Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been interested in building a vivarium for over a year now. The extent of my knowledge is from what I have read in the Living Vivarium section in Reptiles magazine for the past two years. I am currently using this for my reference on planting mixes and so on. I have owned red bellied toads before and they lived in a simple 20 gal tank with half gravel land and half water with java moss and plants, simple and practical. I also have been a boa/python and bearded dragon owner for a few years.
This time around I want to make a small ecosystem. The frogs I wish to live there are golden mantellas. The vivarium I am intersted in making is a small shoreline vivarium in a 29 gal aquarium. It is featured in the Oct 2001 issue of reptiles, with coincidentally golden mantellas living in it. I have chosen this because it is inexpensive, low maintenance and I feel a good beginning project.
I understand that I should have my vivarium for a few months before I add any animals to be sure it is stable. My main concern with a vivarium is cleaning. With frogs I know they make a lot of waste and cages normally need to be cleaned and water changed frequently. But to my knowledge, if I succesfully set up my vivarium, waste should be disposed of on its own? Tips will be greatly appreciated.
- Andrea

well im not sure if mantellas are any where related to darts, but for more vivarium help try posting in the arrow frog forum. a few people in there have mantellas including H Blue Devil H
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Click Here to See My Dart Tank In The Making UPDATED 6.15.03 SPOILER! Still Needs Moss View At Your Own Risk

kungfu28181: My god. You are insane. -Mon Jun 30 21:41:05

That link is very helpful!!!

look at rc_racers spoiler link for some ideas on hwo to set up one really nice. i drilled the bottom for my Golden Mantellas though.

Hi,

Golden mantellas are one of my favorite kind of frogs. A few quick pieces of advice are 1) Buy captive bred frogs, wild caught frogs often arrive in bad condition 2) Make sure to have fruit fly cultures and a good source of small crickets ready before you get the frogs and 3) Make sure that there are aquatic plants or many rocks in the water area of your terrarium because mantellas do not swim well.

As far as terrarium maintenance goes I actually just finished writing a short piece on my website about this the other day. I read lots of posts on forums and get lots of emails related to the general question what kind of work is their involved in caring for and cleaning a terrarium. Have a look at http://www.amphibiancare.com/frogs/terrariummaintenance.html Hopefully that will help you out. Good luck with the frogs,
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Devin
devin@amphibiancare.com
www.amphibiancare.com

Thank you, that article was very helpful.