Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, so I am looking into dart frogs for the near future.. but I have a question.. I have read a few care sheets, etc. but nowhere I have I seen this really talked about..

I am unsure if they need UVA and UVB lighting, I would assume so, but am not sure... If they do not, wouldn't the live plants need the lighting?

Also, regarding live plants.. Are they required?? What types of live plants seem to work the best with Dart Frogs? I know of Bromelaids(SP?), but thats really it.. Would those alone work?

its not required but it doesnt hurt. ive heard that tads morph out with a better chance of being healthy with it. and also i think it brings out the colors better. but no its not required. live plants arent required either but they are much more aestheically pleasing and cleaner. I say cleaner because with live plants you basically have a little micro habitiat that doesnt need to be cleaned out every week or so. The plants use the frog droppings and dead fruit flys as fertilizer so it makes things easier on you. If you were to use fake plants you would be having to clean the poop out alot. and these little guys poop ALOT.

the smaller bromeliads do well in vivariums. most of use use neogralias(sp?) in our vivs along with many other types of broms. pretty much all the broms you will find for sale on dart frog sites will do well.

Thanks, johnny.

I will definitly be using UV if does seem to help, even the slightest. I'll most likely use live plants aswell, as they do look better, and you had a very good point with the cleaning every week thing..

My 2 vivs are basically "mini jungles". I planted them in March and got my frogs in April. It's been 4 weeks now and the frogs are all doing great.

I use bromeliads, philodendrons, jewel orchids (3 types), Moss (2 Types), Bird of Paradise, Pothos, Tilisandias, Ferns, Iris and a few other varities and I haven't even scratched the surface of what's available.

I find that my species of frogs (Cobalt Tincs and Green and Black Auratus) haven't taken to the Bromeliads like some others do. They seem to like climbing all over my Pothos plants.

The planting aspect also lets you grow exotic plants that you don't find in most nurseries. You can also do setups with water and bog plants.

It makes the hobby much more dynamic and multidimensional.

I too use UV bulbs on my enclosures and use a screen top under the lights to allow the UV through.

I'm still a novice, but I figure my setups will mimic the sun as much as possible. Good luck!

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-Iman

1.1 BRBs (Ying and Yang)
1.1 JCPs (Striker and Sheila)
0.0.2 BPs (Spot and Speck)
0.0.4 Dendrobates Tinctorius 'Suriname Cobalts'
0.0.4 Dendrobates Auratus 'Costa Rican Green and Black'
5.5 Fish (Insert your favorite names here)
1.0 Miniature Daschund (Rue)

Loving to Learn
Learning to Help
Helping to Love

Stimulate debates, stifle arguments.
Please be nice always.

awsome to hear an i like ur set up

Re: UV lighting and darts-- This is unnecessary and difficult to use with dart frogs. They will avoid it, not bask under it. In a rain forest, the UV that reaches a forest floor is very filtered and scattered by the canopy. The food items are dusted with vitamins, calcium plus D3, the D3 being the necessary ingredient that is otherwise provided by UV in unfiltered sunlight. However, since most of us enclose our tanks with a glass lid which filters out all UV light and the high humidity and misting and heat control precludes using bare lights within the tanks themselves, few dart keepers utilize UV lighting for darts. There are some acrylics that do allow UV penetration, and you may find other plastics that are rated for this. But glass does not. The UV range is invisible, so it does not add to the tank color. The visible light from UV bulbs is from the incidental visible spectrum of the bulbs. Plants do not utilize the UV spectrum. Therefore, the tank lighting is mostly for the sake of the living plants, which use a mid range of around 6700 Kelvin to best all around advantage.

The advantage of natural plants is that they help recycle wastes biologically, increase humidity, and along with the natural organic substrates and water features, help modify temperatures.

There are hundreds of suitable tropical plants for vivariums. I would recommend staying with the smaller species, including small-leaved vines. The most popular bromeliads are the Neoregelias, as mentioned, which can be colorful with suitable lighting, hold water in the leaf axils and can be grown epiphytically on branches or backgrounds without growing extremely large or needing much nourishment except for the detritus that accumulates in the leaf axils and what the aerial roots can glean from the humid air. They will grow quite well wired to branches or pegged into backgrounds such as cork bark. Almost all darts will use the bromeliad axils as resting places or hides, and the thumbnails and obligate egg feeders like pumilios will raise their tadpoles in the water filled central vase and leaf axils.

Here's a photo of some of my juvenile galactonotus huddled down in bromeliad axils. Some old adults are now using the brome leaves to deposit eggs.

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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.

I will not pretend to be a expert in darts as Ive only been keeping them about 6-7 months now.

But I can say that I am finding them a great deal of fun and actually the setting up of the tanks (vivariums) with live plants and natural settings is a great deal of the enjoyment.

The first tanks I did I made a layer of drainage then a layer of cocofiber/soil ,added moss I purchased from a reptile show that I was assured was grown in his greenhouse. and finally set some corkbark in for backgrounds . Looked great to me and actually still are functioning .

However I did run into issues

1) the moss turned out to be harvested from the wild and I ended up with slugs ,millipeeds and fungus . None of which harmed my frogs but all of which concerned me .

2) New York moss doesnt do well without a wintering period and began to die.

3) without a space between the drainage and the soil it stayed wet and killed a number of the plants I first chose.

4) compared to later attemps they are pretty ho hum and thus I want to redo them.

My latest attempts follow advice given on various web pages and include the use of corkbark, great stuff , pumps , water features and java moss and springtail cultures in the soil ..everyone who comes into my home no matter what thier interests are spend time admiring them . Its well worth your time to research the various spots on the web before building your viv.