Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi folks: would you unconfuse me about somethings please. Do crickets large enough to feed RETF eat darts? or harm/threaten/stress darts in any way? Also, is there a hardy, appropriate enough dart to be housed together(don't kill me) with either RETF or Tiger leg leaf frogs in an enclosure that would be 270 gal? When doing the unmentionable mixing, isn't it preferrable to have a diurnal kind with a nocturnal kind, or is the reverse true? Thank you for your help again.

Maggie

I will leave the mixing subject for someone else, but as for the crix...they will not eat your darts. However, they may try to chew on them at night. I have to take them out of my chameleon cage before the lights go out because of this. They can not really harm the dart, but they sure can make getting a good night sleep tough.
-----
Matt

Which leads to stress which can lead to death. not a good idea, I regret suggesting Mascarino's site to you on the tree frog forum if this is where the idea came from, if not ok. I have a problem with people suggesting mixing species when they probably have a whole greenhouse to mix a D. auratus and a P. hypochondrialis and don't have it on their site.
-----
P. vaillanti
derekb15.tripod.com/tropicaltreasures
4.2.0 P. sauvagei
3.2.7 P. hypochondrialis
2.0.0 P. vaillanti
0.0.3 P. aurotaenia
2.2.0 B. orientalis
0.0.10 S. pustulosa
0.0.3 B. americanus
0.0.1 M. laevigata
0.0.1 M. milotympanum
1.0.0 T. horsefieldi

looks at the picture on the signature, does a double take::
woah for a second i just saw an evil ewok, but then looked again and said oh... heh frog....
dont mind me im spacy
lol

ashley
-----
Just A Thought
Ashley
;P

I have had great luck mixing RETF and darts. But, I have the RETF trained to be hand fed (so no loose crickets), the tank is large (125 gallons), and there is a ton of cover for the darts. As for species to mix you could do worse. The natural ranges for many darts overlaps that of RETF, and in a large enough tank it is quite possible to provide ideal conditions for both.

I however could just be a fluke amoung hobbiest, so use caution if you decide to try it.

Hi Maggie,

Its good to ask those questions. Often times when people ask about mixing different species together they get a reply with very basic do's and don'ts but with nothing explaining why you shouldn't do it or why you should.

Adult crickets are not viscious killers that eat dart frogs in one bite. Crickets will however eat pretty much anything that is offered to them vegetables, grains and live animals will all be accepted. A starving cricket purchased from a pet store will literally try to eat anything. If you were to feed a few crickets at night to the red-eyes but not all of them were eaten an adult cricket could theoretically find a dart frog in the terrarium and start nibbling on it. Crickets can cause pretty sever injuries, ask Andy over on the frog forum (I think it was Andy). His African bull frog got part of a toe eaten away by a cricket once, I'd hate to see what would happen to a dart frog.

The other problem with putting large crickets in a terrarium with dart frogs is that it would be stressful. Dart frogs are sensative animals and although they are easy to keep when you stay between a few important guide lines, things can go bad pretty quickly if they become stressed from venturing outside of those lines. A few insects as large as a dart frog wondering around and disturbing things in the terrarium deffinetly isn't going to be beneficial to the frogs.

Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you. A 270 gallon aquarium is huge. I'm sure that in a tank that size there would be some way to successfully house a few red-eyed tree frogs and a some large species of dart frog like terriblis or large tinctorius morphs. In a terrarium that measured over 6 feet long, 3 feet high and 2 feet wide (around 270 gallons) you could probably create areas for both species of frogs. Lots of arboreal branches up high, maybe even a seperate feeding container for the red-eyes to eliminate the risk of large crickets harming the dart frogs. So it probably could be done, but why do you want to do it? When you first think about it the idea does sound kind of cool, but what frog would be benifitting from it? Would you still be able to observe normal dart frog and red-eyed tree frog behavior when they would be kept together? Tiger legged monkey frogs are almost only availible as wild caught animals so you probably wouldn't want to house them with dart frogs.

I've always been under the impression that when housing two species together you want species that have very similar behavior. I've heard that a nocturnal frog will disturb a diurnal frog at night and vice versa. Species that are closely related and have similar care requirements generally are the only kind that can coexist together in the same tank for long periods of time and those are species that are active during the same time of day.
-----
Devin
devin@amphibiancare.com
www.amphibiancare.com
3.2 Dendrobates tinctorius 'Dwarf French Guiana'
1.1 Dendrobates tinctorius 'Powder Blue'
5.1 Mantella aurantiaca
2.1 Mantella crocea
1.0 Ceratophrys cranwelli
1.0 Bufo americanus
0.0.1 Salamandra salamandra
1.0 Ambystoma tigrinum
0.1 Chamaeleo calyptratus
0.1 Phelsuma dubia
1.1 Uroplatus ebenaui
0.0.1 Chrysemys scripta
0.0.1 Chrysemys picta belli
1.0 Terrapene carolina triunguis

Hello: Thank you so much for your post! I think you've ended my confusion-phew! I've always been the kind of kid that asked constantly "why?!?!", to the dismay of many teachers. It was only when a teacher patiently explained the thinking behind what was being taught that this eager student accepted it. Your explaination was very complete and made perfect sense that even this curious thinker can accept that though we might see some folks doing these mixes and somewhat successfully, it may not ultimately be satisfying to me considering what difficulties my charges might face.

I began asking the questions as I really wished to have a beautiful show piece vivarium amounting to about 270 gal. It would take up much space that I could have dedicated a rack for many smaller tanks housing a variety of pairs of darts. So the thinking began to wander over to having a community to accomplish the first wish without sacrificing the variety of the latter. But more so then the Viv., it is still more desirable to have healthy animals breeding successfully. Perhaps the best option is to have one species able to live in a community in that large viv. Now, the question is which ONE will be able to pose enough stimuli that I will not roam too far with more annoying questions all too soon. I appreciate immensely your very competent help and guidance. Maggie

Hi,
If I had a tank of that size and wanted to set it up I'd go with a Costa Rican type of tank.I have talked to alot of different people that have told me about mixing D.auratus and P. vittatus together without problems.One person even told me he knew of a guy that had auratus/ vittatus in a 10g.One pair of vittatus and one pair of auratus and they bred for them in it,no crosses.I am going to set up a 29 in that fashion and see how it goes.Good luck with your choices, that can be the toughest part of this hobby,deciding on frogs.
Mark W.

If you were to choose your dart frog species to be a P. Bicolor than you wouldn't have to worry so much about a cricket nibbler, since they are able to eat an adult cricket and can hunt in pretty low light. So if there is a light on elsewhere in the room you could probably have the red eyed tree frog hunting with the darts, just a thought.
-----
2.2.3 Orange Leucs
1.0 ventrimactulatus Blue leg
0.0.4 Orange galact

Always looking for female vents and plants