A little help starting.

[XavierAriana]

My girlfriend and me, have done some research and we do want some dart frogs, but wanted a bit of help.

[DanDrobates]

That’s a bit of a broad statement. What sort of advice are you looking for specifically? Vivarium setup? Culturing fruitflies? Best beginner species?

[XavierAriana]

Well best beginner species, and maybe some help with culturing fruit flies. I feel like the vivarium will be kinda easy because I've done a lot of research into it.

[DanDrobates]

A good beginner species would be anything in the phylobates genus such as terribilis, bicolor or vittatus. They are the most forgiving darts frogs for beginners. They can be kept in groups, are generally bold and will take larger prey items such as pinhead crickets. Second would be dendrobates tinctorius but their are some caveats to their care. Tinctorius can be very territorial and do best individually, in sexed pairs or trios of two males to one female. Dendrobates auratus are also readily available but tend to be very shy.

As as far as culturing goes, unless you have a steady supply from a local shop you’ll need to culture your own.

[XavierAriana]

Could you give me any tips on culturing?

[DanDrobates]

Culturing ultimately depends on the number of frogs you keep and the species. I keep (not including tadpoles) 13 individuals of different species so I make at least two new cultures a week to keep up. I also culture hydei and melsnogastor. Hydei for my large species and melanogastor for my small ones. Hydei tend to boom twice over four weeks and the melanogastor produce pretty consistently. If I am in a pinch and low on hydei I’ll feed the melanogastor as a backup. Joshs frogs sells starter kits and in my opinion their culture media is the best so they would be a good place to start stocking up. If you are starting with say two frogs you’ll want at least 3 cultures going at a time. One producing to feed off, one to seed new cultures and one as a backup.