Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone got any care sheets?

I heard you can just put them in a tank and they'll "clean the tank up" wouldnt they attack the froggies?

About fruit flies. There tiny little buggers and a terrerium can get very complex. If you drop some into a vivarium wouldn't they hide? How would our frogs find any?

Also, I read the Fruit Fly care sheet on saurian.net and I have a question, a step of it (after adding the medium and water) is to add flys t the cup with the culture in it, where do you get these flies in the first place?

If anyone has a care sheet for fruit flies if all you have is 940ml of culture (from canadian feeders) it would be great.

Also, any info on an Canadian-Shipping dart frog breeder would be great.

Thanx
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0.2 Cats (Moora and Twitch)
0.1 Dogs (Maria)
soon to be 1.0 Panther Chameleon (Yoda)

Check this site out for the cultures and kits.

http://www.edsflymeatinc.com

http://www.edsflymeatinc.com/care_sheets.htm

You order the flies from a dealer. The site you were at sells flies (www.saurian.net). Ed's fly meat sells it all. I ordered frogs from saurian and I am receiving some cultures from Ed's this coming Thursday. Both places are run by good people.

The springtails will get eaten up, and in my experience, don't maintain themselves in a dart tank, although I introduce them into any new tank before adding the frogs, hoping they will establish and breed faster than they are gobbled up. (They don't.) Fruit flies are hunted down by the dart frogs. Those that aren't eaten, eventually die. Fruit flies tend to climb, not hide. The darts aren't stupid, and can hunt them down. Patrick at Saurian also supplies fruit flies along with the media.

I maintain a springtail culture that I originally got from Ed's fly meat. These are especially nice to feed newly emerged froglets, but they aren't a mainstay food item and don't clean anything up.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus

Very cool. DO you know of any breeders (who will ship to canada) who have them? I'm pretty interested in them now.

Also, Don't springtails eat some forms of bacteria inside the tanks (effectively "Cleaning" the tank?)

Thanx
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0.2 Cats (Moora and Twitch)
0.1 Dogs (Maria)

Sringtails are a fungivour primarily feeding on molds and fungus that are breaking down plant material. You could use the to "clean up a tank" but it wouldn't be by eating the bacteria. They will add to the nitrogen cycle like any living critter. If you wanted to establish them in a tank with a frog, you might have to use some wild ratio like a frog to 3 sq feet of floor and then the floor would have to have enough material to sustain the STs...not all plants and moss for example. The challenge is that the STs are very small (commonly available species in the US anyway) and it takes a raft of them for the frog to stop hunting.
Usually STs are used to get froglets to the size that they can take wingless fruitflies (the smallest of the many varieties and species).
You can get the critters to Canada by having a Biology teacher or Professor requesting the material and providing the appropriate paperwork regarding instructional, scientific, bla bla. Many folks have the things sent to a friend on the state sides and pick them up in person. The biggest concern is the soil and what it might carry and not so much the STs. Shipping worms grown in soil is not allowed for example, but with documentation "certifying" that the worms were cultivatied in a soiless environment they can be admitted.
There are suppliers in Canada for the fruitflies...just run a Google search.
Just some thoughts,
Jim

I agree, the springtails are very difficult to establish in a dart tank, as the frogs hunt them down so efficiently. I've even tried establishing them well ahead of introducing frogs, and even that didn't work, except for giving the newly introduced froglets a source of smaller food for a short period of a week or so. My original cultures were from Ed's Fly Meat, and came in a separate vial with a culture kit, including good sized charcoal (2 to 3 inch slabs) and yeast. I don't think this would be banned in Canada, but I'm not sure. I've since enhanced these cultures with an organic soil substrate and occasionally add some brown rice, which seems to have increased their production. You have to be careful not to add too much rice, or it begins to stink and rot. I keep them in closed plastic food containers, and am still using the original charcoal, laced with yeast every few days and a handful of rice once in awhile. you need to keep about an inch of water in the bottom. They will swarm all over the charcoal slabs and you can just pick one up and blow them off into the tank. For the "nursery tanks" before the froglets are introduced to the permanent housing, I sometimes just put in a slab of charcoal filled with the springtails and watch them gather around this dinner table and gobble them up. Since it is impossible to "dust" springtails with vitamins and calcium supplements, and I don't know the nutritional value of them, I don't use them as the sole source of food for young froglets.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus