Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am interested in creating a bog vivarium but was wondering if any tree frogs would do well in one. I have limited axperience with amphibians (two fire bellied toads and a green tree frog) so I was hoping to find a hardy easy to keep animal. I keep crickets on hand for the fire bellied toads (The gtf unfortunately died after 5 years) but they are expensive, and a pain to breed in small numbers. It doesn't appear to me that any species of tree frogs are regularly maintained on mealworms, which I breed to support my jungle albino leopard gecko colony, but if I'm mistaken I would love to know. Thanks for all your help.

They aren't many frogs for a bog vivarium, but you can try fruit flies. They are much cheaper than crickets and reproducing thme is a cake walk. All you do is buy a few starter cultures, and about every week or so, put about 30 in another jar with media and something to climb on and lay eggs. These new flies will lay and develop in the jars and all you do is keep the process going. Mealworms aren't good for frogs, because they can't always digest them. There have been stories of mealworms eating away at a frog's stomach, or lacerating the inner lining. I've always heard to cut off the head, but I don't feed them for those reasons.
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CB Male P. sauvagei from Patrick Nabors
derekb15.tripod.com/tropicaltreasures
5.4.0 P. sauvagei
3.2.0 P. hypochondrialis
2.0.0 P. vaillanti
0.0.3 P. aurotaenia
2.2.0 H. argus
2.2.0 B. orientalis
0.0.9 S. pustulosa
0.0.1 M. laevigata
0.0.1 D. guineti
0.0.1 M. stelzneri
0.0.1 P. adspersus
1.0.0 T. horsefieldi

Thanks, I actually have been looking at making some kind of naturalistic frog vivarium for a while vut can not decide on a species to make it for. I am horrible with plants and so am planning to get good lights but the price of compact flourescent lamps is a little dishearteningso when I was looking through my old reptiles magazines and I read an article about bog vivariums () containing plants that use less light. Then in another magazine (November 2003)there was an article on green, gray, barking tree frogs in which a bog vivarium was used. I checked out your website which helped a lotand was wondering if a naturalistic setup of any kind could be used for Orange-Legged Monkey frogs (I'm talking about a full-fledged vivarium with moss plant laiden backgrounds). I will pay for the lights if necessary. Also I don't know if you have the previously mentioned issue of reptiles magazine or not but they have a picture showing a rare blue greent tree frog (not whites) If there is any place I can track one of these down that would be great, if not it would be an interesting breeding project for myself. Sorry for the really long post and once again, thanks for your help.

I used to think the same as you, that plants were extremely difficult to grow in terrariums. Now I know better, and they are very simple to grow if given some attention. Lighting is the main factor, a good fluorescent or two will easily grow most types of foliage, and grow bulbs help as well. The articles in REPTILES magazine are very good articles. The article about the greens, grays, and barkings was fairly good, but do not mix these species. As for orange-leggeds (P. hypochondrialis) in a jungle type naturalistic set-up, I don't recomend it, as they seem to like a little warmer and dryer conditions than say the Tiger-legged (P. tomopterna) or Red-eyes (A. callidryas). If you are talking about a blue phase green tree frog, I believe that Bob Mailloux at Sandfire Dragon Ranch ( http://www.sandfiredragonranch.com ) was working with these at one point, but I'd imagine extremely expensive. Have you thought about albino phase green tree frogs? I know that LLL reptiles ( http://www.lllreptile.com ) has them for around $35 which is not a bad price, they used to go for around $50. Lighting is rather cheap, I get under cabinet fixtures and bulbs for quarintine tanks from Wal-Mart for about $7, which is about as cheap as you can get. Then I add a $5 grow bulb usually. Any more questions, feel free to ask.
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CB Male P. sauvagei from Patrick Nabors
derekb15.tripod.com/tropicaltreasures
5.4.0 P. sauvagei
3.2.0 P. hypochondrialis
2.0.0 P. vaillanti
0.0.3 P. aurotaenia
2.2.0 H. argus
2.2.0 B. orientalis
0.0.9 S. pustulosa
0.0.1 M. laevigata
0.0.1 D. guineti
0.0.1 M. stelzneri
0.0.1 P. adspersus
1.0.0 T. horsefieldi