Considering darts

[Paul Rust]

It's not as difficult as you are making it. As long as you have temp and humidity under control you have the battle all but won. I would start with Tincs or Leucs or even Auratus as they are pretty durable and bold.

[Kurt]

And auratus are fairly affordable. I saw black & greens and black & blues for $20 each last weekend in Hamburg.

[JimO]

I have mostly dart frogs - azureus, auratus and imitators so far. I'm breeding the azureus and auratus, with good results. NW Amphibian Rescue is right, temp and humidity are the key elements for the frogs themselves. What complicates it for most people is designing and maintaining water features and various plants. If you're content with a basic setup, I find them no more difficult than the local treefrogs my son collects. One difference is that they eat small food and most folks culture their own fruit flies, which is inexpensive and pretty simple.

[1beataway]

I wanted to go all out with this tank. I wanted it heavily planted with real plants, and to take the time to really plan it out.

However, I'm not sure now if the size of tank I was considering would be too small. I may end up going for clown treefrogs.

[John]

Once you've got it figured out, honestly dart frogs are easier and cheaper (culturing fruit flies costs almost nothing when you cost it out over a few months and the only other running cost I have is lighting the terraria).

[1beataway]

I don't know. I can't decide between the clown treefrogs and darts.

And then I was reminded by Paul that fruit fly cultures would contain maggots, and that completely turned me away. lol

[JimO]

One big advantage of dart frogs is that they're active during the day. If you choose one of the species mentioned above, you'd need at least a 15-gal for a pair and that's on the small side. Those species are primarily ground dwellers, so a lower tank with a larger surface area is best. I probably wouldn't keep a pair or group of three of the species above in anything smaller than a 20-gal long aquarium.

A pair of imitators, on the other hand could be kept in a 10-gal with a vertical conversion kit because they use the vertical space and they are quite a bit smaller. However, if you haven't kept dart frogs, the smaller species are not the best to start with and they are more expensive.

Good luck with whatever you choose.