Which plants have survived an adult crested gecko walking on them in a tank that drops to 50 percent by afternoon

Across six tanks over four years my survival list is unambiguous. Pothos and ficus pumila have never died in any tank. Peperomia has died only where I overwatered it. Bromeliads live but do not thrive under weak light. Ferns and jewel orchids die in anything that dries out, and small begonias are a coin flip. That is the whole list and I stopped experimenting.

Gentle disagreement with the pothos consensus, because it hides the actual problem. Pothos survives conditions that are wrong, so people plant it, see green and never fix the humidity swing. If your tank is at 50 percent by afternoon, more misting is not the fix, ventilation and substrate depth are, and once those are right a much wider plant list opens up.

Pothos, ficus pumila and peperomia are the three that survive everything in my crestie tanks, and bromeliads work if your light is decent and they get water in the cup. Jewel orchids want humidity that never drops and a gecko that does not sit on them, so both of your losses were predictable. Anything soft stemmed and thin leaved will die in a tank that swings to 50 percent, and anything with a thick waxy leaf will shrug it off.

I planted straight from the garden centre without washing the roots and lost my entire springtail culture within a fortnight. Nursery plants can carry systemic pesticides and the soil they come in is not tank soil. Now everything gets bare rooted, rinsed and grown out in a spare tub for a few weeks before it goes near an animal.

Light is the variable everyone skips. Plant lists are useless without knowing what is over the tank, and one weak LED bar on a 24 inch tall enclosure means the floor gets very little. Match the plants to the bottom third of the tank, not to the top.

Thick leaves live, thin leaves die, and your gecko will flatten anything under 15cm tall. Plant high, plant tough.