Red-Eyed Leaf Frog / Agalychnis callidryas caresheet

[John]

Our second care and information sheet is for the Red-Eyed Leaf Frog, Agalychnis callidryas. It was written by Kurt Kunze (thanks Kurt!). It can be found at this link: Red-Eyed Leaf Frog / Agalychnis callidryas care & information sheet.

Please use this thread to discuss/debate/argue/change the care and information sheet.

[Kurt]

Our second care and information sheet is for the Red-Eyed Leaf Frog, Agalychnis callidryas. It was written by Kurt Kunze (thanks Kurt!).

You're welcome and thank you too.

[John]

Hey Kurt, you need to fill in the "About the Author" bit at the end.

[sepgundamrg]

Could you post an easy guide to sexing red-eyed tree frogs? Or would I need to compare my frogs to a frog proven to be a female? Any tell tale signs of sex w/o them being in amplexus?

[Kurt]

Amplexus is definitely a dead give away to gender. Females are larger and males sing. Thats about it.

[kimmy]

Amplexus is definitely a dead give away to gender. Females are larger and males sing. Thats about it.

I had 2 red eyed tree frogs which I got for my birthday about a week and half ago, one of them died when we were transferring them to my house ... I have still got one left and he's about 6 months old and he's about an inch in length .. I'm not sure if he's make or female (but I've been calling him male )

How can you find the sex when you don't have one to compare it to .. Do I just have to wait and see if he's starts to croak?

Thanks

[ViperJr]

I know I said it before, but perhaps add somewhere that they are on CITES II and B-listed in Europe?

[Heatheranne]

The humidity for red eyed tree frogs should be 70 to 80%.

[VooDoo]

FYI. The link for the care sheet in the first post doesn't work.

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

We know, I'll link it here

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

http://www.frogforum.net/content.php...nis-callidryas

[Diver]

Here's an up to date care sheet:


Captive Care of the Red Eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas)


Below is a brief summary of the techniques used to ensure your Red Eyed Tree Frog leads a healthy and happy life under your care.

Purchase:
The first and arguably most important step! It is absolutely VITAL that you ensure the frog you are buying has been captive bred. There are many breeders of this wonderful amphibian and purchasing a captive bred animal will mean you have a frog who is used to living in a vivarium all it’s life and will fare far better than one that has been removed from the wild (during it’s breeding season!), shoved in a box and shipped from one dealer to the next to get to you. Wild caught frogs die in huge numbers during shipment, carry all manner of diseases and parasites (which will spread among captive collections) and the trade is now quite unnecessary when there are so many quality captive bred examples available. If the supplier of your frog doesn’t know for sure that it was captive bred, don’t buy it!

Housing:
Bigger is better! If we base sizes on the popular Exo Terra glass vivarium, while a 30x30x45 cm is fine for juveniles, they will quickly outgrow it. A Red Eyed Tree Frog can be approaching adult size as quickly as 6-8 months of age. The 45x45x60 is suitable for an adult pair or trio. These are very active frogs!
The decoration of the interior is important. Ideally we are looking to recreate as closely as possible the habitat in which these animals live in the wild, there are no plastic plants there! While we might be convinced a fake plant looks authentic, there’s no fooling a tree frog. These creatures have evolved a close relationship with plants over millions of years, they sleep firmly attached to the underside of leaves forming a moisture-saving posture with their thin-skinned undersides in contact with the leaf. There is evidence that this helps the frog maintain it’s hydration and even that there is some gaseous exchange of oxygen and CO2. Red Eyed Tree Frogs need real live plants! Broad leaf vines such as Pothos and Philodendron are ideal and can be purchased from specialist suppliers to ensure they are free of pesticides and fertilisers etc. They can also be bought from garden centres but great care must be taken to thoroughly wash the leaves and soil to remove all traces of contaminants.
As far as substrate is concerned, I prefer a natural, bio-active approach. Basically, a drainage layer is topped with soil and orchid bark, living in this are creatures such as springtails and woodlice which dine on any waste and mould keeping the vivarium clean. There are now specialist companies that supply substrate in the bio-active philosophy and much information can be found online.
Add to this some clean branches and you have a natural environment for your frogs that beyond some basic spot cleaning is largely low maintenance meaning you can leave you frogs to get on with their natural behaviour with minimum disturbance. Handling frogs causes them great stress and should be kept to the absolute minimum!

Heat, Light and Humidity:
Ideal temperatures are 26-28C during the day and 23-24C at night, this can be provided by bulbs, ceramics, vertical heat mats or heat cable on the outside or simply a temperature controlled room.
UVB of around 5% should be provided. Frogs need vitamin D3 in order to absorb calcium, this is best supplied in the way they get it in the wild, from sunlight. Bulbs which emit the same UVB as sunlight are available and should be used, despite these frogs being strictly nocturnal, they sleep out in daylight and as a consequence receive sunlight and therefore UVB. Without calcium and vitamin D3 frogs develop nasty conditions such as Metabolic Bone Disease and without UVB their behaviour is noticeably less natural and their colours less vibrant.
Humidity should be maintained between 60-70%. Using moist natural substrate and live plants does most of this work for you, a light misting of treated or distilled water twice a day will keep the levels right. One of the biggest mistakes people make with this species is keeping them too wet. Plastic plants and sterile housing encourages people to close off ventilation and constantly spray the enclosure to keep up the humidity, the resulting large amounts of sitting water encourages bacteria to grow and bacteria kills frogs. There should not be streaming condensation on the walls of the enclosure, good ventilation is required and if anything err on the side of dryer rather than wetter if in doubt.

Food and water:
Red Eyed Tree Frogs will take a variety of fast moving prey, the best staples are crickets and locusts. All prey items should be gut loaded and dusted with calcium/vitamin preparations. Various gut loading fruit and veg can be used, I always include kale (high in calcium!) and carrot, with various others depending on what I have, but always organic to be sure of no pesticides. I also use a dry staple such as ‘bug grub’, the bran that crickets and locusts come packaged with is not a suitable gut loader.
A water bowl needs to be provided and the water changed EVERY DAY with fresh, treated tap or rain water, a product such as ‘Reptisafe’ is a good water treatment. Tree frogs drink by sitting in water and often it’s the first thing they do every night when they wake up. If the water is contaminated with fecal matter, dead crickets etc., the frogs will take this bacteria-loaded water into their bodies with disastrous results.

In conclusion....The Red Eyed Tree Frog is a wonderful and beautiful amphibian to keep, and only needs to be given the right conditions in captivity to thrive. Enjoy!

[dannyboy760]

Does anyone feed there red eyed tree frog during the day?(wake him up) or do most feel confident with bugs inside the vivarium?

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[John]

Heather, please start your own thread in the tree frogs section - this comments section on the care article only exists for people's comments about the article.

[coolicarboy]

The link is dead. :P

[John]

I know, it's on my to-do list already. The article is here: Frog Forum - Red-Eyed Leaf Frog/Red Eyed Tree Frog Care - Agalychnis callidryas

[JWells]

Nice write up.

My only problem with is that you say, "I have used 10 gallon (38 L) aquariums for 2 to 3 adult frogs..."

Your success breeding them speaks for itself, but isn't this size tank pretty tight for adults?

Also, I may have missed it, but at what humidity do you recommend to keep them at?