My 8 year old son would love a lizard. We will be using a 20 gallon tank and would like it if the lizard wasn't nocturnal. What options are there?

House geckos are active during the day, also Collared lizards and skinks are pretty active during the day, collared lizards can be aggressive though, depending on the individual.. You could also get an anole, they are small, but they are not the lizard to get if you want to handle the thing, it stresses out if you mess with it too much. Good luck!

I would advise against the first thing that pops into mosts head when they think lizard, the iguana. They get to be very large and a 20 gallon wouldn't last long. Many of them are wild caught and naturally more aggressive. It would need to receive a lot of attention or it could become dangerous, especially for an 8 year old. Also unless if you are sure he would not forget to play with it, or lose interest in a few weeks, I wouldn't suggest a bearded dragon. They can be great, if handled a lot. My 9 year old nephew has one, but after a while he left it alone a lot and now his entire family is scared to play with it! It has gotten quite aggressive.

My advice would be to get your son a bearded dragon, they are very simple to take care of, as long as you give it fresh food and water daily and control the lighting (if you get a timer that will do it for ya) that's all there really is to it, they are also inexpensive and they are not nocternal, I've had mine now for years and he's still very healthy, one of the easiest reptiles to take care of by far, they arnt very aggressive, mine has never so much as attempted to bit me, they acctually seem to love being held, also pretty inexpensive to feed, I feed mine adult bearded dragon pellets, a big bag of that cost about $20 and lasts me probably a good 6monthes (if not longer) or you can feed them crickets, a dozen will cost you about a dollar, they also don't get very big and should be able to live in that 20gal for years as long as its not too crowded, if ud like any more info, just send me a message