[Guest]

Today, when at petsmart, they had a reptile magazine, and the mag had a dart frog area. so i bought it. when i got home and read it, they encouraged keeping multiple species in tanks! they said nothing about destroying the eggs or how dangerous it can be, they just said it looked nice and was good to do... :evil: :roll: :shock: ARGH!

 

[Ryan]

Find out what author wrote the article, and see what else he writes because he is probally just a reptile guy looking for more material to write about and didnt look into it like he should.

I hate how ignorant people can be, especialy since they published it to!

 

[AlexB]

was that from the march issue? i saw that too and it was disturbing :? the forum on the reptile magazine also allows mixing species in some post. hmm

 

[melissa68]

Believe it or not...

...I can't remember who the authors were, but I do one of them is a well known dart frog breeder. I recognized the name when I read the article.

Melis

 

[jbeetle]

authors

Authors:
Juan Cris Casanova
Craig Allen
Christopher Beth

I believe Juan is co-owner of Vanishing Jewels. I think that article is more about how to build a dart tank, and one that is mainly used for show. I could be wrong, since I read it when it came out... so I don't remember the details since I have read a bunch of other stuff inbetween then and now . We have to remember that there a lot of people who keep a couple mixed darts in one tank, and have no intention of breeding them. They don't pull eggs, raise tads, or even have laying sites... they just want them cause they look pretty (nothing wrong with this). So if you got a couple different tinc morphs, or an azureus and didn't breed them, then whats the problem (if the tank is big enough, and they get along)? I think mixing is ok if you have experience with the species you are going to mix. They can live together in a nice show tank, but need to be watched carefully for fighting and can't be allowed to breed. I could write more about mixing, but thats for a whole other topic... but we have to remember that not everyone keeping darts plans to breed, and could just want them for the same reason that everyone was attrached to them... they are beautiful animals.

 

[Guest]

understand the comment, but how do you stop a frog from breeding? i dont think they make Trojans that small....

 

[Guest]

Mixing

Since Phyllobates and Dendrobates are not supposed to be able to reproduce with each other, you could just put them together in a large tank with plenty of room per frog.

8)

 

[jbeetle]

Exactly, you could mix different groups:
Phyllobates & Dendrobates
Phyllobates & Epipedobates
Dendrobates & Epipedobates
Or if you do keep a bunch of one type together you should pull all the eggs if any are laid and destroy them. Its pretty simple not to get young if they aren't eggfeeders, as there isn't much the parents can do for them. If you did have a water section, and the tads did morph out... well then if it is a hybrid either destroy it or keep it for yourself not others! I guess its more of not letting the eggs develop then stopping them breed, does that make more sense?

 

[Guest]

get it. After listening to you guys, it seems that it would be harder to get your frogs to breed than to prevent it, so maybe thats what they were going for. I know at the columbus zoo they have a frog tank that has 5 different species of PDFs in it. It's a very sad looking tank and the poor guys look pretty depressed. I wouldn't be in the mood either if my house was depressing.

I personally think that keeping frogs separate is better purely from an artistic aesthetic viewpoint. if the tank is going to look right, it's got to have a consistant color scheme!

 

[Guest]

Another method of mixing species withing a genus would be to have complete control over the sex of the frogs going in. With tincs, azureus, auratus, and leucs, this can easily be done with males. One would need a positive sexing on these said frogs before attempting this however. I have mixed species in the past and have every intention of doing it again, but like what was stated above, I will be mixing members of different genus'. I had 0.0.2 adult aurotaenia and 1.1 D. azureus together in a 20 gallon for several months and encountered no visible problems at all. All 4 frogs got their share of food and space with no fighting or any disputes. I'm considering doing this again in a large display tank sometime down the road and will probably mix bicolors with azureus and possibly vents. I'm not trying to say that mixing is absolutely ok but if properly planned and done right, it can be successful..

-Bill J.