Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm actually a snake guy by choice but I have to compromise with my fiancee on something because she isn't into snakes, so I'm thinking frogs would be pretty cool. So, is it okay to house multiple species together? If so, which species do best together? I was thinking since it is such a large tank (55gal) that there shouldn't be any territorial problems. Or maybe something like dart frogs and tree frogs would be fine since they would occupy different parts of the tank. Please help me out, this is a completely new world for me. Thanks in advance.

got this from another forum

www.amphibiancare.com/frogs/articles/communitytank.html

no way. you would have to have a tank liek the size of a room for that to work. 55 gallon isn't all tha big, darts-without the snake could easily occupy that. darts have completely different requirements than snakes, a snake would wreck ALL the living plants in the tank. it would be hell for the darts.

Thanks for the link. And just to be clear I wasn't planning on putting a snake in with the frogs. My fiancee is terrified of snakes and since this would be in the living room, she would never allow me to keep a snake in there. Otherwise, I would just use it for a display tank for one of my snakes. Much easier IMO.

Has anyone had success with keeping different species together? I know I have read about keeping some dendrobatids and phyllobates together so they won't interbreed. Just curious about personal stories rather than what someone has read.

you shouldn't mix species in general. it's just not worth it. darts are plenty interesting if you have just one species. do you want to risk all of them dieing just to have a cool tank. dendro's and phyllo's shouldn't be mixed. i guess if you were going to mix anything you could mix an auratus and a leuc. if you want frogs that are different looking get ones of different morphs, tincs, pumilio's and auratus's have tons of different types. i'de go with auratus though, because pum's arn't a good beginner species, and tincs can get very territorial. mixing species- any should be left for the people that have experience with both species, not by someone who has never kept either species before. good luck!

I was once told that the dart frog community looked down on "designer" morphs and that they were very strict about having only naturally occuring morphs. I was trying to avoid this by having 2 different species that couldn't interbreed. But thanks for the info.

um, no, they don't. they look down on hybrids, but they're very encouraging of new morphs. as these would occur in nature. i'm not really sure why they look down on hybrids, because hybrids do happen in nature. as long as the two species are from the same area geographically. i mean, no one is forcing them to breed in captivity.

Well, that is great to hear. I just wanted a variety in the tank and different morphs will do the trick. I've seen some great looking auratus morphs but most I seen were on a french site. Who are some reputable dealers of various morphs in the US? Thanks.

let me see...blackjungle.com, aaronsfrogfarm.com, michael shrom, richard frye and david frye, saurian.net, doylesdartden.com, brianstropicals.com, amphibiancare.com, david redgeway, heaths frog farm are some. the best way (IMO) to get darts is at a big show. just look for a dealer that has all CB stuff, one that is selling mainly darts, and one that has fruit fly cultures. no good breeder will sell darts without cultures.

Please for the love of god dont go mixing morphs. We are always looking for new morphs in nature but we are NOT looking for man created ones. If anything mixing morphs is worse in the long run for the hobby than mixing species. Any mutt eggs you would create should be destroyed to ensure they never leak into the hobby. (Even if you planned to sell them or give them away as mutts).

The dendro community is very uptight about mixing morphs because we want to appreciate the frogs as they would be in nature. I shudder to think of the day when a dendro is classified as a "Super-hypo-tangerine-baldy-carrot foot...- thats 50% het for albinoism". Dart frogs have such fascinating characteristics (courtship, tad carrying, skirmishes) that I personally have yet to become 'bored' with any of my species only tanks.

As for mixing species; I have heard some of the small south american treefrogs go quite well with the larger dendros (ie: Clown treefrogs), small day geckos and even small anoles. However since you dont have any experience with dendros to start off I wouldnt recomend it.

My advise is to try your hand at dendros and see if you like it. Also, no mixture you create will benifit your animals. It will only have the chance of leading to stress or death.

there is a chance that you could create hybrids if you keep them together. the treefrogs probally would work, but both the anoles and day geckos need UVB light so you couldn't have a glass top. so it would be hard to keep humidity up and keep the fruit flies in.

You are correct in that both anoles and day geckos require Vit D3, however there are other ways of supplimenting this without the use of a UVB bulb. I bred anoles for quite some time without the use of a UVB bulb.