Reptile & Amphibian Forums

April 11th at the New England Reptile Expo I picked up a pretty healthy female T. gracilis. For over a month I've kept her in a 20 high vivarium with some hides, live plants, a fake rock background, and a large water feature which she uses often. I've read they are very shy and she definately is, hiding 90% of the time unless she is swimming. The enclosure is kept at room temp (68-72 degrees)with only a fish tank bulb for the plants thats on during the day.

Also I have yet to see her eat. I know she eats the crickets i offer her because they are always disapearing. Also i read somewhere that they will eat fruit and I gave her a bottle cap of bananas that was gone the next day. I want to make sure thats ok because a lot of sources out there have conficting infomation on these guys. I have also offered feeder fish but she never shows any interest in them.

I'd just like to know some tips on them and make sure I'm doing everything right. Theres a lot of conflicting data on the internet so I'd just like to ask the people who know best(the people who actually keep and breed these). Also I'd like to know about any food prefences with these guys. Thanks in advance.

Hi Brwester.

I have been keeping tribo's since 2004! Since then the collection grew and of course I also lost some. My best breeding female died last year because of calcium deficiency of all the egglaying and wrong food she got. At this time I have 3 breeding males and 4 breeding females. 1 CB male from 2007 and tonight one hatched inside the enclosure and I have 2 eggs cooking. The oldest male I have must be arournd 15-20 years of age and is huge!

Eversince I lost my breeding female, all my tribo's receive a constant offering of mealworms. In a tub not loose in the cage, then they will eat the tribs!

Crickets are also fed but not that often and not much. I have had several incidents that the tribs were attacked by the crickets and had open wounds! Tribs are not that smarts..

Waxworms are also one of their favorites but they are also dangerous, because the make your trib fat! And if you feed them to often they only want waxworms!

Rainworms/groundworms are also fed, they are eaten occasionally if spotted.

Furthermore I do not keep them too wet! Then they get sores on their skin, they do have a watertub in which they can submerge themselfes.

Hope I helped you a bit...