, you should never mix species, it can cause a lot of stress plus diseases. Have you had them checked for parasites? Also, what kinds of plants did you have in there?

sorry to bombard you with questions but we can't really tell you much about their deaths without knowing the situation.

yea, i always heard of the mixing species thing, but it diden't seem to bother them too much.

got the geckos and set up the tank around augest, added the skink mid-november.

the tank was set up with one end of it by a window (wall was too short :P ), the other end of it had a heat lamp. the windowed end diden't have any plants, just some sticks from outside. the end away from the window had tropical foilege i got from the grocery store i work at, good friends with the florist so she knows not to fertilize or spray the plants from a new shipment until after i get some when i mention that i want to buy some. plants consisted of various pothos, calathea, dracenia, and palms. the bedding is bagged topsoil.

the geckos usually stayed at the end of the tank with the heat lamp, either in the back hidden by the plants or up on the side. the skink usually stayed at the opposite end of the tank where thier weren't any plants and seemed to enjoy the sunlight that came in from the window. the only time they really interacted with each other was when they were chasing crickets around the tank, even then they diden't appear to care about each other.

the only possibly drastic temp change i can think of is the fact that the sun no longer shines on the end that the skink stayed at. but i can't see that causing a death in less then a day.

the gecko thats still alive is doing fine, and oddly enough, its the one thats extremly shy and easily scared, see no parasites on her

The parasites would be internal. They are one of the leading causes of death in reptiles and you can't see them. Most wild caught, and even a lot of breeder herps carry them. In the wild their immune systems seems to be able to handle the parasites but after a while in captivity it takes it's tole.

will try and find a vet that takes reptiles and take her to it then.

All you have to do is get a fecal sample (a fresh one) and take it in to them, it's usually much cheaper to do it that way, though a full on vet checkup is good too.

Also, what do you have in the means of UVB lighting? And what is the exact humidity and temps...sometimes that can affect the animal's health.

do you have any sort of UV lighting? And you shouldnt mix species..its very stressful and disese spreads rather quickly so do parasites...even though species may live in the same habitat in the wild they they have plenty of space to avoid eachother for the most part...i would highly reccomend you using seperate enclosures for the future...each species has different heating and humidity requirements that cant be met if they are all in the same tank...