Care Tools
Practical tools for working out enclosure size, habitat targets, diet, specific food safety, cohabitation compatibility, and quarantine timelines — each pulling from the same sourced husbandry data used across the species pages, never a separately invented number.
Why these tools exist
A species care page answers "what does this animal need in general?" These tools answer a narrower, faster question — "what's the specific number for my species right now?" — without requiring you to read the full care guide every time you have a quick question. Every tool on this page runs entirely in your browser: nothing you enter is sent to a server or stored, and every result traces back to the same sourced, dated husbandry parameter published on that species' own care page.
That last point matters more than it might seem. A lot of exotic-pet "calculator" tools online quietly invent their formulas — a tank-size multiplier based on nothing, a UVB distance rule of thumb with no citation. Every number these tools surface instead comes directly from the same `source` + `dated` citation shown on the species page, so if you want to verify a figure or see how current it is, you can trace it back rather than taking a black-box tool's word for it.
Not every species-and-question combination has a sourced answer yet — where that's the case, the relevant tool says so explicitly rather than guessing or extrapolating from a related species, which is a meaningfully different (and worse) kind of error than simply not having an answer.
The six tools
Enclosure Size Calculator
Get a sourced minimum enclosure size recommendation for your species.
UVB Strength Guide
Match the right UVB bulb output and habitat gradient to your species.
Cohabitation Compatibility Checker
Check whether two species (or two individuals of the same species) can safely share an enclosure.
Diet & Feeding Guide
Sourced diet and supplementation guidance by species.
Food Safety Checker
Can your species eat that? Get a sourced safe/unsafe verdict for specific foods.
Quarantine Timeline Planner
Get a recommended quarantine length and checklist for a new arrival.
Which tool should I use?
If you're setting up a new enclosure from scratch, start with the Enclosure Size Calculator and the UVB Strength Guide together — size and gradient are the two variables most worth getting right before an animal ever moves in. If you're troubleshooting an existing setup, the UVB Strength Guide doubles as a habitat check for what you already have running.
For feeding questions, the Diet & Feeding Guide covers the general diet and supplementation picture, while the Food Safety Checker answers the narrower "can this specific animal eat this specific food" question. Bringing home a second animal, or wondering whether an existing one needs a companion? The Cohabitation Compatibility Checker gives an honest, welfare-first answer rather than a flattering guess. And any new arrival, rescue or otherwise, should run through the Quarantine Timeline Planner before it's introduced to any existing pets.
If a specific symptom is what brought you here rather than a planning question, these tools aren't the right starting point — go to Diagnose a Problem instead, which is built around symptoms and urgency rather than husbandry parameters.
How the tools stay accurate
Each tool draws its results from the exact same per-species husbandry object used to render that species' own care page — there's no separate "tool database" that could silently drift out of sync with the published species pages. When a species page's sourced figure is updated during the annual refresh cycle (see Methodology & Sources), every tool that surfaces that species picks up the same updated number automatically, with no separate edit required.
None of the tools require an account, collect the species or food you searched for, or send anything you type to a server — the calculations run entirely in your browser. If you'd like a written, personalized document rather than a quick on-screen lookup, see the Custom Care Plan product, which goes further than any of these free tools by reviewing your animal's actual current setup, not just returning a general species figure.
New tools and species coverage are added on the same ongoing schedule as the rest of the site's content — if a species or question you searched for isn't covered by a tool yet, the contact page is the fastest way to flag it for a future round.