Giving up on toppers

[ps25]

Not sure if this belongs here or in Behaviour.  Anyway - I've had it with tank toppers! 

Over the years I have had multiple gerbils clans without any issues, including a female trio who all lived happily to old age.  A few years ago, with most of my gerbils in 20g tanks, I decided to add tank toppers to provide more space and variety to their environment. 

Since then, I have 2 declans.  At the time of the first declan, I thought it was just a bad pairing.  For the second declan, the ladder up to the topper was definitely a source for the squabbles. But I still carried on using the toppers for the other tanks.

This spring, I've been having to put two separate gerbil pairs in time outs due to mounting tensions, and again, I think the tank topper was a trigger for the scuffles.  When I reintroduced a pair in just the 20g tank, they settled down and looked stable again.  A few days later, I reintroduced the topper and within a few weeks, the squabbles were starting up again.  Repeat the cycle of time out/20g only/re-add the topper and the same thing happened again.  At this point, I am giving up on toppers.  Its too stressful, watching their every move to see if one of the gerbils is trying to dominate access to the ladder.  I've even tried rearranging the tank so that there is easer access without the ladder but it didnt help.  

So from now on, no more tank toppers :-(

[Mygerbiliscute]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with toppers. I keep my gerbils in a 20-gallon tank with a topper, too. I love my topper; it's aesthetically pleasing to me, it provides extra living space for my gerbils, and I really like being able to put their water bottle in a place where it won't get buried under the bedding.
I love putting an almost-empty tissue box in their topper and coming back awhile later to find my two cuties in the box, curled up near each other, fast asleep. They seem to find it a comfortable bed. I would love to hear from more experienced gerbil owners as to whether or not toppers put gerbils at risk and whether or not there's anything I could do to make my topper safer.

[Markpd]

Interesting to hear ps25, and sorry to hear it's been so stressful .

How big was their ladder to the topper? Did you try adding a 2nd ladder, or a bigger one?

Oh and yes you posted in the right section

Have you already posted about any declans to my 'clan experiences' thread?

Mygerbilscute
whether or not toppers put gerbils at risk [of declanning?]...

They can if they have a single access point which is easily defensible/blockable by 1 gerbil. To avoid that, either have 2 access points or 1 wide one which a single gerbil can't block.

[ps25]

The ladders that came with the toppers were about 40cm long so the bottom 1/3 or so would be buried within the deep bedding. It did try replacing them with two shorter ladders and also removing ladders completely by having a platform immediately beneath the base of the topper. Both alternative set ups were designed to allow freer access to the topper. All sets up that I tried eventually resulted in the beginnings of a declan.

Both tanks have been topper-free for about a month now, and so far, all gerbils are getting along much better.

I really hope other people have better luck because I really like the idea of the topper to provide extra space and more variety in their environment. But I am now convinced the toppers were a trigger for my gerbils misbehaving :-(

[Markpd]

Ok, I'm still not clear on whether or not they had 2 separate ladders (going to 2 entrances) to the topper, did they? Would be useful to know.
And how big was the entrance/entrances? Again, would be handy to know so perhaps at some point we' could determine what the minium size would be for e.g a single entrance.

Anyway, glad to hear your gerbils are getting on better now .

[ps25]

Sorry, I wasnt very clear. For most of the time, both tanks only had a single ladder. Once I realised there was trouble brewing with my girls, I set up a second ladder at the opposite end of the opening. Having the second access point seemed to settle things down for a while but then the chasing started again (I think they both preferred the same ladder!). Then I removed the ladders completely and put a large platform underneath the opening so that they could hop up at any point. Again things settled down for about a week before the chasing started again. I really dont know why the little gerbil minds still found this to be something to argue about but they did. We are about 4 weeks now without a topper and they have been perfectly happy. (Hope I havent just jinxed myself by saying that).

For the boys, the single ladder up to the topper was definitely an issue and I would watch one of them sitting on it to prevent the other from going up. Or rush to defend the ladder if the other one looked like he was going to use it. The tank only had a small opening to the top so there wasn't any other option to set up extra access. So I just decided to get rid of that topper all together. And again, they have been fine ever since.

[Markpd]

No worries

Yea it is often warned about that a single access point to a topper can be a point of contention.

Interesting about your girls focusing on one ladder though! And how frustrating! Lol.
Were the 2 ladders side by side? How big was the opening?
Sorry for all the questions!