Two Questions

[deeishealthy]

Yes, yes, I know... this is the DART forum. What am I, a WTF Keeper, doing here???

Well, when my son bought me an Exo Terra 12x12x18 for Christmas, I decided it was too small for the hardy WTFs I was going to learn frog husbandry with. I've been VERY successful with setting up and maintaining Bert n Ernie, and am now looking at doing something with this tank. It was suggested I look into thumbnail Darts and I've been doing a lot of research but I still have two questions I cannot find answers to:

Do thumbnails soak like the tree frogs do and need a pool?

What if you DON'T want to breed them? All I read about is breeding and how they will raise their own young, but I have no interest in having multiple frogs! Is there anything I can do, environment wise, to discourage breeding?

[Bombina Bob]

This forum in not only for dart frogs but all species of frog, all questions are welcome.
To answer your two questions i dont think that the thumbnails soak in any large pools of water
they may soak in the cups of bromeleads and in the leaves on the bottom of the terrarium. Im
not sure how to discourage breeding though

Hope this helped!

- devin edmonds - treefrogs
- devin edmonds - frogs and toads
- Barlett & Barlett - frogs toads and tree frogs

[DartEd]

Those are great questions. Dart frogs do not require pools to soak in. They do require periodic misting to mimic the rains of the rainforest. Twice a week for about 20 seconds is adequate. To discourage breeding, ensure that you do not have any pools of standing water. If they do not have anywhere to deposit tads, they will lay eggs and the eggs will just dry up. A sure fire way is to keep only one but that's obvious. Most darts increase breeding behavior with the increase of rain which increases pools of standing water which increases food sources in the wild and provides tad deposition sites. Keep humidity on the low end by misting every 4-5 days (about 80% humidity is good ), feed every 2-3 days which limits over feeding, and allow leaf litter to dry slightly. These conditions are fine for the frogs but will not be conducive to breeding.

If you ever change your mind, do the opposite of what I've said. Water daily, feed daily, and add film canisters attached to the sides at about 30-45 degree angles about 1-3 inches of height. Variety is key. You'll have tads in no time.

Hope this helps and best of luck.