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Anyone keep poison dart frogs? or any other frogs?


MVPaquatics

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Anyone on the boards keep dart frogs or mantella frogs? or any kind of frogs?

 

I personally have a colony of 6 Dendrobates leucomelas (yellow and black dart frogs). A pair of Dendrobates azureus (blue and black) and a new pair of golden mantella frogs. I used to have red eye tree frogs but sold them because they were too nocturnal and I wanted to focus on darts & mantellas.

 

I ask because dart frog/terrarium keeping is a science much like reef keeping and the colors are also amazing! If you are thinking about keeping them you should! Just like corals they appreciate with time.

 

If you have any questions let me know! I am glad to help!

 

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You ever hit the Portland Metro Reptile Expo? There are quite a few people that are really into Darts, some amazingly beautiful setups too. I personally haven't kept frogs, but I for sure admire thier beauty. Awesome to see another Herpetoculturists/Aquaculturists on here.....

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yeah you feed flightless fruit flies. there are a few sizes. They are honestly one of the easiest animal I think I have ever kept. keeping in mind you cannot handle them, they are really quite durable once a healthy specimen is acquired. Pretty much the only rules are RO water... a temps between 65-80 (winter-summer and night-day), and fairly humid.

 

Keeping the fruitfly cultures, and misting (mines is automated), is the only maintenance. Keeping fruit flies is pretty easy. Kept in deli containers and I use commercial media you just add water to, and some mesh for the flies to climb on. I make new cultures about every 2 weeks and they last a month. Pretty basic. Then you just dust the flies with calcium or minerals and feed daily to every other day in summer, and a few times weekly in winter.

 

"Poison" dart frogs are not actually poisonous in captivity. In nature these animals consume a lot of ants. These ants have ingested an alkaloid (toxic) plant. This toxin bio-accumulates as it goes up the food chain and the frogs have the ability to store and release this toxin upon stress. Therefore, no poisonous prey = safe frogs! However, I still treat them as they were poisonous due to their extremely fragile physical nature.

 

As far as sounds they hardly make any sounds. During the spring (mating season), males can make a sharp calling sound that sounds much like a small cricket. It is never constant or annoying and be very satisfying to witness, much like a coral or fish spawning.

 

There isn't much cleaning involved with the frogs as their small amount of waste really helps to fertilize the plant growth. And the required environment for a few is quite small, a pair could easily be housed in a 15-20 gallon.

 

Mantella frogs are very similar to dart frogs, however they can be a little more intolerant of higher temps (above 80).

 

check out dendroboard.com if you want to check out some other cool ideas!

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You ever hit the Portland Metro Reptile Expo? There are quite a few people that are really into Darts' date=' some amazingly beautiful setups too.[/quote']

 

Yeah I go to these every chance I get. Also much like corals, some of these animals are kind of seasonal and shipping is expensive and hazardous, so I take advantage to buy locally to avoid shipping and hand pick whenever possible.

 

The next one is in august in portland. I am also going to setup a booth at the reptile show at OMSI in sept.

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I don't advocate the keeping of venomous or extremely large snakes under "normal" circumstances but yes, I have seen some defanged cobras and things like that. Rattle snakes are common too as are different vipers/adders. Some are illegal in oregon, probably for good reason, seem to be ticking time bombs - seen the show fatal attractions?

 

I personally haven't kept snakes in awhile but I personally would want an emerald tree boa or python or a pied ball python.

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They also have a show about every 6 months out near me @ the Hillsboro fairgrounds. Before getting into reefing I was big time into reptiles:) think at one point I had about 17 different species set up out in my garage:) I've always loved the dart frogs but have never owned them:( someday, especialy the strawberry ones:) nice pictures btw! I'd love to see your frogs someday! Along with picking up a couple mini maxis:)

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still got some maxi-minis panther! I would love the strawberry dart frogs aka blue jeans. They are like impossible to find and if you did you would likely pay about 200 each

 

you can keep the forest cobra in oregon...although some cities have ordinances against it (and they are really cracking down.)

For those wanting to see the latest list of prohibited and non-controlled species: http://www.dfw.state.or.us/OARs/56.pdf

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  • 8 months later...

Man them are some cool looking frogs. Very nice setups for them as well. Have you been trying to breed then?

 

 

In my spider and snake days I had my hands full. 1 12' Burmese and 1 ball python. 2 5' anacondas 1 rattler ,27 Tarantula's about 12 different kinds, 2 scorpion's and 1 giant centipede. "what was I thinking"

 

Someday the frogs might be fun to try.

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Very nice setups :) I have always wanted to try keeping dart frogs but have yet to get around to it. Amphibions are the only major pet catagory I haven't had now.

 

Humm it's starting to sound like I'm the next stare on the animal hordiing show (scary)

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  • 2 weeks later...

The wife an I were considering keeping our Bowfront and making it into a plant table. We were going to try like a cactus garden or something like that but maybe something like this would be neat. Is there a list of plants they can live with or need? How much water do they need? Im guessing they need to be completely contained or will they stay where its wet and humid? How much do they cost and where do you get them? Are there any other interesting critters that can live with them?

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