[Dementius]

Greetings!

Just wanted to thank everyone for creating and maintaining this wonderful forum. Needless to say that all tutorials, tips and builds are a big inspiration for me. Exotic pets has been my hobby for quite some time now and I recently received two baby D. Auratus. They are currently housed in a small temporary tank I will be using until the end of the week before my 18” x 18” x 24” Exo Terra arrives. Before I begin construction, i wanted to ask a few questions. Note that they concern different things, so I'd rather write everything in one post instead of spamming all over the forum.

1) Has anyone tried sticking/securing glass/plexi to the inside of the terrarium and applying the background directly to it? I've red horrible stories about vivs getting cracked by GS/clay backgrounds, so I want to add an additional layer of security to the new build.

2) Unfortunately, they dont sell Great Stuff where I live (Bulgaria). Would any other foam of this kind work as well?

3) Would it be ok to put both Auratus in the 18” x 18” x 24” Exo terra immediately, or should i wait a bit until the frogs get a bit bigger? I fear they won't be able to find fruit flies in an enclosure that big until they mature.

4) This is a bit of an off topic health issue i've been having with my male Leptopelis Vermiculatus and I hope someone with enough experience with frogs in general can help out. About a month ago, he slipped from a vine and fell down. Since then, he's been clutching one of his hands and refuses to eat. I immediately took him out and placed put him in a separate small container. He is currently doing fine, but still refuses to eat. I force feed him once a day and he is looking healthy (except the clutched hand thing), but he hasn't made any progress yet. Any tips/treatment would be highly appreciated. Unfortunately, there are no specialised vets around, otherwise I would have taken him for a check up.

Here are some pics of my current species. Just to give you a disclaimer before you proceed: both D. Auratus are different and I'm not planning to cross breed them. PDF's are scarce in my country and I had the chance to take the last two of the shipment. They are still way too young to breed and I'll be keeping them together until I make a second viv to move the blue one (and hopefully make a small group of each species later on.

Leptopelis Vermiculatus:

D. Auratus:

The green one (slightly bigger) chillin in the coco hut:

First Leptopelis viv turned out a complete disaster. I'll be redoing it next week:

My female leopard gecko and axie:

 

[jbherpin]

Welcome friend!

I can't help you with the security insert question with foam backgrounds, etc. I will say, that D. auratus while a bit more arboreal than D. tinctorius, is not the most prolific climber. I never use a background. I think they waste space, and are simply not required(In My Humble Opinion) for normal behavior of the frogs.

I think the frogs will be fine in the new exo coming to you... Perhaps feed a little more liberally if you are concerned, but they will be just fine IMHO.

As far as the Tree Frog foot malady, I have an old female Gray treefrog that has a bad back leg. She does still feed however... Have you tried any soaking? Maybe time and care will heal it... I hope!

I hope I have helped in some way.

JBear

 

[B-NICE]

Greetings!

Just wanted to thank everyone for creating and maintaining this wonderful forum. Needless to say that all tutorials, tips and builds are a big inspiration for me. Exotic pets has been my hobby for quite some time now and I recently received two baby D. Auratus. They are currently housed in a small temporary tank I will be using until the end of the week before my 18” x 18” x 24” Exo Terra arrives. Before I begin construction, i wanted to ask a few questions. Note that they concern different things, so I'd rather write everything in one post instead of spamming all over the forum.

1) Has anyone tried sticking/securing glass/plexi to the inside of the terrarium and applying the background directly to it? I've red horrible stories about vivs getting cracked by GS/clay backgrounds, so I want to add an additional layer of security to the new build.

2) Unfortunately, they dont sell Great Stuff where I live (Bulgaria). Would any other foam of this kind work as well?

3) Would it be ok to put both Auratus in the 18” x 18” x 24” Exo terra immediately, or should i wait a bit until the frogs get a bit bigger? I fear they won't be able to find fruit flies in an enclosure that big until they mature.

4) This is a bit of an off topic health issue i've been having with my male Leptopelis Vermiculatus and I hope someone with enough experience with frogs in general can help out. About a month ago, he slipped from a vine and fell down. Since then, he's been clutching one of his hands and refuses to eat. I immediately took him out and placed put him in a separate small container. He is currently doing fine, but still refuses to eat. I force feed him once a day and he is looking healthy (except the clutched hand thing), but he hasn't made any progress yet. Any tips/treatment would be highly appreciated. Unfortunately, there are no specialised vets around, otherwise I would have taken him for a check up.

Here are some pics of my current species. Just to give you a disclaimer before you proceed: both D. Auratus are different and I'm not planning to cross breed them. PDF's are scarce in my country and I had the chance to take the last two of the shipment. They are still way too young to breed and I'll be keeping them together until I make a second viv to move the blue one (and hopefully make a small group of each species later on.

Leptopelis Vermiculatus:

D. Auratus:

The green one (slightly bigger) chillin in the coco hut:

First Leptopelis viv turned out a complete disaster. I'll be redoing it next week:

My female leopard gecko and axie:

You can try to find foam sheets (they have them in hardwear stores) and do your background on them. I have done foam backgrounds in all of my vivs and I havent had any issues with it coming off. Now clay on the other hand has a lot of falling off storys.

If you are worried about them finding food, just place a bananna in your tank the FF's will be all over it. They are animals, I'm sure instinct kicks in, pluse the jungle is way bigger than a vivarium

 

[Pumilo]

Welcome aboard. I can address your glass/acrylic question for you. I've worked with glass professionally for over 20 years and I spent a number of years working with acrylic professionally. To the best of my knowledge, there is no good, permanent way to attach glass to acrylic. At least not with a viv safe glue. Silicone is generally used for glass but silicone sticks to acrylic only long enough for you to think it's going to work. Then it falls off at the worst possible time!!
Butyl would probably stick but the chems in it are not viv safe and would probably kill your animals.

 

[Dementius]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm actually planning on making a U shape out of three pieces of plexiglass that are slightly smaller than the actual viv, so once placed inside, they're snug and can't move at all unless pulled from the top. I'll set up the background and most plants on the plexi, so in the unfortunate event that something fails, I can just pull the U shaped plexi and fix/replace it.

 

[Pumilo]

Got it. So that will leave a dead space between the acrylic and the glass, right? Drill a bunch of 1/8" holes through it (and through the foam). Now fill the back with a bug culturing friendly substrate (including lots of leaves). Spike it with isopods and or springtails for an in tank refugium. Frogs can't get in to eat the bugs, but the bugs can make their way out to be eaten. If you do that, remember to leave access to moisten it and to feed the bugs.

 

[Alegre323]

the Leptopelis Vermiculatus are BEAUTIFUL!

 

[jrgobble]

Welcome, I do not have an answer for you, but I think this site is a good place to start. Good luck