Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Two pics I took while @ Reptiland, such neat little guys..

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Jason A.
"Long time Herper, first year Breeder `07."

nice set up, but more than one species really shouldn't be kept together. esp. tincs, as the females are pretty aggressive when adults.

Yeah, hopefully they are juveniles or all males.

all juvies would be best, but even males will fight, especially if there is a female of the same species present. mixing different species, morphs, and even frogs of the same morph from different breeders is risky. if one of them has parasites then they will all get it. i got all my darts from reputable breeders, but half my darts still had parasites, you just gotta be careful what you put in together.

I know this issue has been beat to death, but shouldn't they only be mixing azureus and tincs and get rid of the aratus and mantella if they HAVE to mix? Assuming hybrids aren't a concern.

hybrids are always a concern, but yes, i get what you are saying. as far as care, the two are almost identical. as far as mixing auratus and mantallas, i didn't know that was such a big issue. hybrids wouldn't be a problem there as mantellas are mroe closely related to the Rane family than dendrobates, but they are pretty differernt in their care and geographically then are across the world from eachother. it also depends on what type of mantella you are referring to, they all have differnt care. the different forms of D. auratus vary a ton too, some are only 1.35 inchces, and others can get up to 1.75, some are shy and reculsive, and others are bold and outgoing in the terrarium. _bottom line_______ mixing species and morphs is not a good idea, and while it can be done by some for most frogs it doesn't work so well.

Is this a snail?

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2.2 Corn Snakes
1.2 Leopard Geckos
1.1 Crested Geckos
1.2 Green Anoles
1.0 Russian Tortoise
3.2 House Cats
0.0.1 African Millipede

RIP
Alcie, Bruno, Lars

yep, they are in there with the plants. they are kinda pretty, they climb all over the glass and such. good eye.

It looks pretty cool, what with that flat shell n all. Any idea what type they are?

Yay for deviating from Frogs!
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2.2 Corn Snakes
1.2 Leopard Geckos
1.1 Crested Geckos
1.2 Green Anoles
1.0 Russian Tortoise
3.2 House Cats
0.0.1 African Millipede

RIP
Alcie, Bruno, Lars

no idea, they are in all my tanks. tropical? they come in on the plants and multiply like crazy. i have to remove them sometimes, they eat the plants, usually only the dead ones though. kinda neat, they eat dart poop, so it keeps the tank clean, but then they poop, but the soil nematodes eat that, but then the nematodes poop, but the mites eat that... circle of life!

I have a tiny flat-backed snail that came with some plants and is in most of my tanks now. These guys don't eat plants, either, but seem to just graze on the algae. Their populations vary from a lot in newer tanks to just a few in the older ones, so I don't bother to pick them off, as their numbers adjust over time. I've never seen them on the eggs, which is one of the objections some people have to snails in the tanks. One of them strayed into a bromeliad cup with an imitator tadpole in it and the tad ripped it right out of the shell and ate it. So in some cases with cannibalistic type tads, the little snails may even become a food source.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

D. auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, galactonotus orange, galactonotus yellow, fantasticus, reticulatus, imitator, castaneoticus, azureus, pumilio Bastimentos. P. lugubris, vittatus, terribilis mint green, terribilis orange.

good to know they don't eat eggs, cause i've heard sometimes they will. i think mine only eat the dead plants, but no way to be sure. they are kind of pretty. the only reason i took them out was becuse my lamsi tried to eat them, and they were too big and i didn't want him to hurt himself. these were just a few of the really big ones (still puny though, but big to a thumbnail).

wo- thats so cool about the tad eating it, dont have any tads at the moment, but i'll keep that in mind. do you know if they will eat crushed larger snails? i have a fish tank thats heavily planted and theres way too many snails in there. at the moment i am just feeding them to my turtle, but if the tads could eat them...
do you'de think they would eat the snail eggs? i feed those to my turtles too. they are like frog eggs but white and they are slimier. that might be a good additive to their diet.

My snails are different from yours, with a very flat spiral, and I've never tried to deliberately feed them to imitator tads or any others. I usually just let the imitators do their own tad care, and this was just an incident I observed once when a snail got too close to the brome cup the tad was in. But if you were caring for the tads separately, it might be worth a trial, just to see what happens. I'd put the whole snail in so they could tackle it or ignore it, just see if they'll take it on. I imagine that if you crushed it, they might eat the meat, but I've never tried this, because I've never tried separating and raising imitator tads outside of the parental care.

A single observed incident doesn't make it a standard act. I've also observed one of my galactonotus inadvertently capturing a platy fish fry from the paludarium, while "fishing" for fruit flies that had fallen in the aquarium portion, from the bank. I never saw this again, although it may have occurred again when I wasn't looking. One cannot therefore say, that they utilize fish fry as prey.

I just give these observations out as single observations. I don't think any of them are conclusive enough to generalize from, but they may be things to experiment a bit more with.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

D. auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, galactonotus orange, galactonotus yellow, fantasticus, reticulatus, imitator, castaneoticus, azureus, pumilio Bastimentos. P. lugubris, vittatus, terribilis mint green, terribilis orange.

i have a lone male imi and i'm hoping to get him a mate at frogday, so i'm not really sure what i would do. i probably would let them raise them, from what i've heard the frogs are "hardier" when raised that way. plus, they would do a way better job than me. but for tincs and leucs...i could do the snail thing. at least with snail eggs, something to expiroment with definetily. theres just so much stuff they eat in the wild that they don't have access to in captivity, would be kinda neat to expiroment with all that. i don't think it could hurt though, the worst that could happen is they wouldn't eat them. some might and others might not, who knows.

a galac tad ate a platy fry, thats pretty neat. i saw the pic of your paludarium, it's amazing! how many are you keeping in there? and do they ever have territorial disputes, are they breeding/have they? i'm thinking about galacs, because they seem to do better in groups and with deeper water, is that correct?

The imitators do a great job of raising their own, in my experience. I did have one male however, that was over-anxious, placed several tads together (they are cannibalistic) and then after finally getting this right, failed to guard and take care of a lone tad. He kept right on calling and breeding instead. I did raise this tad myself by simply leaving it in the bromeliad leaf and feeding it with fish flake and eggs I swiped from the laying females. Other males have been more responsible.

My female imitators do chase, head-butt, bull-dog and wrestle a lot when there are tads in the bromes, but even though this appears to be vicious, they don't ever seem to get hurt or even intimidated. They're very athletic. I have seen a female respond to the males "feed the tad" call, and sneak in to feed a tad that doesn't belong to her. They put on a great show.

You would love galactonotus. I have the orange splash back and some yellows in a different tank. Three of my female orange are 10 years old now. Last year I got them three more juveniles, at least one of which is a male. They did breed last spring, but piled up so many eggs I was able to save only one to raise, which is now a juvenile frog. Now that cooler weather has arrived, they are again showing some breeding activity.

They get along very well in a group, although I do occasionally see some of the old gals doing a bit of half-hearted wrestling. I've never observed any serious intimidation. They are all so bold and curious--very entertaining. They are the one specie that seems to be fully aware and curious about any activity outside the tank.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

D. auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, galactonotus orange, galactonotus yellow, fantasticus, reticulatus, imitator, castaneoticus, azureus, pumilio Bastimentos. P. lugubris, vittatus, terribilis mint green, terribilis orange.

what a horny lil' froggie, shame on him. i aggree 100% with you that they are athletic, they are so sure footed too. they are so agile, and they are quick to hide (at least mine is). i never see him, but he calls for hours on end every day. otherwise i would think he had died. do you think the females that are feeding tads know they aren't theirs? and they still feed? thats pretty amazing. it's like those dogs who raise orphan kittens or something. i need to pair up my stuff, i have around dozen darts and no pairs.

galacs have been on my list for a LONG time. i have always bought other stuff instead that was less common, there's this guy that always has galacs available, so i've always opted to get the stuff i didn't have availability to all the time.
it's funny you say "i bought them" not me, but i guess thats true, kinda sounds like they are your kids and you are buying them a puppy.

do you keep the juvy you bred in a different tank? they like cooler weather to breed? didn't know that. certain species are def. more aware of thier surroundings. thumbs don't seem to even know they are in a tank, one of my leucs is pretty friendly though. i go over to the tank and he automatically thinks chow time and comes up to the top to get first dibs on flies.

I've been on vacation for a week, way off in the boonies, so just got back tonight to answer.

I don't really know if the female recognized the fact that the tad she was feeding was not actually her own. I think perhaps she was responding more to the male's call to feed the tad. I believe the "come have sex" and "come feed the baby" call is different, or simply assume it must be, just from my own observations. Both mother and "auntie" responded to the call. The mother seemed to have the most control over the situation, but the "auntie" would sneak in and lay an egg if she got there first.

"Buying them a puppy," is a good way to put it when I purchased the juvenile galacts for my old girls I'd had for years to goose them up. I'd had them in the paludarium for several years, and realized they were all females. They were getting along quite well, but I just wanted to see if I could make life more interesting for them, and it did.

The juvie I managed to raise from their egg pile is still in a different tank, but when he gets a bit larger, I think I will introduce him back into the paludarium. (or her--) One of my old ladies is now missing, or at least I haven't seen her for a month or more. In a large, heavily planted tank, it's really difficult to keep track of each individual, and if a frog dies, it deteriorates so rapidly, you can't always recover the corpus delicti before it is unrecognizable.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

D. auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, galactonotus orange, galactonotus yellow, fantasticus, reticulatus, imitator, castaneoticus, azureus, pumilio Bastimentos. P. lugubris, vittatus, terribilis mint green, terribilis orange.

hope you have a good vacation! it really is remarkable how they feed their tads. i have a lone male imi so i have yet to see how they raise tads. he's in quarentine now and he is the most amazing frog. i have two other imis (intermedius) in quarentine and they are being fine, but he is calling his head off. he is the happiest frogs ever, i need to get him a mate. i put him in and he started to call after 5 minutes! he's my favorite froggie

i'm so sorry that one of the galacs is missing. it would have lived a long happy life. with a tank that big it could just have found a really good hiding spot though. i know what you mean, my tanks arn't big, but they are heavily planted and sometimes (even in 10 gallons) i can't find a frog for a month or so, and then it reappears and it's a releif.
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