First of all, you really set up a nice tank for the D. tinctorius on short notice! That's impressive. This tank should keep them happy for quite a while, perhaps permanently if they are two males or a pair. Female tinctorius are particularly territorial and intolerant of other females as adults, so you'll need to watch their behavior carefully as they mature. If they begin to fight, you will need to separate them, as one can become stressed and intimidated to the point of death. This is obviously different from courting behavior, and involves wrestling and tumbling. If you hear either of them call, everything should be O.K.

It's really best not to mix different genera together, nor even different species of dart frogs. When we were discussing this issue, we were talking about possible mixing in a really huge tank, and even then, the snake we were discussing, the Amazon boa, is a very dubious tank mate. A 55 gallon would not be suitable for any mixing, but you could obtain a group of 5 or so one of the more gregarious dart frogs. The groupies include D. auratus, D. leucomelas, D. imitator (experiences with imitator vary, but mine actually do better in groups, even with some fighting between females,) D. galactonotus, Epipediobates sp., Phyllobates terribilis, vittatus or lugubris. The extremely territorial species include the D. azureus, D. tinctorius (all of the morphs, including citronella) and all D. pumilio. These need to be kept in pairs of male and female, or occasionally two males and a female, as with tinctorius. It is usually the females that do the fighting in my own experience, but I've also heard reports of male aggression in imitators and others, as well.

I don't think there is a one of us who hasn't wanted a mixed jungle environment, especially when first starting out with the hobby. The mixing issue is probably the most frequently asked question on any forum, in spite of many care sheets and stickies on the subject. The over-all answer is generally "no," or at least not until you have a lot of personal experience with each specie you want to mix, and a generous amount of space for the initial experiment. They should also come from an identical environment for temperature and humidity. That rules out newts.

I can hardly wait to see what you are going to do with a 55 gallon tank if you can set up something as nice as you did on short notice! Good luck with your first happy dart froggies.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

D. auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, galactonotus orange, galactonotus yellow, fantasticus, reticulatus, imitator, castaneoticus, azureus, pumilio Bastimentos. P. lugubris, vittatus, terribilis mint green, terribilis orange.

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