Begginer dart frog questions

[Andrew exotics]

Hello i was looking to get 1 poison dart frog.Before i begin i wanted to say that im not an idiot when it comes to frogs i can supply a nice heavily planted nice looking vivarium.I was looking to see if any darts would fit in a 5 gallon?Im not into the thumbnail frogs those are just way too tiny.Sorry if i sound like an idiot but are there any really cool dart frogs that i can put in a 5 gallon?(only one frog will be housed in there.Dont really know anything about the frogs so if you can tell me a little bit about them that would be great.-Andrew

[flybyferns]

Hi Andrew.
It's small.
Think about , for example, the space the substrate and background will take up.
By the time you're done.... there may be only 3 gallons of actual living space leftover for the frog

[deranged chipmunk]

It's not really about volume (gallons), but territory. There's just not enough floor space to house anything comfortably. Even aerial space is limited for the climbers.

A 5 gallon would be cool for a mantid species or a tarantula maybe

[Happy Frog]

It just won't work for the long run. Maybe as a grow-out tank for 1-2 froglets. Frogs jump around quite a bit.

I've heard of experienced Dart Froggers that keep pairs of Tincs in 10 gallon tanks for years and they do alright, but that's still pushing it. I have a pair of D. tinctorius "azureus" in a 20 gallon long and they move all over the tank. Before the 20L I housed them in a 20H.

[Andrew exotics]

Ill just go with my 20 high in a month or two but i just thought about how to keep fruit flies in the enclosure?Ive seen people on youtube with these custom glass top but dont they need to breathe?How can I make a screen top keep in fruit flies?Also can i just buy a culture of fruit flies from petsmart every week or two to feed my frogs?

[Happy Frog]

Ill just go with my 20 high in a month or two but i just thought about how to keep fruit flies in the enclosure?Ive seen people on youtube with these custom glass top but dont they need to breathe?How can I make a screen top keep in fruit flies?Also can i just buy a culture of fruit flies from petsmart every week or two to feed my frogs?

1. "Keeping fruit flies in the enclosure"...This seems to be a problem for a lot of people but it's never been one for me. All you have to do is only feed your frogs the amount of flies they can consume immediately before too many get away. A few flies running around the enclosure is okay.

2. As far as frogs needing to breathe - This is asked a lot on DF forums. Have you ever wondered why dart frog tanks are created with live tropical plants? Simple science. Plants take in carbon dioxide and create ??? That, and the two are three times you may open the tank for feeding and misting everyday will create enough air exchange.

3. You need to learn how to culture fruit flies. The fruit flies that PetsMart sells are D. hydei and although they are okay for larger and adults frogs, they should not be a staple food source. Also, the amount of flies in those vials are not enough to feed with. I myself culture three different types of flies and once every three weeks I buy 500-1000 pinhead crickets and supplement with those. I also have springtails and isopods running around the tank.


I began studying about Dart Frogs in the late 90's when I was headlong into breeding African Cichlids and Arachnids. This was also the time when Leucs and Tincs were going for 200-400 dollars apiece. Trust me, you can not do a shake-and-bake job with Dart Frogs. Although Dart Frogs are hardy, if you don't do it right you will meet with disaster. When I created my first PdF tank it had been growing in close to three months before I put my first frogs in there.

The best thing to do is this; get your twenty gallon high. Learn how to create a proper Dart Frog tank. Forget about all the fancy shmancy stuff you see or read about. I have seven PDF tanks and two are Exo Terra's and the rest are standard aquariums. Take your time learning and don't get so excited that you do an impulse buy and then have a bad experience.

I myself have been wanted to get thumbnails for quite a long time(close to a year) but have held off while studying-up on them so I can decide the best species to get for my ability.

Good luck,

[Andrew exotics]

Thanks for info Bryan it was very straight forward Ill just focus on my tree frogs and make a cool looking viv for them.Ill get into PDFs once i get some more experience with plants and frogs.