Poison Dart Frogs - my build and general info

Not much to update on the little guy and gal. She has been slow to get use to me being around. Waking up only after all lights go out and freezing whenever I move. I’ve been hoping to hear them call more, as I’ve only ever heard him call when he first wakes up on some nights. I’ve even tried playing youtube clips, which did incite calling a couple times.

http://allaboutfrogs.org/files/sounds/redeye.au
http://allaboutfrogs.org/files/sounds/bunchofrogsounds.aiff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEhKFMWNkw8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpsa0oY46S0


And no, this is not good husbandry. Similar to overloading a fish tank, this will kill the frogs from disease and stress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idbqU-cgszM
 
Kick em out and PDF already demmit...oh wait...sorry we didn't meet up this month (been stupid crazy), but July for sure :)
 
No worries Jay. When ever you find the time. I'm learning with the 2 RETF. The RETF live in the small vivarium, the PDF are going in the big dog! And bonus, my copepod culture is kicking into high gear again!
 
Due to the power outage I was home after the lights came on and I caught her moving around. Camera phone washed her color out, but the reflection in the door in the second photo shows her color pretty acurate. Her eyes are that red, like little tomatoes.

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Nope, just starting off with red eyes. They are easier to feed and care for. I'm still in progress of building the PDF vivarium.






The frog project also now has a webhome. The site name is odd, but it's a play off my reef tank website name.

www.basementfrogtank.com
 
Well, not a good update. The female died. She never ate well from day one. I ended up force feeding her small crickets and meal worms for several weeks but found her dead over the weekend. The male still appears perfectly healthy and quite active. He eats well and if anything is a little fat as food was always available for her. I’ll keep him solo for a few months before thinking about another.

In the couple months I’ve had the vivarium, I’ve found some things to change so it'll be a little while longer before building the PDF vivarium. I want to have a reasonable level of assurance it’ll work as expected the first time around.

As for maintenance; top off water every 4 days, change water about every 1.5 weeks but water the plants in the foam background almost every other day. The pockets are not big enough to hold enough sphagnum. Washing down the plants and glass with RO every couple days is quick and easy. I’ve have modified the fans a few times. Currently there is a small fan that goes on 20 times a day for air circulation and 2 larger fans for temp control. Even with 50% of the vivarium top open screen the humidity is higher than I’d like, daytime average 85% and after misting 95% for 12 hours or more. Temp is pretty stable due to the room AC keeping the fish tank cool.

It seems I’m always either buying crickets or killing them as they have grown too big. It’s the only real issue with the entire frog setup and compared to a sps reef, frogs are so easy.
 
thanks Erik. Yeah, trying to learn a little every day. Next on the list is to get onhand mediciation. Dr. Frye out of Michigan is a well known vet in the frog community and will send the couple common mediciations throught the mail.

medication list
http://www.frogforum.net/tree-frogs/14718-frog-first-aid-medications-being-prepared.html

Dr Frye self bio
http://dartden.com/hospital-injuries-disease-and-treatments-f15/introducing-myself-t86.html

I've found the mircoscope I picked up for reefing to be pretty cool for the vivarium too. For fecal examiniations, as well as moss and water samples which are full of life.
 
Picked up a few more books for parasites, I'm still not sure which ones he has but life has been to busy. His poo usually is solid, he eats well, has proper weight and is active. The parasite may be at a natural limiting level so I'm not about to drug the guy unless it's needed.

Plants in the terrarium are growing nicely. Here are a couple shots from tonight. Sitting on his branch hoping tonight is a night I feed him.

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This was a fun read Josh, sorry for the loss though! I have a smaller terrarium with a DIY foam / cocoa fiber background and live plants. I wanted to have a water feature, but it did not work as planned, so I just mist it several times a day. I currently have a cool little tangerine tiger crested gecko, which was supposed to be my daughters pet...haha. When he grows a bit I want to get an exo like yours and go all out with it.

Here is a fairly recent pic of mine, not as elaborate as yours, but it is fun ;) trying to get the small ivy and moss to grow over the background, it is starting to take off. I really want to give PDF's a try someday.

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Nice setup Doug. Glad you enjoyed the read too.

This little guy is still teaching me quite a bit. I'm glad I started with him vs jumping right into PDFs.
 
Lies...pdf all the way! Once we meet up and what not, I play to live vicariously through you. I should have more free time coming up :spy:

LAMO! yeah, all lies! Cool, just shoot me a pm once you get the stuff around and well schedule a meet up. There has been a couple PDF setups on craigslist that have been tempting but now that I know a bit more about parasites, I want to start new and QT everything.
 
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