Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have new 50 gallon with two side doors and a draining hole at the bottom. I plan on building a waterfall out of lava rocks and a small pond area as well. I want to make this a tropical setting with live plants, high humidity and moisture. However, I have not purchased any animals yet and I am debating between tropical tree frogs and dart frogs. I have plenty of experience with tree frogs but I have always wanted to keep darts. I have not purchased any darts in past because I worry about several things such as:
1) Can adult darts eat small crickets or do I have to keep a culture of fruit flies? All this seems complicated and I am afraid that I won't be able to sustain a stable culture of flies since I do not live by an exotic pet store. I also worry about ordering food just for my pets...
2) How many can I keep in a a 50 gallon or 10 gallon?
3) How deep should the pond area be for darts?
4) How toxic are CB frogs anyway?

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1) with very few exceptions (large tinc morphs and a few others) dart frogs need smaller prey items such as fruit flies, aphid, springtails and a wide variety of other small critters.
2) The general rule of thumb with dart frogs is 1 frog per 5 gallons. This should not be strictly followed with some of the more aggressive darts you'll have to do research on some once you get further into the decision process.
3) Dart frogs are generally...this is generally don't want to start a controversy...most darts are poor swimmers and water areas should be kept shallow such as 1-2 inches at the most.
4) I believe that for the most part the major toxins do not occur in CB darts as they come from their natural prey (some sort of ants I believe). Someone can correct me if I'm wrong about this.

for my dart frogs i use 7-10 day [1/8-3/8 in.] crickets with no problems. the good thing about crickets is they stay on the bottom of the tank and with flys even though you dust them they will start to crawl up the side of your tank. people use flys because they are easier to breed than the crickets. also crickets cost, but i get about a tube of 500 ever week. when i have bred crickets thay didn't smell like my fly cultures did after a bit.