Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all,

First off I want to thank Patty in a earlier post you mentioned that while it wasnt your experence that fruit flys need a light cycle. I was in the middle of a crisis where ALL my cultures were suddenly not producing and I had no idea what was going wrong .When I read this I thought hmmm I have started closing the closet door where I keep the cultures.I opened it back up and within 2 days they all began producing!That saved me about a four hour drive each way to the closest place I know of for fruitflys .So ild have to say in my case light cycles do matter!!!

I have a question... To the forum but probally most of all to hide Patty .I know the general rule of thumb is at least a ten gallon for a pair of darts and I have no problem matching that. However I have a pair of tincts in a 29 gallon that over the months have actually shrank the area they use to about 6 inches square.They hunt there,soak there and hide just off from there.and ignore the rest of the cage.I have a pair of auratus rasied from froglets in a ten gallon that also only use 1 section of thier tank about 6 inches from thier hide holes .
Now I have a octagonal tank 29 gal? heavilly planted that ive put 4 bumblebee darts in recently .Each has found his favorite hide spot and rarely ventures far from it. Am I observing territorial issues of some sort ..or it it possible I have them in too busy of a spot in my home?Or perhaps some other reason ?
The tincts and auratus are out all day every day ..rarely retreating to thier hides.

I would guess that it's them getting used to the tank. When I put a leuc froglet in with my other leucs, he hid rather often and was rather rare to see. Now, he's everywhere and very visible. Same thing with my vents. I don't think that I saw them for two weeks after I put them in the cage. Now, I can fairly regularly see them.

I'd say give them a little time and they'll start exploring. Perhaps dump their flies in an open area away from their hiding spots. They'll get the idea that that is where food is and check it out often.