Today I was at a pet store and they had a pair of varadero and a pair of lamasi together in a 20H. I was trying to tell them maybe they should split them up. They guy said recently they had a pair of vents in with the same pair of varadero in the same tank for 10 months with no problems before the vents were sold. He said once the vents were sold he just added the pair of lamasi & even said they have bred but not much. I thought 4 thumbnails in a 20H was too small. I know mixing is frowned upon but has anyone else ever heard of or mixed thumbnails themselves? Also the viv is so heavily planted to the point I would consider it over planted.
4 thumbnails in 20 High
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I don't think that is particularly overcrowded for those frogs. I have heard people keep tanks more densly populated than that with some thumbs. Vents, variabilis, lamasi, etc. seem to do very well in groups, for example I have never seen my vents or variabilis show aggression at all, but some other Ranitomeya (such as retics) are not as peaceful.
The real problem is the mixed species. They can hybridize, and if he said he was getting breeding out of that tank with mixed species, I would be very concerned.
Bryan
The real problem is the mixed species. They can hybridize, and if he said he was getting breeding out of that tank with mixed species, I would be very concerned.
Bryan
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586 Posts
Froggers like to keep genetics clean. Not only that, we even frown upon mixing the same type of frogs from different locals. This makes sure that we get what we pay for among other things.
use the search function and see all the threads you can pull up on that.
use the search function and see all the threads you can pull up on that.
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1,775 Posts
If you read any of the mixing threads, the reasons are all discussed there. Here are a few to get you started:
-aggression/stress: this is something that can be pretty hard for new froggers to see, it can be VERY subtle, and sometimes doesn't even involve direct action by the offending frog(s).
-exposure to novel pathogens: certain 'bugs' that may not affect frog A from Costa Rica can affect frog B from Brazil (remember what happened when the English settlers reached America and started swapping diseases/viruses with the natives? Same concept, different organism.)
-competition for food/breeding sites etc. - e.g. : I don't own a single thumbnail that I think has the balls to eat within 6 inches of a tinc or terribilis (sirensis aka lamasi/imitators/variabilis/amazonicus)... if someone has witnessed it, I'd love to see a video. in fact, I've seen thumbnails shy away from tincs first hand in a mixed enclosure. they wouldn't get anywhere near the bigger frogs. this can be partly solved with the addition of extra feeding/breeding sites, but is yet another issue that newbies would have to contend with... especially as they haven't yet learned the specific personalities/behaviors of given species of frogs. Another aspect of feeding that would be much harder to control: keeping thumbnails with tincs is going to limit the thumbnails' access to microfauna in the leaf litter, when they would normally have free reign to hunt in a species-specific enclosure.
-more species can hybridize than most new hobbyists realize: for example, most dendrobates can/will hybridize with each other, most pumilio with each other, and most ranitomeya with each other. This limits the types of frogs that could be kept together without hybridization, and makes #1 and #3 more probable.
-given an open area of space, these species would choose to be considerably farther away from each other than we would keep them in 99% of enclosures. shouldn't that be reason enough?
There are frogs (Bastimentos pumilio, Chazuta imitators, etc) that are variable enough to have different colors within the same morph anyways- why mess with all the above issues without prior experience when it's simple enough to have different colors with just one morph of one species?
.....copypasta FTW
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