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Poison Dart Frogs!

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  • #21
Goods, it's my T5 HO lamps which cause the terrarium shelves to be warm 82-85*F in the summer months with the lights on. For the Mantids and things it didn't matter much, they just grew faster and ate more.

Johnny said:
until I think about the 200+ fruitfly cultures I had to make every week.

And that's the other reason! :lol:
 
  • #22
Haha, I had over 200 breeding groups/pairs plus another 50 or 60 rearing tanks. The fruitfly situation isn't too bad if you can keep the hobby to under 10 terrariums. Good luck with THAT though !
 
  • #23
Goods, it's my T5 HO lamps which cause the terrarium shelves to be warm 82-85*F in the summer months with the lights on. For the Mantids and things it didn't matter much, they just grew faster and ate more.

Johnny said:


And that's the other reason! :lol:

I don't think those temps would be detrimental if you kept the more common "easy" species. The flies are my least favorite part about it, but they aren't too bad...much better than crickets. Those are awful.
 
  • #24
Been a while since I updated this thread, here's a shot of one of my Ranitomeya reticulata breeders. These guys could literally sit on my pinkie nail but are quite possibly the most aggressive species I keep.

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  • #25
Whenever I start thinking that I miss doing the frogs, R.reticulata is the 1st species I think of. Definitely one of my all time favorite species. I could never find where the damned things were breeding and raising tadpoles though. I had a breeding group of 8 frogs in a well planted 33 gal long terrarium. Never found eggs. Never found tadpoles. Found plenty of froglets though !
 
  • #26
I started with a group of 4 in an 18x18x24. They woke me up one morning (They normally are very quiet even when calling.), so I went over to the tank to see one trying to drown another in a film can. This happened on consecutive days until I was down to a pair in their final tank. I think I had 3.1, which explains the aggression. It probably wouldn't have been a problem if it was 2.2, but I'm still amazed that they were that aggressive in such a huge tank compared to the frogs' size.

As far as I know, this species doesn't care for young once they've been deposited, so it's pretty awesome that you produced froglets in the tank! My male is a terrible tad transporter, but the pair lays eggs like clockwork. I'll sift around the leaves in their tank every so often and have found a clutch every time. I've got ~10 tads developing now. They really are a cool species even if they are a little shy.
 
  • #27
I never knew what the sex ratio was in my group but I didn't notice any more aggression than I did in my other groups of thumbnails. The tank they were in was 48"L x 18"W x 12"T. It was very heavily planted with a running stream going diagonally from the back left corner into a small "pond" in the front right corner. I never saw a single tadpole in the water. There was a good amount of java moss in the water but enough open space that you would think you'd notice a tadpole or two from time to time. My castaneonicus were set up in the same size tank minus the stream and I would find froglets in there occasionally as well. While some other Ranitomeya species like lamasii or imitator will feed their tadpoles from time to time, I never witnessed this with any of my ventrimaculata complex frogs and never heard of it happening with castaneonicus, quinqueviattus or reticulata.
 
  • #28
Yeah, I bet you had so much success with that size group because of all the ground space that tank provides. I've found that, unlike most other thumbnails, retics are nearly 100% terrestrial.

You're also correct in that only the vanzolinii subclade of Ranitomeya feed their tads (imitator, vanzolinii, lamasi, etc.). The ventrimaculata and reticulata (fantastica, uakarrii, benedicta, summersi) subclades do not feed their tadpoles.

Man, you got to work with some cool species...castis and quinquevittatus are all but gone now, unfortunately.
 
  • #29
Yup, reticulata, castaneonicus and quinquevittatus are all pretty much totally terrestrial. R.reticulata weren't exactly common back then but, they were fairly easily obtainable. R.quinquevittatus weren't common even then. I was on a waiting list for several years to get my 4 froglets. R.castaneonicus went from being extremely rare to almost annoyingly common. I seem to remember there being a shortage of females around the time I left the hobby. If that trend continued, it could be the cause of the species decline in captivity. The same thing happened with H.azureiventris. They went from being an extremely common frog to nonexistant due to a shortage of females.
 
  • #30
Goods fruitflies aren't too bad, raising houseflies and blue bottle flies for the Mantids, that's gross & stinky (raising the large maggots) or expensive (pupae). I went the expensive route and bought pupae to keep in the fridge to hatch out every day or two. I ALWAYS had huge flies in my house dive bombing me and the cats for a year or more. LOL
 
  • #31
2+ years later...guess it's update time!

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  • #32
Those are the most awesome hues of dart frog that ive ever seen...

what do you feed them?
 
  • #33
You're making me want to get into dart frogs, despite my lack of space and conditions currently....those are some great colors, love especially that second photo.
 
  • #35
The frog in that second picture... :clap:

Looks like orange gemstone!
 
  • #37
Some of those frogs are on my wish list once I get settled more permanently and have the funds for them. Impressive! The larger obligates which have come in recently are some truly stunning frogs to say the least.
 
  • #38
Dart frogs are just amazing, the fact that they are not toxic in captivity is proof of intelligent design.
 
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