Tree frogs

[priya]

hi, i was just wondering what your views are on american and european tree frogs.

which do you prefer?

i recently bought 3 european tree frogs on line from a dealer who reccommended then over the american ones, however now i have found out that they dont get as large and spotting them in my terrarium is difficult, they are all still babies, the largest on is about 3cm.

i did state that i wanted a frog that i could see.

i have 3 of them in a exo terra terratium measuring 30 x30x 40 cm.

if the worst comes to the worst could i add a couple of american tree frogs to the tank with them so i have something i can see?

[priya]

By American and European i mean both the green variety.

[StephenLS]

Hi Priya

I had a large group of American Green Tree Frogs. Are yours not active on a night?

In all honesty the majority of anurans are happiest when hidden away - especially during daylight!

What temperature and lighting are you providing?


Ta


Steve

[priya]

well as there european tree frogs im just keeping them at room temperature with a 40 watt bulb for them to bask, they are only about 33cm long at the mo, do you know much about the european ones as there isnt much info on the net?

[Kurt]

Try searching under the name Hyla arborea. Also I would not mix frog species. Stick with Hyla arborea and if you want Hyla cinerea, set up another tank. You are lucky, European treefrogs are rarely, if ever, offered over here on the other side of the "pond".

[priya]

they are rarely offered here too, believe it or not it is the american tree frogs which are the most available here too. i just came across them online by chance.

i have looked up hyla aborea but it still havent found much information them.

the only site i have found is one that says that they will go into hybernation for 3 months of the year weather or not they are kept warm or not. i dont know if this is true as the dealer said that they wont if they are kept at room temp. the web article insists they will.

[Kurt]

They may or may not, I can't say one way or another. Your chances of keeping them from hibernating are better if you keep a 12 hour photo-perieod for them as well as keeping them warm. However some animals will still go off feed and go into hibernation mode regardless of what you do. Of course, if this the case you must cool the frogs before they waste away.

[priya]

this all seems quite complicated, i told the dealer i wanted something easy to keep as i am quite new to frog keeping. i will put a heat mat on there tank as over night it is getting dont to about 16.c here at the moment.

[priya]

oh and i do have a normal light bulb on there which is on from 8am to 8pm. do you think i will need the heat mat for them?

[StephenLS]

Quite honestly Priya I find frogs and toads from temperate regions of the world can be harder to look after than tropical species.

If you can ask the dealer to find out if they are captive bred or wild caught. I imagine they are WC in which case ask for the country of origin and thenm look up a temperature chart on google. If they are wild caught they could already have entered a period of dormancy before you got them. In the mean time I wouldn't bother with any additional heating for them...and to be honest you could probably just have the tank in a light room (not in direct sunlight)!

I'm not entirely sure why he's sold you these as a frog you can see. During spring/summer on a night then maybe!

For future ref I highly recommend Dwarf clawed frogs as a starter species - they are fully aquatic, cheap and can be trained take frozen food + they are usually fairly visible!

I'd like to know how you get on!

[Kurt]

oh and i do have a normal light bulb on there which is on from 8am to 8pm. do you think i will need the heat mat for them?

What do you mean by a normal light bulb? Do you mean an incandescent bulb, or perhaps fluorescent one?

[priya]

the frogs i have are captive bred, they are only small babies at the mo.

i have a normal 40 watt light bulb as a basking spot for them and it also gives them a sence of night and day.

they are kept indoors so they shouldn't get to cold. although i was wondering about the heat mat for them because it gets quite cold over night.

maybe they are just hiding away alot because they are small

i just dont want them to go into hibernation as i wouldnt know what to do lol.

i have kept clawed frogs before but i prefer the ones that are on land.

[priya]

earlier in the thread i said the frogs were 33 cm long, i meant 3 cm lol, sorry typing error.

[BEETLE]

I have kept both species in the past and cannot remember much difference in their visability. I found the trick was to provide tempting perching places in areas that could be seen, I have seen plenty of Hyla arborea sitting out in sunlight in the South of France and Hungary.

[priya]

so how big do they get mark?

[BEETLE]

Hyla arborea get about 5cm and are heavier built than the American species. I had no problems with them trying to hibernate and remember they had a real preference for true flies as food, though they were not fussy.

[priya]

im feeding them crickets, where do i get flies from?

what frogs do u keep mark?

[BEETLE]

I used to get maggots from fishing tackle shops, always getting the white non-dyed type. These hatch out into blue bottles (Blow flies). You can then gut load these by feeding then mashed banana with soime vitamin powder on. The problem is the tackle shops sell them by the pint, thats a lot of flies. By fridging the casters (pupa) and bringing them out in batches you can stagger their emergence. I have heard people say that maggots are fed on rotting meat and they are concerned about disease but I figure once the protein is turned into fly it wouldn't matter where it came from, they are not likely to have any gut content left over from when they were maggots, and they would be eating this stuff in the wild. I wouldn't be tempted to offer the maggots as food as I have known people who have had problems after doing this, they seem to have a hard to digest skin.

[Kurt]

earlier in the thread i said the frogs were 33 cm long, i meant 3 cm lol, sorry typing error.

I saw that, but I knew what you meant and I assumed everyone else did.

[Kurt]

If something eats rotting meat, the bacteria from that meat would then be living in the digestive track of that animal, I would think.