Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Is P.terribilis the largest dart frog? I'd like to get a few but I don't really want to deal with breeding fruit flies. My local pet store always has a good supply of pin head crickets and I was told terribilis can take larger foods.

These guys can take crickets several days old. That will not be a problem at all. But they can also eat quite a bit so it my start costing you a bit for the crickets unless you raise them yourself. You will need to feed them atleast every other day, and each one will eat about 10 crickets once they get some size to them. Not trying to steer you away from them, I have 6 myself. Just giving you a heads up is all.

TonyT

I order my cricket in bulk online. You just need a container and a place to keep them (with a lot of crickets the droppings can get pretty smelly).

I get my thru Fluker Farms, but there are many other sites.
-----
Leif

0.0.3 Tinctorius (Oelemari)
0.0.3 Luecomelas
0.0.3 Auratus (Green/Black Costa Rican)

i have seen bigger frogs than the terribilis. my friend has tafelburg tincs, also giant orange tincs are bigger. i had about 5 mints but they died due to my neglect and they were smaller than the tafelburgs and the giant orange.
about crickets if you are able to get pinheads then ask the store if they can get 10 days [about 1/8"-1/4"] if you can also see if they can get you a tube of 500 and keep them in a critter keeper with food and moisture or even 1000 which will be cheaper and last about 2 weeks. i now that sounds like a lot but you do get die off. i feed my lone mint 10 crickets a day.

Variety is nice to have. Fruit flies are so easy to raise and could save you some problems if the cricket orders are delayed. The flies are really not a hassle to deal with or raise. I use fruit flies as the mainstay fodder, both D. hydei and the D. malanogaster, depending upon the size of my frogs, pinhead crickets (a real pain in the butt to raise yourself), springtails (easy to raise in a shoe box full of charcoal, yeast and rice, but they are difficult to dust and very tiny, so are mostly like a kind of dessert treat), rice meal worms (a total bust, because they are hard to separate from the rice flour and the frogs can't digest the adult beetles, and the larvae don't move enough to stimulate most of my frogs into eating them.) I collect field plankton in the summer, including aphids, which they love. I'm curious, though. Why do you not want to bother raising fruit flies? Is it because there are so many "how-to" dicussions on the forums that appear intimidating? They are very simple to raise and maintain, can propser in a dark, closed cupboard, are easily dusted with vitamins, and come in several sizes, all flightless. I just order the media and deli cups from Saurian and set up new cultures every few days, stuff them in the cupboard, then feed from the mature cultures as needed. While everyone is arguing about how to cook up their own media, etc., (been there and done that), I've found it more expedient to simply use Saurian's media with a bit of yeast and some exelsior to enhance the area for pupating. It never stinks. When each culture fades into non-production, or shows signs of stinking, I simply throw it out. The fruit flies do escape, but they are totally innocuous. They aren't buzzing around or carrying diseases like a house fly or mosquito. They don't bite. If they accidentally get into your food, they just look like pepper, so no one notices. There are probably more grasshopper legs and insect parts in your bottle of store bought Heinz Ketchup than incidental fruit flies in your salad.
-----
Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
3 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
4 D. leukomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus pending

I just find the crickets easier. I did the FF thing when I had tricolors and mantellas but the wife threw a fit about the ff's, especially when a few would climb out of the tank and onto the couch. Also I thought it was a pain transferring ff's to new containers. I always ended up with tons more ff's than I needed, and the local pet store never wanted to but any.

I find that my terribillis are bottemless pits, I feed them twice a day and if I see a bottle with hundreds of fruitflies its a godsend. Not that I put hundreds in the tank at one sitting. I alternate between fruit flies and crickets. I raise my own crickets by the 1000's and don't bother feeding the pin heads to the frogs cause they are the size of the fruitflies. In stead I let them grow to be 1/4-1/2 inch and then feed them . This works great for me especially if I experience a crash in ff culture or I am in between cultures. Also, when I have ff in the tank and crickets the frogs always go fo the crickets first, I dunno if it has something to do w/ motion or what but as I drop them into the tank some of them are gone before they hit the ground... no kidding.