they have arrived.....................

[Nflytrap]

Interesting stuff! Like I said the vitamin supplementation thing will be totally new to me, as the animals I've kept previously do just fine without it. Actually I spend almost nothing on their food as the newts eat worms from a worm bin which costs at most $5 per year to keep with occasional frozen bloodworms as a treat...fish get prepared food, worms, BBS, and daphnia/mozzies from outside or cultures. So the idea of sustaining the life of a critter with some powdered stuff is kinda funny to me. I'm betting all the reptile keepers who do this and UV light(now that is even weirder) prolly think I am crazy though. I bet baby newts which I sometimes have problems with would benefit from the supplements though.

Btw rattler any experience with Mantella baroni? Now that is one colorful mantella. I've seen a few imports at $25.

[nepenthes_ak]

I might go find a used Fish tanke and slowly convert it into a terrrium that might be suitable to house little darts! Thanks for turning me onto another life/pocket sucking hobby!

[rattler]

no experiance with baroni but i have a couple madigascariensis which are quite similar, their pattern is a lil less well defined(rough edges between the colors) and their leg coloring is different im looking for more bestileo(i have a lonly male) and laevigata(so i have another bloodline going).



some critters, especially diurnal desert critters, and torts really do benifit from sunlight or an artificial equivilant. as for the powder, it sounds like your critters are getting enough of a varied diet where supliments for the most part are not needed

[rattler]

size referance pic of the imitators, its my thumb

[Nflytrap]

Very nice! Was madagascarensis originally considered a synonym to baroni?


You can see why they are called thumbnails! About as big as most other frogs froglets.

On the sunlight, I'd definetly agree with that...it produces noticeable changes in fish colorwise, but its pretty incredible they require that to survive. If I was to receive a ~very~ hard crack on the head and turn into a reptile keeper I'd be keeping species that do not have a strict U.V requirement like some geckos. I hope we eventually find some live foods that allow us to not use supplements on the darts as that would make things much easier.

[rattler]

no they have always been 2 seperate species. the problem is the scientists ho describe them are not those who collect them for the pet trade so there has been confusion about whats been imported in the past. they look quite similar and are probably just subspecies but they are different enough that they are kept seperate in the hobby

M. madigascariensis


M. baroni

[Kirkscoastalcarnivores]

everything looks so cool, i wish i could afford dart frogs, maybe someday ill see them in a pet store for cheap, i like your evewrything room

[JB_OrchidGuy]

Rattler I would bet the reason those guys over at the frog board get pissy when you sell those frogs cheap is because they are afraid you would take business from then and lower market price. The reason I say this is because I go to a ballpython board and there are some color porphs of ball pythons going for 25,000+ and the prices are staying that high since there are only a few breeders. Heck Albino ball pythons are still going for 1,200 for males and 1,800 for females. If someone with the capital buys snakes and starts breeding them to sell cheaper the big dealers will cutt you off and refuse to sell to you because you could ruin their gravy train. Granted these color morphs are developed by the breeders many time, but they are not that expenvice and shouldn't (in my opinion) be carrying those hefty prices. When I started a thread over there saying IF I have the money to buy a 25,000 snake I would sell the babies fro drasticly less, you should have seen the reaction. I got SLAMMED by a breeder that was real big on the site. Its because they want to keep the monopoly as long as they can and make as much as they can while the snakes are "rare" I can see the blue eyes lucy going for 100,000 since there are only a handfull of solid white ball pythons with blue eyes, but some of the others have been around long enough that they shouldnt be 8,000 snakes and such. Anyways I can go on and on about how I believe the breeders are trying to keep the prices high, but I think you get the idea.

BTW the frogs look awesome. I used to keep tree frogs. I would like to get into keeping darts once I get done with nursing school and buy a bigger house. Thanks for sharing!