Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello im going on vacation for 10 days, my mother in law is watching the house and reptiles. but the bad part is she is scared of fruit flies and pinheads. what can i do to help her help me or what other choices do i have thanks in advance.

I go away for 2 weeks each summer and have had my dart frogs for the past 2 summers as well. Starting about a month before I leave I start fattening up the frogs with twice a week flour beetles, more fruit flies and more crickets. I also try to put as many springtails into the tank as possible so that they can find those too. But, I usually put some fly cultures in the tank with the frogs. You need to make sure that the times of them is weighted so that there will be one in its prime just as you leave, one just ocming into its prime and another that will be in its prime about 2/3 of the way through your vacation. I just put some plastic screening with eighth inch holes so flies can get out on the lid and let the frogs go. I have also heard of people that breed crickets putting cricket eggs in the enclosure so that the crickets hatch and frogs eat them. SO thats what I do, and it seems to work good!
Mark
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my tanks and frogs
.7 Green and Black Costa Rican D. Auratus
.4 D. Azureus
2 Golden Mantella Tadpoles

have you considered making vacation feeding cultures? These are easy to do with Snapple bottles. Just make them with aa little less water and poke small holes in the metal lids and place masking tape over these holes. Once the cultures start producing flies, remove the tape to expose a few holes and place the bottles upright in your tanks. The flies will find their way out and will get eaten by the frogs. Just tell your mother in law to monitor the cultures/frogs to be sure that they are eating them.
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2.2.6 D. azureus
1.2.24 D. ventrimaculatus 'yellow'
1.1 D. tinctorius 'cobalt' (one subadult)
0.0.3 D. tinctorius 'patricia'
1.1 D. auratus 'blue'
0.2 P. aurotaenia

id say the best way to do it is to put a culture in the tank with holes big enough for flies to get out, but keep frogs out of it.
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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 too have had to deal with this problem and I must say that it is very very easy to feed them about 200 ph each before you leave and then add a fruit fly culture with a hole in it. If you are talking thumbnail a good supply of springtails goes a long ways. I have left with frog coming out of the water and just placerd a small culture of spring trail in the container with no lids and by the time I got home it was fat and eating and went the first b5 days of it's life with no supervision. Large dart can go over 7 days with no food being added to the tank buy just eating what naturally is feeding on rotting materials I DON NOT RECOMEND DOING THAT though.