Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know this is an arrow frog forum, but I thought these Mantellas might be similar in care or some of you might have them, so here are my questions.

1. How high in temperature is too high? I can't find any good caresheets so if you have any good ones, let me know please.
2. Is a staple diet of gutloaded crickets of the appropriate size okay? I rather not deal with fruit flies if I don't have to.
3. What type of mantella do I have? Painted or Beautiful? What is the scientific name for it?
4. How can I tell their genders?
5. What size tank do they need? A 10-gallon for 2 okay?
6. Any other tips and pointers? I hope to try and breed them later.

Here are some pictures of them.

Both together

Largest one. I liked the stripes in its leg because it had a sharp contrast with the stripes shown well.

Large one again.

Smaller one. I picked this one because it had a nice blue blushing on its sides where the green is. It's leg stripe is not as solid and nice as the larger one, but still good.

I replyed to your first message and my thoughts about not researching first are there. so....

1) You said your place of residence doesnt have airconditioning and can reach 80 during the day. That isnt good for amphibians, and prolonged exposure could turn out to be fatal.

2) FFs are a must, you can feed crix hatchlings to 1/4" (only if the frogs are big enough to eat them that big).

3) Im not sure about their morph, i think painted

4) i think you can tell mantellas gender by their toe pads the same way as a dart frog

5) I think a 15 gallon is bare minimum for mantellas (but like i said im not familiar with all their needs)

6) Tip, frogs eyes are very sensative and a camera flash can do damage to their eyes.

Where did you get these frogs?
aj
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Click Here to see my vivarium and steps on how to make a basic vivarium UPDATED 7.18.03 Now complete! All that is needed are some New River Tincs!

kungfu28181: My god. You are insane. -Mon Jun 30 21:41:05

I think they may be Mantella Baroni? Also, 15 gallon minumum? No, about 2-3 mantellas can fit in a 10 gallon. Also, mantellas will get HRMSS at about 85* (Frank Williams told me about this)and higher. As for the camera things, they are diurnal, so it could be like thme glancing at the sun.
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P. sauvagei
derekb15.tripod.com/tropicaltreasures
3.1 P. sauvagei
2.1.2 P. hypochondrialis
2.0 P. vaillanti
0.0.3 P. aurotaenia
2.2 B. orientalis
0.0.10 S. pustulosa
0.0.3 B. americanus
1.0 T. horsefieldi

I don't know much about your mantellas but I just got 2 golden tadpoles so I have looked for some good caresheets. This is what I found to be the best http://www.easyamphibians.co.uk/mantella/index.html

http://www.amphibian.co.uk/mantella.html#TADPOLE & FROGLET CARE

Good Luck
Mark
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my tanks and frogs
.7 Green and Black Costa Rican D. Auratus
.4 D. Azureus
2 Golden Mantella Tadpoles

Hi,

Great pictures, thanks for posting them! I'm going to answer your questions out of order and kind of randomly so you might have to scroll around a little...

You have two awesome looking painted mantellas, either Mantella madagascariensis or M. baroni. The beautiful mantella, M. pulchra, has a similar pattern but the colors are generally less vivid on the legs and your mantella frogs have bright orange/red legs. The best way to tell the two apart is by their size. M. pulchra is smaller with large females only growing to an inch in length. To figure out which species of painted mantella you have (madagascariensis or baroni) look at the inner thigh of your frogs. Madagascariensis will have bright red flash marks while baroni will have just solid orange legs.

Mantella frogs need to be kept cool. Idealy the highest temperature in the terrarium during the day would be 78F but it would be better if you could keep them a bit cooler. When they are kept to hot the little frogs will hide all day in the coolest part of the cage and refuse to feed. If there is no cool space to hide mantella frogs die quickly. I lost my first golden mantella frog because the temperature in its cage stayed at 78F for a few days and there was no cool place for the frog to hide.

The best way to tell male mantella frogs from females is to listen. Adult male frogs will call. Males are also usually smaller and have a slender look while females grow larger and have a plump round look.

A 10 gallon aquarium will be large enough for two adult frogs. Provide lots of cool moist hiding spots and place for the frogs to take cover under like clumps of moss, dead leaves and cork bark.

A diet of only crickets will keep the mantella frogs alive. It is important to have a back up food source or two for your frogs incase your crickets die or can't be shipped due to cold weather. Flightless fruit flies are very easy to culture and are not as troublesome as most people think they are. Other food items to offer are termites, rice flower beetle larvae, springtails and small insects collected from the wild. Offering many different food items will keep your frogs healthier than if you just offered one type.

As far as care sheets go here are a few sites:

http://www.amphibian.co.uk/
http://www.easyamphibians.co.uk/mantella/index.html
http://www.amphibiancare.com/frogs/goldenmantella.html

Good luck with it all,

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Devin
devin@amphibiancare.com
www.amphibiancare.com
3.2 Dendrobates tinctorius 'Dwarf French Guiana'
1.1 Dendrobates tinctorius 'Powder Blue'
5.1 Mantella aurantiaca
1.1 Mantella crocea
1.0 Ceratophrys cranwelli
0.1 Hyla chrysoscelis or versicolor
1.0 Bufo americanus
0.0.1 Salamandra salamandra
1.0 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.1 Chamaeleo calyptratus
0.0.1 Chrysemys scripta
0.0.1 Chrysemys picta belli
1.0 Terrapene carolina triunguis