New arrivals.

[Kurt]

I have not heard any calling from them yet. I did have a listen to a WAV file of microps, so I am assuming bifasciatus may have similar call.
They are kept in a large critter keeper in which I have made a false bottom. (See my red-eye article on how to make a false bottom) The substrate is sphagnum over "hydro-balls" or LECA. They have a few plastic plants and a PVC cap with holes drilled it, it serves as a hide box, they barely use it these days. There is a water bowl with a fake plant in it. Thats pretty much it.

[Buck Rogers]

I have had trouble in the past with false bottoms, but in all fairness I did not construct it properly. This weekend I am putting their cage together, I am using a 2ft fish tank and will have perlite at the bottom with screen mesh over the perlite, then I will pile a mixture of local sands (sandy type soil) and peat moss together and pile it on top of the mesh, using a normal ceramic water bowl, and will add some water plants and a fern with some logs. I am not keen to add the logs as I fear they wil spend too much time buried under the logs but will try this for a week or so and see how it goes.

How does that sound to you?

[Kurt]

I would think it would work. I use shpagnum as a substrate, which is impossible for these frogs to swallow. I do have reservations about using any sand. If these frogs naturally occur in this type of soil, then I feel it should be ok for them in captivity.

[Buck Rogers]

Hi Kurt

I wanted to give you an update of my banded frogs on this side. A week ago I took a 2foot fishtank with a vented lid and converted it to their new viv. I mixed a ration of 50-50 top soil and play pen sand with water and then added 1/3 peat moss and mixed it all together. I placed a layer of perlite on the bottom and then covered it with screen mesh and then piled the soil mix on top of that. Added a normal house fern and a log and a water bowl with some stones around it and some sphagnum moss to the set up and here is a pic of their enviroment:



Sorry if the pic is not 100% clear but it gives a clear indication of what I am talking about.

So far this has proved really successful, I have the 3 females in here at the moment and want to fatten the males up a bit before moving them over, but they have made good use of their enviroment. They have burrowed under the log and wedge themselves in the grooves of the log as well which is a great start. I added an extra heating pad to get the temps to mid 20 degress celcius (metric sorry) and this has pumped up their activity. Reason why I did this is because coming into summer they would experience extremely high day time temps and cooler night time temps so trying my best to recreat this as possible.

Last week we had some small rains and straight away all three females were in the water bowl waiting, so this to me indicates that already they may be ready for mating and want to get the males up to a decent size to see if anything happens. The other night I was sure that I heard one of the males calling but couldn't be sure, have you heard yours calling?

[Kurt]

Not at all, but I am hoping once I throw them in a rain chamber for a few days that will change. I lost one recently. I notice when I fed them that one was having trouble trying to catch food. The tongue barely came out of it's mouth, so I made up a slurry with a vitamin supplement, vitamin A being one of them. I administered it to the frog, but a few days later I found him dead. I am hoping it was a vitamin A deficiency as I first suspected and not something else that will end up killing the other frogs.

[Buck Rogers]

I'm so sorry to hear about the loss Kurt, I lost a Tokay Gecko this weekend after I bought it malnourished and dehydrated from a neglecting pet shop in an attempt to save it - I know its a stupid thing to do.

Last night we had our first Summer thunder storms in the Highveld and man alive they came down hard!!! I missed the frogs enclosure quite heavily last night but they seemed irritated with the water, I would like to see if you experience this same thing when you put yours in the rain chamber. The temperature dropped very low today so I kept their viv cooler as well just to try keep it as natural as possible outside.

[Kurt]

I'm so sorry to hear about the loss Kurt, I lost a Tokay Gecko this weekend after I bought it malnourished and dehydrated from a neglecting pet shop in an attempt to save it - I know its a stupid thing to do.

Your heart was in the right place.

Thanks. I watched them eat last night one was a little reluctant to eat, but it did eat. The crickets were heavily duested with vitamins and calcium, so I at least got some nutrition in him/her. My original and my biggest went to town of the crickets.