E. anthonyii "Highland"

[MELLOWROO421]

Anyone out there having much success breeding the highland anthonyii? If so, care to share some tips? I have a trio, looks to be 1.2. They have bred for me successfully on a few separate occasions, and I have morphed a total of 5 froglets but they never seem to make it past about 2 months old. Most of the tads seem to die off after they have their back legs but just before or immediately after popping the fronts. The ones who do make it are very small, but their colors begin to show in only a week or 2. I have tried to raise them by keeping 1 or 2 in a 190 oz. container heavily seeded and fed just a couple of flies per day. I am currently down to just 1 froglet at the moment. It is about 3 weeks old and looks good, but they have all started out this way. I have not searched for eggs recently since I have not heard much calling and the tank is way overgrown. They have laid all the clutches I have found on a leaf of either a begonia or a bromeliad. I can't remember seeing these frogs in the classifieds, other than from Sean S., which leads me to believe I am not the only one having difficulty with them.
Any advice or info?

Thanks in advance,

Brian

[skylsdale]

What temperatures are you keeping them at, Brian?

I also wonder if this is a frog that might suffer from a really restricted gene pool: from what I understand, all the frogs of this type are from a single importation by Black Jungle a number of years ago...and then any frogs Sean Stewart might have brought in since then (although I can't be sure of this--it's possible his frogs are from Black Jungle. Someone would need to confirm).

Are they older frogs? If so, dusting with some pure Vit A might help the females build up enough reserves to lay some solid clutches. Corpus Callosum (Mike K) had some luck doing that with a really old E. tricolor female a couple years ago. You might talk with him.

[fieldnstream]

Hey Brian,
I don't have any experience with "Highland" but to echo what Ron said, Vit A may help. My "SI" were producing consistently bad clutches, within a few weeks of beginning Vit A supplementation I got my first good clutch. As time has gone on the clutches keep improving (from 3 good eggs at first to 17 now). I know your issue is with froglets...but MAYBE it will help.
Wishing you the Best Luck!
-Field

[cbreon]

Originally Posted by skylsdale

What temperatures are you keeping them at, Brian?

I also wonder if this is a frog that might suffer from a really restricted gene pool: from what I understand, all the frogs of this type are from a single importation by Black Jungle a number of years ago...and then any frogs Sean Stewart might have brought in since then (although I can't be sure of this--it's possible his frogs are from Black Jungle. Someone would need to confirm).

Are they older frogs? If so, dusting with some pure Vit A might help the females build up enough reserves to lay some solid clutches. Corpus Callosum (Mike K) had some luck doing that with a really old E. tricolor female a couple years ago. You might talk with him.

I believe Sean did bring in some new EU bloodlines within the last year b/c I was considering getting some, the e.tricolor 'highland' are some of my all time favs...

I used to keep several different e.tricolor but right now all I am keeping are pumilio and my frogs have been responding really well to the repashy vitamin a plus. I have been getting bigger and more frequent clutches, lower mortality rate for froglets, better colors...I would encourage you to get a bag and give it a try, you can get a small bag that will last you several months for ~7.99. I dusted 3-4 times the first month and then cut it back to 2x/month because it is possible for the frogs to get too much.

[MELLOWROO421]

The temps in their tank rarely gets over 76. I got them from Sean in July of 2010 and they were about 1/2-2/3 grown. I use 2 forms of vit A 2-3 times a month and use repashy as part of my vitamin rotation including repcal and herptivite as well as dendrocare. I am using the repashy vit A and solaray human grade pure vit A.
I may try using only the repashy and vit A twice a month with these guys to see if it changes anything.

Anyone else working with them? I have 2 local friends working with them but they aren't getting good clutches at all. A couple bad clutches, but nothing past the egg stage.

[gigiols]

I have a group of four E.anthonyi "Highland" or like spanish use to say "Tierra Alta". I have bred them many times but the firsts clutches was unsuccessfull, by the way at the 5th time the tadpoles have grown up normally. For rising them i used the same method that i do with normal locality of E.anthonyi, i put them divided in many little boxes with the quantity of water as a glass, usually i put 3 tadpoles within each box, i prefer to fill it with water taken by an acquarium with many plants as Elodea densa or similiar pond plants, the temperatures should me approximately at 25 celsius degrees and two less in the night. I feed the tadpoles with two different kinds of food, the first is basically carnivorous composed by mosquitoes larvae also known as Chironomus, the second one is a mix between Spirulina algae, fish dust for fry and integrators as calcium plus d3 and also Vitamins. Apart for the first tadpoles, i have never seen froglets with spindly legs but i can confirm that some of my adult E.anthonyi are always thin and look like healthless. It's an amazing Locality but it gives some problem in more than normal one.

[MELLOWROO421]

Great pics and info. Maybe my issue is the tad food, not the parental supplementation. Not even my first frogs that morphed showed any signs of SLS, so hopefully that means the parents are healthy and ready to breed. They just seem to be extremely delicate froglets/tadpoles. I have been using a mixture of chlorella, spirulina, terra flake with color enhancers, terra micro crabs with cyclopeeze, tadpole bites and just recently mixed in some omega brand fish flake.

[ggazonas]

I have a groupthat I beleive is a 2.2...was a 3.2 but not usre what happened to the fifth frog. All but one of the males is from the newer importation that sean s. brought in.

Since april of last year till around june they were breeding consistently and i ended up with 4 tads in the water of which they all morphed. one morphed in the viv and I pulled the other 3. 1 froglet lasted over month before perishing while the other two didn't make it more than a few weeks. The one in the viv has yet to be seen.

After a bit of a break they have laid a new clutch. It appears that 7 out of the 12 eggs laid will hatch. I've noticed they have a better chance of developing when the weather is cooler. The temps in the room I keep them in range from 64-70 during the day and 58-64 at night.

The last group of tads that were in the tank survived off of indian almond leaves, ff's and the occasionaly tad bits.

I am going to pull the last clucth and try and raise them myself.

[cbreon]

It seems the guy from Italy may be onto something too with feeding mosquito larvae. This would be pretty difficult during the Winter months but during the warmer months of the year, setting a ten gal or so outside filling it with water and maybe some aquatic plants to help balance water quality, o2 levels seems like it would be a way to collect larvae and other insect nymphs that young tads would eat. Infact, I know some people use rainwater for their tads including Sean (at least he used to, 8-10 years ago) and I wonder if that water unknowingly had larvae in it which helped tads prosper...thoughts???

[cbreon]

White Mosquito Larvae - Cubes - 3.5 oz. - Frozen | Frozen Aquarium Food | Fish Food | Aquarium - ThatPetPlace.com

And another thought, here is an interesting prodcut, I wonder has anyone tried feeding their tads these mosquito larave product? I guess the freshwater fish people probably already knew about it, but I learned something new today. this stuff seems to be packed with lipids/nutrition...anyone have some thoughts on the use of this stuff to raise tads??