[Guest]

I recently met John and Jennifer Gibeau. They have moved to a new home, and either traded away or sold about half their collection, and I counted about 55 tanks, and at least a couple hundred frogs.

They were very modest, and said that there are collections out there that make theirs look tiny.

So I guess I am curious - If their collection is not large, what is large? John said that I might want to clarify this question with number of morphs in a species as being counted, and I think that they should, just for the purposes of counting. Counting in this fashion, John and Jen have 34 species of frogs, 28 of which are poison frogs; and about 65 babies of different kinds.

Talking to John today, I asked him to go through and count everything, and he said that he needed to anyway, and has come up with a number of 204 animals all told, not counting tadpoles.

John warned me that Dendroboard is a place where you scratch people's backs, and not to expect unbiased opinions; Anything negative is counted as an attack here I guess, so I just want to say up front, I am friends with John, I have decided that the guy is the kindest man on the planet. Heck, he gave me and my girlfriend frogs and the tank they came in, saying "It's nice to see you loving them, so take them home and love them there." They are a frog called ventrimaklatus(?), or something like that. They are all carrying the gene for albino, and I looked at some albinos, and really liked them.

So how many frogs make a collection large?

Mark Johnson

 

[kleinhanz]

Mark-


I agree, I met both of them a few times and they are a great example of the high quality of people you can meet in this hobby. They are very passionate about their frogs and would not hesitate for a minute to spend their personal time walking a “newbie” through the basics…time and time again; and at the same time turn around and have an in-depth conversation with the most seasoned veterans...Frogs, insects, vivs...just ask

Check out John and Jennifer's website describing the species you mentioned:
http://www.tincs.com/ventrimaculatus%20page.html

 

[Guest]

I think Tor Linbo has a large collection. When he moved it took TWO trips with a Ryder truck to move all the tanks.

[/b]

 

[kyle1745]

1. I agree John is a nice guy, but some things were said that should not have been.

2. John did you get permission to post that photo? Please change it to a link if you did not.

3. I would love to know how large some peoples collections are. I have not been the hobby that long and have 11 tanks, and 9 different species. Now that is growing a bit with plans for a second rack in the very near future.

 

[Michael Shrom]

It's not a game where he who dies with the most frogs wins. 28 species of poison frogs is quite an accomplishment. I'd be interested to here what 28 species he has. I only have 9 species of dart frogs. I have D. auratus, D. tinctorious, D. azureus, D. galactonotus, D. ventrimaculatus, D. imitator, P. vittatus, and P. aurotaenia. Many think D. azureus should be included in D. tinctorious so that would make only 8 species for me.

 

[geckguy]

I have d. imitator, d. imitator intermedius, several d. auratus morphs, several d. tinctorius morphs,p. bicolor orange, d ventrimaculatus, d. leucomelas. That is only 7 species, but in a few days I will be getting two almirante pairs, and in a month fants, and retics and not long after that amazonicus. I have 10 tanks now, but it will soon be around 20 with all my frogs that have out grown shoeboxes. I can fit 36 tens in my frog room, and still have room for all my feeders and plants. I have been in the hobby about a year, and it is truly addicting. Luckily I always have enough food. One collection which I would call large would be patrick nabors collection, he bought about 200 pumilio from the recent shipments, thats is alot more frogs in one purchase than most of us will ever have.

 

[Guest]

Mark,

Welcome to DendroBoard. That was extremely nice of John and Jennifer to hook you up with those D. Ventrimaculatus. I was also given my first pair of Vents from a good friend, and those frogs always remind me why I'm in this hobby. I have been amazed at the generosity of people in this community. I hope you enjoy the board and utilize it up to its full potential.

~Joe

I recently met John and Jennifer Gibeau. They have moved to a new home, and either traded away or sold about half their collection, and I counted about 55 tanks, and at least a couple hundred frogs.

They were very modest, and said that there are collections out there that make theirs look tiny.

So I guess I am curious - If their collection is not large, what is large? John said that I might want to clarify this question with number of morphs in a species as being counted, and I think that they should, just for the purposes of counting. Counting in this fashion, John and Jen have 34 species of frogs, 28 of which are poison frogs; and about 65 babies of different kinds.

Talking to John today, I asked him to go through and count everything, and he said that he needed to anyway, and has come up with a number of 204 animals all told, not counting tadpoles.

John warned me that Dendroboard is a place where you scratch people's backs, and not to expect unbiased opinions; Anything negative is counted as an attack here I guess, so I just want to say up front, I am friends with John, I have decided that the guy is the kindest man on the planet. Heck, he gave me and my girlfriend frogs and the tank they came in, saying "It's nice to see you loving them, so take them home and love them there." They are a frog called ventrimaklatus(?), or something like that. They are all carrying the gene for albino, and I looked at some albinos, and really liked them.

So how many frogs make a collection large?

Mark Johnson

 

[bbrock]

I would judge a large collection as one that takes more than an average of one hour a day to maintain. I'm not talking about time spent dreaming up new designs and playing around but the time it takes to set up cultures, feed, clean, change water, tend eggs, etc. to maintain all of the frogs in a good and healthy condition and to breed the ones you want to breed. I also think that the best indicator of collection "size" is the number of tanks you are maintaining. I've been keeping the same 5 species for many years but the "size" of my collection has varied widely depending on how actively I breed. My core collection of about 25 frogs and 7 tanks but in the past has been well over a hundred frogs and about double the number of tanks plus tadpole tubs and extra feeder cultures etc. simply because I was producing more tadpoles and froglets.

I'm really glad that Mark brought up this topic because I think too frequently we get into some sort of arms race with ourselves to see how many species we can collect. Some people handle the committment in time associated with large collections quite well but most of us would implode under the increased demands and the frogs would suffer.

 

[Jace King]

Yeah all the frogs i keep are D. imitator, D. Tinctorius, D. Azureus, D. reticulatus,D. Ventrimaculatus, and my D. Galactonotous. Thats 6 species in 6 tanks. all paired except the imitator (one female) and reticulatus ( can these be sexed)
This is wat is considered mine ,but really my collection is completely shared with my friend Zach. At his house he has 1.2 D. galacs, 1.1 Leucs, 2.2 ( in two tanks) D. tinctorius, 0.0.2 d. Vents, all this in another 6 tanks.
Then when you conisder the Azureus we morphed and are raising to adulthood, to sell as pairs,thats is another 5 tanks of 10 frogs.
So we have 17 tanks between us. This overwhelmed me at some points, not because the work but i went a little fast in aquiring to much. I think people easily can get in over their head as i did.

 

[Guest]

Great post.In my opinion having too many vivs could mean you are missing out on some very cool behavior.Besides being beautiful animals are we missing out on some of the neat little things our frogs do by just throwing in food and going to the next tank?
Sure, I'd love to have a big collection but when it comes to the point of just feeding them and not having time to sit back and enjoy them then I'd think you have hit your peak.
Some of us may have that kind of time but for me my collection of 8 species and 9 vivs is perfect.
Mark

 

[Ed Martin]

We have 11 species in our collection (more to come!) but do not consider it large. In fact we think it is small. We think that we can handle a couple more species and then that it about it, because we would not be able to spend the time on each group that we would like. I agree with Brent if you are spending an hour a day on normal maintenance tasks...that is a large collection.

Ed

 

[Guest]

large collections

I know what people mean when it comes to an addicting hobby, the more you get the more you want. I remember telling a good friend of mine who first introduced me to frogs that I only wanted 1 tank and 1 species (Azureus), at the time I had many fish tanks. Well you know the story 1 by 1 the fish tanks turned into frog tanks. After accumulating 6-8 species of frogs I had the chance in the early 90's to acquire some WC Azureus, I got rid of everything I had and set up 6 pairs of WC Azureus. What a mistake, after a couple of months I was so bored with the same frog in every tank. Keeping many and varied species is one of the things that makes this hobby so interesting and what usually leads to more tanks and more species, but hobby is the operative word. Several times during the years my hobby became work, too many frogs to feed, chytrid wiped out my collection or kids/work did not allow enough time.
Large collection is relative, John has a large collection as does Pat and every other commercial breeder here in the US as well as many institutions and hobbyists. The key as a hobbyist is to keep a collection that you can enjoy, take good care of and at least for most of us reproduce some offspring. This can be 2-3 pairs or 23 pairs of frogs, just remember if you want to stay in this hobby for a long time just treat people the way you would want to be treated. Remember John's kindness and maybe some day you can do the same for some "newbie" looking through your collection.

 

[bbrock]

There is one other aspect I've discussed with other hobbyists over the years and that is the potentially important role that hobbyists who concentrate on fewer species can provide. To various degrees large collections require something of a systematic approach to be able to efficiently support all of the animals well. When it comes to breeding these animals, a standard system works well with the majority of frogs. But then there are the difficult species that just don't seem to produce well using the standard 10-20gal tank approach. Things like retics, histrio, some morphs of pumilio, etc. that seem to need something a little different. This is where I think the dedicated small collection hobbyist can really make a difference by pooling all of their time and resources into cracking the code of a difficult species or group of frogs. It's just hard to imagine most of the folks with very large collections being able to dedicate the needed amounts of time, space, and money to such a project while still maintaining the rest of the collection. I know a guy who after learning the basics on a few species decided to just concentrate on retics and he has produced quite a few of them now. Not a bad way to go in my book.

 

[Guest]

I'm with you on that Brent. Picking the species I want to really work with isn't that hard for me.
One thing too is some of us are real plant nuts. When it comes to buying some of the more expensive plants like orchids it can get pricey and having " breeder" viv that are sparsly planted would drive me crazy.
My son told me the other day that when some of his friends come over they really like how my vivs look and think they do look like little jungles which is very cool to me.
Mark

 

[aattea]

This is an interesting topic. I am always amazed at the size of some collections. I've been in "dart trade" for about 10 years and have 4 species of darts (2 morphs of 2 of the species) and 1 species of reed frogs. I have 7 tanks for adults with 1 waiting for a new species. However, I have an additional 13 tanks of offspring and usually 3 tubs of tads plus assorted yogurt cups. Add in 3 tanks of other critters and that is a lot (I am at Brent's hour per day).

As you can see, if you are planning on breeding, you need to be ready to expand a lot and to expand quickly. The hobby can become stressful if you aren't ready for it. Big frogs like tincs need a lot of space as they grow and you can't always "move" your offspring as quickly as you like.

My advice is to plan where you want your collection to end up and to be realistic. I am about 75% satisfied with my collection. I would like to have a few less frogs and a few more 'large' tanks (50 gallons or more) with my adults. I enjoy the hobby much more having a trio of tincs in a 50 gallon rather than a pair in a 10 gallon. I need to recite this to myself over and over everytime I read the classifieds or go to IAD.

I guess what I am saying is to do a little thinking and make sure you enjoy the hobby and will continue to do so. That will, in turn, help you to keep your frogs healthy. This is a hobby for life, so there is nothing wrong with going slow. Remember, 4 reed frogs can be a few hundred tadpoles in 2 months! 30 tinctorius froglets will quickly need 7 - 10 ten gallon tanks to keep 'em happy!

Thanks,
AAA

 

[SMenigoz]

Hmmm....I'd say its all relative what large is for a collection. While I think I've got a sizable dart frog collection going, others might consider it rather modest. Several tanks larger than 100 gal as well as 15 or so 10 gal.
I work with terribilis, aurotaenia, azureus, auratus, galactonotus, imitator, ventrimaculatus, reticulatus and several varieties of tinctorius. While housing the adults poses a first concern, once the babies start morphing out, the shuffle to house them becomes the real issue. I'm blessed (?) with prolific azureus and have over 100 babies to maintain. The terribilis drop large clutches of eggs and the tads are easily reared. My tincs (Alanis, Surinam Cobalts and Brazillian yellowheads) have been consistently producing viable offspring. What started out as strictly a hobby has developed into a business. :lol: Too many frogs?? Possible??