Quote Originally Posted by Mikeco View Post
Hello everyone!
My name is Mike. Here from Colorado and I am brand new to the hobby. Last December I got married in the middle of the rainforest in Costa Rica and since that time, I have not been able to let go of the rainforest and the creatures we experienced there. It was so amazing! Our Treehouse had a resident Gecko that was very good at leaving us presents from the ceiling that were fun to step on when you had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night! I guess you could also say the "Best man" at my wedding was a tiny baby Gecko that came to hang out with me just before the ceremony. Anyway, I am here doing research. I want to build a Vivarium or ultimately a Paludarium to try to bring the outdoors inside my home. I have wanted something like this for as long as I can remember so I have decided to give it a go. I have really enjoyed looking around the forum, seeing the amazing habitats and reading member advice. I'm looking forward to researching and planning my eventual build but I don't want to attempt this before I am certain I will be able to provide a habitat where the creatures that live there will be happy and thrive.
Right now I am all about the habitat but don't have any idea on what to put in there. I really want to build a Paludarium. I want a waterfall inside the planted tank and have a pretty good idea on how to go about the build and incorporate the land and water. I really don't have any specific species in mind for residents at the moment, so thats why I'm here. I was hoping for some advice on maybe which frog(s) would be best suited to this type of environment and possibly some suggestions for fish and tiny crabs(or advice against having them) to co-exist with the frogs. Any advice and suggestions would be welcomed as I start to put this together. Looking forward to connecting with other members here. Take care all.

Mike
That's a great place to be! I wanted to build a native setup of the area around me and then selected my animals. I feel it's much better wanting to create a specific area then making a fictional one. I am not an owner of dart frogs but I admire and checkout all the cool enclosures the people who own them build.

If you are going with dart frogs they are a little more difficult to care for being dependent more on good temp and humidity. There are many good keepers who would be able to help you pick out some possible inhabitants if you are focused on dart frogs. Like I said they have beautiful setups but are delicate frogs.

If you are looking at another species of frog the notorious Red Eye Tree Frog is also a member of the rain forest so they require similar temp and humidity to the dart frogs but would not be good tank mates because the tree frogs get bigger and could potentially attempt to eat the dart frogs.

One really good tank mate to the dart frogs or in a solo setup is the Mourning Gecko. These guys are able to breed without a male so they will produce offspring without much effort. They are a small species of gecko and I hear they are very fun and if you research are good for cohabitation with the dart frogs. The geckos could be housed with some inverts like large Millipedes probably not from the rain forest but would help be a good tank mate consuming decaying plant matter and poop. A Hissing Cockroach would be able to possibly live in that setup. They will not hunt or be hunted by the geckos. Large Land Snails would also be okay they don't eat plants if you give them fish food, bird seed and etc. Snails are very funny to watch and have a lot of personality. Remember the larger millipedes and snails are okay. The smaller ones could be consumed possibly. You could allow the Banded Cricket to live in the tank as an additional feeder and inhabitant. You would still have to release some so the geckos get gut loaded and supplemented crickets. I can give you more info on that later but I'd advise releasing the crickets unless you keep the geckos or tree frogs.

If you would do fish I think smaller would be better so they do not harass the frogs. Tetras are good candidates to use as well because they are small, from the rain forest and are peaceful.

If you would look more into the tree frogs they would do okay with the fish too but may try to catch some. The tree frogs are probably better to be the only land dwelling species because they are very good hunters.

I hope you do well and maybe one of these species sparks your interest.

Good luck!

Sent from my BLN-L24 using Tapatalk