Re: Dendrobates Ventrimaculatus Questions
That vivarium is wonderfully large. The water feature is really nice to look at but unnecessary with regards to the husbandry of the ranitomeya Amazonicus ( formerly known as ventrimaculatus ). Vents are more arboreal than they are terrestrial. They will descend to forage in leaf litter for springtails and other insects but will spend a good majority of their time in the upper portion of the vivarium provided the temps are appropriate. Plenty of water bearing bromeliads and film canisters are key to breeding. Vents are not obligates so once a clutch is laid you can remove it and rear tads yourself.
The size of your vivarium will lend to raising a good amount of adult vents. The only drawback to keeping too many is competition for breeding. Females have been known to eat each others eggs in order to "relieve" a male from having to guard a clutch. in other words, if a breeding male is guarding a clutch, he will not breed until the tads have been transported to canisters. another female will eat the eggs, in order to force the male to breed. To reduce the incidence of this, your male to female ratio should be equal.
If you haven't purchased the tank already, you could go with something a bit smaller. Just to give you an idea, an 18w x 18d x24h will comfortably house 4-5 adult breeding vents. For your size enclosure, you could easily double that number. By doing so, however, you will be increasing the likelihood of losing clutches to egg eating. I strongly advise skipping the water feature and providing multiple levels for frogs to inhabit. Use multiple breaks in line of sight by utilizing lots of leaf, cork bark, plants, rocks and branches in order to provide privacy. Although one of the better communal thumbnails, aggression can still occur.
Keep temps for vents between high 60's to mid 70s. They can tolerate temps as high as 78-80 for brief periods but I wouldn't recommend you letting it get that high too often. Humidity should be maintained above 80%. 90-100% is ideal. Lighting is purely for plant growth. In order to support good plant growth and color, a lighting should be in the 5000-7000kelvin color spectrum. Most froggers keep 6000-6500kelvin lights with excellent plant growth and coloration. For a 45 inch high vivarium, I would recommend around 2000 lumens of lighting to penetrate to the substrate. Here's an article to help explain the lighting jibber jabber... New England Herpetoculture LLC - Vivarium Lighting 101
If you intend on raising tadpoles, I recommend practicing culturing fruit flies in order to ensure success. Flightless ff and Turkish gliders are best for frogs the size of Vents. I also recommend culturing springtails in the vivarium as well as maintaining a few cultures in larger Tupperware / Rubbermaid containers to provide food for froglets as ff are too large for a freshly morphed baby.
Finally invest in supplements for your frogs. I personally use Repashy supplements. A very light dusting on springtails and ff right before feeding will provide proper supplementation for your frogs. I use Repashy cal plus and vitamins alternating each time I feed. Cal +one day and vitamin the other. Once a month, I provide vitamin A dusting. Too much vitamin A is bad for frogs but a deficiency is also. Vitamin A monthly can also stimulate breeding behavior in frogs.
How's that for a care sheet. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
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