Tree Frog Enclosures

[SteveNJerry]

Whats goin on? Me and my girlfriend are about to move into our new apartment and we want to get get a few tree frogs (Steve and Jerry). We ve been looking around at enclosures and starter kits. Any recommendations on what and where to buy a good starting enclosure? Thanks

David and Kelli

[jody]

what kind of tree frogs? I have some north american green tree frogs, like the ones in my avatar and whites tree frog, but there are many more kinds. those are the best to start with. they are common, and easy to care for. you can see pick of my tanks on my albums.

[Kurt]

Well, to start off all treefrogs require good ventilation, so keep that in mind when are choosing an enclosure. The next thing to consider is what kind of treefrogs do you what? That answer will determine the size of the enclosure. Some good choices are the barking treefrog, the green treefrog, the gray treefrog, White's treefrog, & the tiger-legged monkey frog.

Barking, green, and gray treefrogs are decent choices. Their taxonomic names are Hyla gratiosa, H. cinerea, H. versicolor, & H. chrysoscelis respectively. They are all medium sized frogs that are often collected from the wild for the pet industry. Being wild caught they should be treated by a veternarian for gastrointestinal parasites. Once settled in they do make good pets. When picking them out, look for healthy indivisuals with good body weight. Avoid thin animals.

A little more exotic is the tiger-legged monkey frog, Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis. It is a small, often wild caught frog from South America. I find these little frogs to be especially hardy and I have had mine for close to ten years now. Being wild caught, they should be treated for parasites in the GI track. One drawback is that they are heavily nocturnal. So don't expect much activity out of it during the day.

Probably the best choice, especially for beginners is the White's treefrog, Litoria caerulea. These large frogs are often captive bred but are wild caught as well. You are better off buying captive bred stock if you can. White's tolerate handling better than most other amphibians and do begin to recognize their keep after a while.

Anyway, whatever frog or frogs you decide on, you should never mix species or sizes. Mixing species can lead to cross poisoning and introduction of pathogens that one or the other frog has no immunity to. Mixing sizes can lead to missing frogs, if you know what I mean. If not, big frogs will eat little frogs.

The next decision will be how do you want to set up the tank. Do you want to keep it simple and maintainence to a minimum or do you want naturally looking terrarium?

[SteveNJerry]

We saw White's at PetsMart and thats prolly what we will go with. Were would like to have it as simple and low maintenance as possible. We also were wondering if it would be more cost effective to build our own tank out of like a 10 gallon aquarium or just spend the money and get the "kit" they have at pets mart. If we were to go the non kit way what exactly do we need to get started? Thanks again.

[Kurt]

You would need a twenty-gallon tank with a screen top. With treefrogs height is better than length, so a standard twenty is better than a twenty-long. If you can find one, a twenty-extra high, is even better and uses the same size top as the ten-gallon aquarium.
You will also need a water bowl. I use dog or cat bowls as they are much cheaper than "reptile" bowls. You should mist the frogs down once a day, so you will need a spray bottle. You can either use dechlorinated tap water, spring water, or distilled water to spray your frogs. However, do not use distilled water for your frogs primary source of water.
I would use white paper towels as a substrate for a while. They are cheap, easily replaced when soiled, and will allow you to monitor your new frogs health a lot better than other substrates. You will be able to spot new fecal samples and then you be able to bring a fresh one to your vet to be examined for gastrointestinal parasites. After a period of 30 - 60 days you may change the substrate to ground coconut shell or sphagnum moss or a combination of both. Do not use gravel ever! It can and will lead to intestinal impaction and that will lead to death if left untreated.
You will need some cage furniture. This can be vines and/or branches to climb on and broad-leafed plants to hide in. You can use artificial plants if you like. Any branches you use from outside should be sterilzed by baking in an oven for an hour or so between 150 and 200 °F. That will kill any nasty critters living within them.