Dart frog care?

[Crystal6]

Firstly, what makes dart frogs challenging is that they are not very forgiving of mistakes. Unless you can maintain very high humidity, a stable temperature window of no lower than 65 F at night (about 18 degrees Celsius) and no higher than about 80 F during the day (about 27 degrees C), don't consider it. Also, you will need almost daily supplies of very small live food. For the vast majority of dart frog enthusiasts this means culturing your own fruit flies.


It's not that simple. There are many different kinds of dart frog and some require large areas to move around (some examples: Golden Poison Dart Frogs - Phyllobates terribilis, also Dyeing Poison Dart Frogs - Dendrobates tinctorious) , some are arboreal (most thumbnail species like the Imitating Dart Frog - Dendrobates/Ranitomeya imitator), some are extremely territorial (Dyeing Poison Dart Frog is the best example - females literally kill each other), or a mixture of all of the above.

Probably the most forgiving to start off with would be one of the races/morphs of Dyeing Poison Dart Frog, Dendrobates tinctorious. You could keep a pair in a 10g tank if it's landscaped correctly, but never more than 1 female unless you have a huge tank like a 75g. Since we currently don't have any dart frog care articles, I recommend you read Devin Edmond's excellent beginners guide.

O_O Ah. Ty. So these eat a lot more frequently then White's Treefrogs?

[Kurt]

Yes, they do. They are also diurnal.

[Crystal6]

Yes, they do. They are also diurnal.

Nice. My white's eats about 5-7 a week. (usually in one sitting)

Do these eat several a day? Or...? (I need to know so I don't get too many and wipe out my cricket population rather then just keeping it from growing out of control.)

[Kurt]

Mine eat many in a typical feeding. Like I said before you could be raise fruit flies and bean weevils to make sure there is enough food.

[John]

Crickets are not a viable food for most dartfrogs (too big and not consistent enough in supply). One of the larger morphs of tinctorious will easily down 30 or 40 Drosophila hydei in one sitting (that's the larger kind of flightless fruit fly cultured in captivity). Mine will eat that many each per day.

[John]

I would like to add that, once you get the hang of it, dart frogs are relatively easy to look after, and certainly the easiest frogs to breed, but "getting the hang of it", particularly for people who don't do a lot of research beforehand, usually involves killing frogs along the way. So please do that research first and understand that you're going to have to culture fruit flies - there's no way around it.

[Crystal6]

I would like to add that, once you get the hang of it, dart frogs are relatively easy to look after, and certainly the easiest frogs to breed, but "getting the hang of it", particularly for people who don't do a lot of research beforehand, usually involves killing frogs along the way. So please do that research first and understand that you're going to have to culture fruit flies - there's no way around it.

Ah, so I CAN'T keep them alive on very young crickets then. Okay.

[John]

You could but it would be a nightmare, and what happens when the cricket culture crashes?

[Crystal6]

Crickets are not a viable food for most dartfrogs (too big and not consistent enough in supply). One of the larger morphs of tinctorious will easily down 30 or 40 Drosophila hydei in one sitting (that's the larger kind of flightless fruit fly cultured in captivity). Mine will eat that many each per day.

30 or 40 daily per frog?