First Dart Frog Trio

[audi772]

Hey guys, had the day off today so I went down to, my local pet store and walked out with frogs. The store is going through some changes and they have put a few of their vivariums and their own breeding frog pairs up for sale. Ended up getting the 18x18x18 setup that they have had there for years along with the three auratus dart frogs that have been in there for as long as I can remember. The trio is already breeding and they have been for a while now. I've seen this trio in there for a couple years now. I have had it setup in my living room now for about 5 hours, temp is staying at 71 and humidity is at 85%. The employees hadn't fed them yet today so I told them I would do it when I got them settled in today. I bought one culture of hydei fruit flies. Fed them about 35 minutes ago and they all ate well. I only have a couple questions so far. One is with the setup of the vivarium itself. I know that normally you have a drainage layer with some sort of media down in it, but this setup just has about 2 inches of standing water, an eggcrate layer, then a screen divider, then the other layers of substrates. Is this type of bottom layer usable? Or should I change it and put some media down there? The other question is with the frogs. I just recently gained interest in frogs so everytime I saw the frogs before I never looked to close at them. But now that I have them home I have began to notice that two of them are a very distinct blue and the other is a distinct shade of green. The store employee told me that they were all Panamanian green and bronze. I saw on joshs frogs that this color type can range from blue to green. So I'm not sure if I have three of the same frogs or two are the same and the other is a different color type.... I added some pics below but its hard to see the difference of color in the pictures. What do you guys think? Am I alright or am I mixing frogs? They have had this trio together for quite some time now and they have been breeding them. That is also what I plan to do with them. If the size of vivarium they are in is an issue I do have a bigger setup that is in the planning stages but it wasn't meant for these guys so if they are alright in here I'll leave them. They have been in this setup for a while to and still actively bred while the store had them so they seem happy. I am very happy with them, fantastic to watch and its only been a few hours. Any and all advice please share. Thanks guys!!

[deranged chipmunk]

Welcome to the forum and to frogging. the set up is fine. It's called a false bottom and needs to be drained from time to time. Please tell me they gave you care instructions to go along with the frogs? You will definitely need more than one fruit fly culture to start with.

As for the frogs, sadly, pics won't show the subtleties of the colors, but they do appear to be the same species.

If you are planning on breeding them, you are gonna need a bunch of tadpole supplies. There are a couple threads on raising dart tads in the dart forums.


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

[audi772]

The store employees did not give me any instructions on the vivarium itself. The frogs they gave me care instructions for but most of it I already knew from research over the last two weeks online and form joshs frogs. I only bought one culture from them to begin with and bought the kit from joshs frogs that makes 10 cultures. I'm sure I will have to go get a few more cultures for them before the ones from joshs frogs get here and produce any to eat. I'm excited to breed them. I read all the how-to's on josh's frogs and a few threads on here. How soon do you think they could start breeding after the move to my house? I've been debating on how early I should buy the tadpole supplies. Is the kit from josh's frogs the easiest way to go? I think I know a lot of what i'm doing but I could use help on the routine stuff I have to do to the vivarium. When I bought the setup they said change the water in the drain level... do I have to actually drain it and replace it new water like a fish aquarium?? Or did they just mean empty out the water that's accumulated down there? I plan on feeding them once every other day, most likely sticking a piece of banana in there to see if i'm overfeeding or underfeeding. How often should you mist the viv and how much? Hopefully I'm not asking to many questions. I feel pretty confident that I know enough to get started.

[deranged chipmunk]

if they have already bred previously, then they could breed again at any time. i can't vouch for josh's kit, never used it, didn't know they had a tadpole rearing kit, tbh lol

the viv. you'll want to drain water out when it gets too close to the false bottom. you only want to drain off enough water so that the level is an inch or so below the false bottom. daily misting will add water to that. it's a vicious cycle, mist, mist, mist, drain, mist ,mist, mist, drain. lol you really only want to mist enough to sustain humidity levels and to keep the plants healthy. there's no set amount that should be done. you'll get into a routine soon enough. your plants will be the best indicator of the world inside the tank. remember to use either distilled or dechlorinated tap water to mist with.

[Mentat]

Hello and welcome to FF ! Myself feed all my darts on a daily basis and use a variety of Repashy's products to dust the flies. There are articles in the care section that will help you prepare FF cultures and if you search forum will find a few threads on it. Cultures can get mites (table salt sized white moving dots) and or crash; so having at least an extra one for a back up is recommended. If planning to breed, will also require to have several Springtail cultures and at least one of the smaller D. melanogaster FF (the adults can eat the larger D. hydei). Good luck!

[DigitalPunk]

Hi and welcome to the Forum! Bill and Carlos have you well in hand!

[audi772]

Thanks guys! With the springtails, do I just buy one and seed the tank and buy a few extra cultures to have around? How long do the cultures last before they expire? Josh's frogs seems to have a kit that follows the eggs through the spots until adulthood. I think I'll try his kits to begin with and keep reading around on other methods. It's only been a few hours of having them but I already know I'll like frogs a lot. I find myself watching them a lot. Hopefully that doesn't disturb them. So far all my misting is by hand and my temp and humidity are read by the little stick on round ones. What do you guys recommend? Digital for temp and humidity? And is automatic misting worth the cost? I would assume not for one tank but maybe after I have a few more.

[Strider18]

Hello and welcome forums! I will be building a misting system for my tank but only because it is 120 gallons and it will have air flowing through it so it will need to be misted often (house gets a little to hot for the darts). It probably wouldn't be worth it for a tank that small IMO.

0.0.1 PCf
Soon to come 0.0.4 Phyllobates bicolor

[flybyferns]

Hello Again,

Welcome--- lots of excellent information and great members here for you !

I think this was a great way to have purchased the frogs - especially this species.
This species - does NOT like change; they don't like their stuff messed with.

So you know... if you make any changes ( ie plant trimming etc ) do very little at a time.
They can get under things too ! You don't want to - ever- go digging
For example --- be very careful if adding a new plant; know where they are , otherwise they are right in the hole !!!

They do well in a groups like this

IMO - keep an eye on the integrity of the false bottom.
If there is a small opening anywhere in the enclosure-- this species WILL find it and squeeze their little bodies right in ! Be alert for this since there may be a little stress having moved their enclosure.

We all do things a little differently. I feed all PDF daily. If you see there are a lot of leftover flies--- hold off for a day or so , so they can clean up.----and/or put less in.

Careful w/ the banana if you are culturing 2 different species of fruit flies. If the species inter-breed in the tank ----> they will take 'flight'. Yikes !

Best of luck

[audi772]

Update on the frogs for you guys. They are doing very well, eating good everyday. I woke up today and found that one of them is starting to wander back under the coco hut every now and then. None of them were going in it for the first few days. Tank hits a high of 74 and low of 68 in a 24 hour span so that seems good. My fruit fly culturing kit came in from josh's frogs yesterday so that will be nice to have now. Humidity usually stays around 85%. I find them very interesting. I watch them quite often, and they do the same whenever they see me. They are up on the front glass quite often looking out. Well that's it for today with these guys. I have some new pics I'll post up as well. Hopefully everyone is well!!

[flybyferns]

They are beautiful!
Enjoy them.
I'm jealous --- I never see my auratus