Newish Amphibian Keeper

[pannaking22]

Hello everyone! I'm pretty new to the hobby (though I did keep White's tree frogs for a few months two years ago before trading them for amblypygids and mantids at a local expo), but am interested in what this hobby has to offer. I'm a very active member of the invertebrate hobby (I'm currently keeping ~56 species of insects and arachnids), but have always wanted to be a part of the other half of the "weird people" hobby, as some of my friends put it. My roommate is also a keeper, but his only amphibian experience has been with a pacman frog. He has several reptiles though, which are quite interesting all in themselves.

I'm planning on going to NARBC Tinley Park tomorrow and may end up purchasing an amphibian of some sort (most likely a frog). I've been researching poison dart frogs pretty heavily the last couple months, but I'll just be going to drool over those since I can't really give them the set up they require at this point. Instead, I've been looking at bumble bee toads. I like the coloration and the fact that they are diurnal. They also sound pretty active, which is a huge plus. From what I've been reading on the care sheets both here and on Josh's Frogs, along with some of the threads people have started here, they sound pretty hardy and care is simple as long as I pay attention to a few basic requirements (humidity, proper food size, etc.). For some of my small spiderlings, I've had to culture fruit flies and I regularly put isopods in with some of my roaches and tarantulas that need higher humidity, so those things shouldn't be a problem. I have various enclosures of all sizes I can put them in, anywhere from a 16 oz deli cup (which I would never use except for transport) up to a 5 gallon glass enclosure.

Any thoughts, advice, notes, etc. will be happily read! Glad to be part of the forum!

[Lija]

Hahahaha well put! The weird people hobby lol

Have fun in the forums! And welcome

[Krispy]

Lmao. My family called me wierd too. So i told them i was going to rub a needle on a poison dart frog and stick it in their chair bwa ha ha. It honestly was a joke but they didn't think so. On the plus side no more in laws at the house.

Welcome to the nerd farm!!!

If you love dart frogs and need an easy one to take care of. Get a clown tree frog. I think they're little dart imposters but they're so pretty. Tree frog care is easy. We have been researching darts in my house for 3years and we are still too nervous to pull the trigger even though i have every thing else under the sun almost...

Let us know how it goes!!!!!!

[Lija]

Hey. There are a lots of us, therefore we are normal! It's everybody else is weird! Lol that's how I look at it

and you're right! Having the basement the way we do is guaranteed way to keep inlaws away lol
and by the way darts are way easier to care for then Pacman frogs just sayn and watching them lay eggs and then tads to develop is so cool! I say you should just swing by vivarium section to check on the tank building, build one ( way easier then it seems, really), grow some plants in there and then in a few months get some frogs. You'll love them

[pannaking22]

Thanks for the welcomes! I ended up getting two little bumble bee toads and am really enjoying them so far. They've really begun to settle in, so hopefully they'll start getting a bit more bold. It didn't take them too long to realize that I'm the one that brings them food, so that should make them a bit more comfortable I'll try to get some pics of their enclosure up later in the vivs section for critiques and to also answer a couple other questions I won't clog up this thread with.

Those clown tree frogs are gorgeous! Definitely something I'll have to keep an eye out for now. Are they diurnal like dart frogs, or do they tend to be nocturnal like regular tree frogs? I did enjoy the easy tree frog care when I had my two White's. Things to climb on, mist them daily, throw something edible in every couple days and they seemed pretty content with their lives.

I feel that dart frogs would be a lot more exciting to watch. They at least move around and interact with their environments, whereas it seems like pacmans just find a comfy spot and that's it. I'm going to be moving in a few months, so once I get a little more settled I'm going to start building a nice dart frog enclosure, but for now, I'm going to enjoy my bumble bee toads!