Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently purchased my first dart frog. I set up my tank a few weeks ago. I was going to wait until I knew my plants were established before buying frogs, but but the plants were attracting fruit flies. I went ahead and bought one frog to take care of the flies. I'm great w/all animals, but terrible with plants. What are some of the most hardy & readily available plants that will do well in high humidity?

My frog has a base color of black, his entire under chin is black. He/She has a lime green marble pattern on his/her back & legs. The employee at the store that I purchased the frog from believed it was in the tinc. family. I've been looking online and have not found any pics of green & black tincs. I did find one site that said that tincs can be green & black though. I found several pics of green & blk auratus, but they look a little diff. than my frog. How can you tell the diff. btwn a tinc. & a auratus (I only paid $30 for him if that helps any)? How hard is it to sex the frogs?

I also became very concerned because I had not seen my frog for a couple days. He's one little frog in a 55 gallon and I realize that they hide, but I dug through the plants, the moss, and took the waterfall out and still could not find him. I did this twice. Today I came home from work and he's as happy as can be right in the center of the tank. Do these guys bury themselves in the soil? My moss isn't established enough to cover all ground yet. Him digging is the only thing I can think of as far as where he would have been. I've had darts in a pet store that I managed before, they never dug, but the ground was covered in living moss there, so they probably couldn't have. He had me really worried, I still don't know where he had been. Sorry for such a long post.

Most likely it is a Dendrobates auratus. There are several morphs of the species, and different locales of the green and black (Costa Rican, Nicaraguan, Panamanian). In such a large tank, there are tons of places for a frog to hide, so finding them can often be difficult.
When you say that this is the first dart frog, I hope you are not planning on mixing different species. This is very frowned upon for many reasons. Try searching this forum as well as dendroboard . com for previous posts regarding this.

It sounds like an auratus, but can't be sure without a picture. They can be magicians about hiding. I just saw all four of my blue auratus out at once for the first time in four years. Maybe if you give him something like a cocoanut hut to hide under, you'll at least know where to look for him, provided he chooses this. While they won't actually dig to burrow, they will find little cracks and crannies to stuff themselves into.
-----
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

I have had the same thing happen with my green and black. The other day when I was cleaing the glass of my tank I saw the male hiding in the muddy water under the ghost wood.
When I first got my pair they hide all the time. Once they got use to their environment they came out alot more. Now they oinly hide if I'm cleaning the tank or their watching the eggs.
It took me a long time once the froglets were coming out of the water to figure out how many there were. Usually when I look for hiding frogs I lift up my ghost would that goes across their pond.