[Darks!de]

I've read a lot of posts where people were asking asking about this, and i for one am also quite interested in doing this for an upcoming tank.

Whether it be isopads, springtails, ants, or any other form of dart food, what is your experience on stocking a tank with a permament or semi-permanent colony of these for your frogs?
Which critters did you use? What substrate was used? Was there any other specific factor that contributed to the survival and/or reproduction of the colony?


-Luke

 

[Guest]

critters

you need to have several places the frogs cannot get to them so that they can never eat all of them. springtails probably reproduce the fastest.

 

[Dancing frogs]

In the ten vert that I have 3 of my imitators in there is always a ton of springtails running around...alot of times, when I put ff's in there, the frogs aren't even interested.
The background is cork, greatstuff, elmers pro-bond and coco-fiber, and two bromeliads that span the tank.
The ground is 1-2 inches of leca, 2 inches of ABG mix, with 1 inch of chopped spagnum on top, in which grows mini-spaths, and rainbow salaginella.
there is a also a piece of root wood that I put in the soil for decoration, this is where the springtails are most visible.
Hope this helps you somehow.
Brian

 

[dmartin72]

Brian,

Sounds nice...do you have a picture? How are people planting bromeliads?

Thanks,

 

[Dancing frogs]

I have a couple blurry ones, but none ready to post...I'm on my lunch break now...maybee later I'll get to it.
I use fencing staples, and use them to tie threads to which hold the brom in place till it roots.
Later,

 

[Dancing frogs]

They aren't the greatest pics but here they are.
this is a shot of the floor, there is a piece of orange in there to attract ff's

The whole shebang, you can see one of the imitators in the upper right side.

 

[Guest]

thanks for sharing those pics Brian. it looks good.

 

[Darks!de]

What's your substrate?

 

[Guest]

What's your substrate?

The ground is 1-2 inches of leca, 2 inches of ABG mix, with 1 inch of chopped spagnum on top, in which grows mini-spaths, and rainbow salaginella.
there is a also a piece of root wood that I put in the soil for decoration, this is where the springtails are most visible.

Brian

 

[dmartin72]

Dancing frogs,

From what I can tell, it looks good. When you get a better pic, post it if you get a chance! Where does everyone get their leca balls?

TIA,

 

[Darks!de]

Ack Brian, missed that..

Yeah, where do you get leca?

 

[Dancing frogs]

I get mine at a local(ish) hydroponics shop.

 

[dmartin72]

I feel stupid...I didn't even thing of that!

 

[Dancing frogs]

Dave, don't worry about it, we all get tunnel vision every now and then!

I got some isopods about a month ago...I'm trying to culture them so I have enough of them to seed all of my tanks...I'll keep you all posted.

I'm culturing them in a sweater box with a drainage layer of leca, 2-3 inches of ABG mix and an equal amount of leaf litter from a clean (no chemicals) area. Besides the isopods, there is now an abundance of springtails and fungus gnats...the only thing I seeded the culture with is the isopods...everything else rode in on the leaf litter!
I read in another post somewhere that a zoo or something like that was just using huge amounts of leaf litter, with naturally occuring micro-fauna, to feed their pdf collection, they would just throw large amounts of the L.L. into the tank!
Later,

 

[Guest]

I got some isopods about a month ago...I'm trying to culture them so I have enough of them to seed all of my tanks...I'll keep you all posted.

where did you get the isopods Brian?

i imagine if i collected leaf litter from a 'good' place, that would be as good as isopods, huh?

TIA
Landon

 

[Dancing frogs]

Flyculture.com is selling starter cultures of them...that's where I got mine.

 

[Guest]

TY