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Introducing myself ando my new project

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2K views 16 replies 5 participants last post by  elscotto  
C
#1 ·
Hello everbody,

I´ve just created this thread to introduce me and get some tips on my new dart frog´s vivarium project.

First of all, I want to apologize for my poor english. It´s not my first languge, and i´m doing my best to avoid much mistakes. Feel free to correct me if you feel inclined to.

I´ve spent a lot of hours in these last few days reading the discusions here, and I have to say that I´m pretty impressed with the high level of information on this board. I´m brazilian, and here in Brazil there isn´t anything like this, mainly because here is illegal to keep reptiles and amphibians at home, so who did this try to keep it in low profile.

Here we have a huge difficult to buy equipment and other suplies, and everything is very overpriced. Also, buying dart frogs is a major problem, because who breeds them, have just one or two species, usually tincs, galacs or auratus.

On the other hand, the weather here makes easy to keep the tanks at a good temperature and humidity levels. We don´t have cold winters (except on the extreme south), and heating feature is barely unnecesry.

Ever since 1998 I keep herps, and tryed a few years ago to keep a couple of D. galaconotus, wich I did for a few years, but they got pretty stressed, because I was moving a lot at that time, so I decided to stay just with the snakes until I stop moving.

Now i´m again building a viv for dart frogs, and had already ordered a culture of FF´s (wich is pretty hard to find here) and Peanut Worms (I don´t know how you call them on the US). The viv is a 30g with a 32" x 12" floor area. I´m planning to put a pair of Tincs or a small group of auratus on it, do you think that´s fine for them ? If I choose the auratus, how many should I house on this size of tank ? I´m thinking about 3 or 4 of them.

As soon as I fix my camera, I´ll show you some pics of it.

Here in Brazil, there isn´t any place that sells Springtails cultures. Does anybody have some tip on how and where to collect them ?

Thank you very much, and forgive me for the long thread !
 
C
#2 ·
I forgot to say:

I´m a plane pilot, so i´m trying to build this viv in a way that the frogs can cope with me traveling every now and them (not so long, one week away from home at most, with a period of a week at home fulltime). Specially in what concerns to the microfauna. The humidty is not a problem, i´m just trying to figure the best way to keep them well feeded.

Thanks !
 
M
#3 ·
Springtails i'm not sure of what species you have but charcoal laid on the ground has work for me as well has wet newspaper. Your in a great place to be collecting microfuna. I would do quite a bit of collecting of springtails,isopods,millapeds,centipeds, snails, beatles, ect. Just to be warened snails will eat your plants unless their posinous, milli and centipeds can be some what of a pest since the frogs don't eat them there great for cleaning the tank though. Isopods are great tank cleaners and the babies are perfect for since the adults won't be eaten its even better. The springtails and isopods would be the main food source while you are away; you can all so over load the tank with flies when your gone. I'm in the same boat as you i go away for 1-4 weeks at a time, but here we have more varitey of isopods and springtails and all that for microfuna. When you collecting i would also get some small logs and sevarl soil samples from differn't areas this will also help in the seeding of microfuna. I'm sure i missed a couple things but that should help. Good luck
 
#4 ·
Welcome Cefalos!

WE are lucky to have someone like you aboard. What part of Brazil?

Do you have many "pet stores" in Brazil? You should be able to find springtails in the wild somewhere nearby...termites and other suitable prey insects as well.

Please don't hesitate to ask questions. Usually, you will receive a reply within a couple hours or a day at most.
 
C
#7 ·
midget

Thanks for your reply, i´ll try your idea of charcoal or/and wet newspaper, and se if I can get some Springtails. The isopods had already been introduced to my viv, a few more days, and I will know if they are going well in there.

Thats good to know that there are more people having success keeping PDF even with our kind of routine. I have a close friend in my neighborhood who is a serious Corn Snake breeder, and he can come to my home and dump some FF in the viv while i´m out.

Philsuma

I guess we are all lucky to have a place like this to discuss and gather experience from other PDF keepers.

I´m from São Paulo, the biggest city in Brazil, it´s a huge metropolis like NY (I really love NY, São Paulo is a little far away from it´s beauty LOL), there are a lot of pet stores here, but since they are not allowed to commercialize herps, they don´t have much equipment or food supplies that might be useful for us. In São Paulo, there is only one store that´s specialized on reptiles and amphibians, but the only species they are allowed to sell, are Iguana and Jabuti (geochelone carbonara), and for you to see how stuff are overpriced here, one small Iguana costs at least one thousand dollars !!

Our PDF´s here are usually a second or third generation of american parents, that were brought from the US in film canisters. There are some "keepers" that buy wild specimens from wild caught animals dealers, but i´m against this kind of practice and refuse to buy any animal that´s wild caught, because of the terrible conditions that they are transported and kept.
 
M
#9 ·
Its always good to have someone to be able to dump some flies in; also i havn't keep dart this way so i don't know how it would work i don't even have my viv setup yet still making. It should work fine but you have to make sure too have amny hiding/refuge places for them(mainly springs) too get away from the frogs during part of the day, leaf litter be great also flat logs. I too had to sell my dart due to moving. good luck


edit-they are called mealworms most places.
 
C
#11 · (Edited)
wow... very nice to know that you call them mealworms !! now I can do a search here, and read about feeding PDF with them !

Thanks you both Enlightened and midget !!


EDIT:
Just doing a quick research here... mealworms are Tenebrio molitor right ?

The peanut worm, looks exactly the same as mealworms, but are pretty smaller... an adult can reaches at most 1/4 inch.
 
#13 ·
and now the BAD news.....lol

Mealworms are not ideal for feeding, in fact they are often considered a "last resort" food item due to the chitin. Even the small ones are not used as a staple here even though they are cheap and east to culture.

Wax worms are better...phoenix worms too....

Bean beetles

Flour beetles

here's the sub-forum for you:

Food & Feeding - Dendroboard

take a look around there and see what you think...
 
M
#14 ·
Do you breed your own i would highly highly suggest you do as this is vry cheap and about the only way to get meal worms small enough to feed. I would also be care about of many feed you feed as there exo-skelton can cause compaction if feed as sole food iteam always feed them in moderation. Have you heard about wax worms i'm sure if you can but them down there but i'm sure you can get some adults from the wild to breed a great food to feed just before you go away as they are high in fat i would also feed these in moderation due to there high fat conten(they have no exo-sekleton though). thanks Enlightened. Good luck

edit-you beat me too..lol
 
C
#15 ·
Just doing a quick research here... mealworms are Tenebrio molitor right ?

The peanut worm, looks exactly the same as mealworms, but are pretty smaller... an adult can reaches at most 1/4 inch.

I Googled them, and found that they were brought to Brazil by Japanese people, who believe in some sort healing that these worms can provide for sexual issues LOL

Here follows a picture... the red ball in the middle is a peanut, so you can see the size of the worms

Image
 
E
#17 ·
Cefalos said:
Hello everbody,

Here in Brazil, there isn´t any place that sells Springtails cultures. Does anybody have some tip on how and where to collect them ?

Thank you very much, and forgive me for the long thread !
Click to expand...
There is a method to collect tiny arthropods, like springtails, from leaf litter, etc., using a Berlese Funnel. You can Google the method, but essentially you would be doing as this link suggests:
Berlese Funnel
Of course, substitute a wet paper towel or a bit of wet dirt in the collecting jar, instead of killing the bugs with the alcohol.
It's a fun but tedious project...
-Scott
 
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