Calling after lights out

[jeosbo01]

A conversation in another thread has me curious...
I regularly have calling up to about 1/2 hour before lights out, but have not heard any of my current collection call while the room is truly dark (and I spend a fair deal of time close to my frog room when their lights are out). If I turn on the room light my Epipedobates start to call within a few minutes, but if the room is dark I get nothing...My frog room is an interior basement room and when the lights are out there is no source of light in there (pretty much total darkness). All timers in the frog room are on timers and they do not get adjusted, and I rarely turn on a light in there after lights out so they are on a solid schedule with virtually no deviation.

My questions are as follows...
Do your (dart) frogs ever call at night?
Is there stray/ambient light when they do?
Are they on a regular photoperiod? Disturbed at night?

Also curious as to any other observations on this...

[Julio]

mine call if there is ambient light, not direct tank light and well after the room is dark, is not uncommon for me to wake up in the middle of the night to hear my imis calling around 3 am

[Zoomie]

My Leuc calls in the morning prior to lights on. Not sure if it's beause there is a hair of ambient light, or me stomping around in the house. It's always within 30 minutes of the lights coming on.

[johnachilli]

Along with other I have also noticed that ambient light seems to stimulate calling especially in my imitators. Which has been leading me to think about the benefits of moon lighting or more actually representing the daylight cycle. In other words to try to avoid them from going full on lights to complete darkness. This would seem especially important in say a windowless basement that would be completely dark with out any lights on.

I'm not saying each tank would need a led moonlight setup. one or a few low wattage bulbs left on overnight in the room would probably be sufficient. Another method I thought of would be running the LED rope lights through the rack shelves.

Just some thoughts

[Julio]

well i got a chance to go to Peru with Understory, the only frogs that we heard calling at night were basseleri, and it gets pitch black dark in the rain forest, i personally think they just call when they feel like it.
I am sure moon light will def get them calling, but i would just let them do their own thing.

[johnachilli]

It is difficult for us to know how they perceive light. The forest may be really dark but I still think that it would be different then a windowless basement.

The rising and setting sun may also play a large part, in determining a frogs daily schedule...

[widmad27]

My Powder Blue D. tinctorius and Standard D. leucomelas call all the time with just ambient room light in my living room. I have even seen them moving around a fair amount in the tank at this point in the night as well.

[jeosbo01]

Originally Posted by johnachilli

It is difficult for us to know how they perceive light. The forest may be really dark but I still think that it would be different then a windowless basement.

The rising and setting sun may also play a large part, in determining a frogs daily schedule...

I have several different lights in my frog room and they all come on and go off at different times...all are on for about 12 hours but the on/off times are staggered about a half hour. There is a sort of fade in and out as a result. Seems to me that a constant schedule is more important...my frogs almost all seem to know when the lights will go out and they normally hide away 15-20 minutes before that (except the terribilis... who will begg whenever I'm around, I am convinced that I could wake them up every 1/2 hour and they would have no trouble eating).