Let's get those Amphibians on display!

I am good with plants. I let everyone know how this plans out. I think I am going to throw a planted tank together, just for fun (soon), and we’ll see where we go from there :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.

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I’m gonna look these R summersi/fantastica/reticulata frogs up. Once again my inner biologist is intrigued.

I really wanna own some darts of various kinds if I ever can convince the government here to allow them. I know they arent poisonous in captivity but I believe they are still counted under Toronto Canada’s forbidden all venomous/poisonous category. Darts of various kinds would prob be the only amphibs I’d wanna own.

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Try to connect with the folks at Understory Enterprises - they may have more information on efforts in Canada around government education initiatives with dart frogs. Plus they are the source of many really interesting Ranitomeya species here in the US so you can drool over their website in the meantime :wink: .

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What types of plants do you have in the enclosure for the fantastica?

Nothing special - some bromeliads in their top shelf, plus a good bit of upside-down fern (Arachniodes standishii) and I picked up some green broad leaf house plant at home depot that is doing well for me. They mostly have a ton of leaf litter. This is the fant viv (I just rebuilt the viv 2 months ago so it really has not grown in much):

I managed to kill off my selaginella in the center shelf on the left with the replanting lol. I will get a photo of what that looked like from another viv tomorrow when the lights are on. Here is that home depot plant (I do bare root and bleach everything):

The fants really prefer the leaf litter though. There is about three inches of live oak litter in there and they tend to dig around in there. This is the main display - summersi on the left, G. prasina (not a frog!) center, fantastica on the right:

I don’t have a great photo of this viv, but I doctored this photo to get rid of the glare. I love Davallia parvula - it’s an epiphytic fern that is growing on that central cork round - I use it in a few vivs:

I tend to use creeping fig a good bit as well, but it requires heavy pruning. I like the smaller leaf patterns they throw, but man when they get going they can really take over. In my smaller vivs I tend to use a lot of selaginellas (Selaginella erythropus is my favorite) and smaller ferns. I have a liking for Begonia bipinnatifida as well just because it was a challenge for me to get it going initially.

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I think your vivariums are beautiful! Thank you again.

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Those are all great, how did you make the shelves in the first picture?

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This is ours. We have 4 adult colons, and 2 young that they produced, haven’t look for eggs/tads recently. And William the Williamsi is in there too, oh and even got sparkling gouramis in the bottom :sweat_smile:






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I siliconed 2" pink insulation foam boards to the viv walls, then inserted horizontal blocks of foam boards and great stuff to block out shapes that I carved with a knife and textured with wire brushes. There is a base coat of charcoal tinted dry lock on the foam, then a dry brush of medium grey, then light grey, then browns. It was a few weeks of build out, but the foam backgrounds are a lot lighter in this size of a viv compared to the cork bark scaping I typically do at smaller scales. The central viv is my old style with cork hardscaping and it takes me and two buddies to move it. The newer foam builds can be moved by me and my wife, but they don’t retain moisture as well as a cork hardscape, so they are on a more active misting schedule.

The vivs use a 3" tall base platform made from egg crate diffuser for a false bottom, with a sheet of plexiglass resting on top of it drilled with drain holes in a grid every 1"-2". A layer of solar screen is on top of the plexiglass. I added the plexiglass to help prevent the failure of the fabrics - some of my vivs had their substrate collapse after 5-8 years when the fabrics ultimately failed under the weight of the substrate suspended by the egg crate.

The pools are carve outs to the false bottom water - there is a foam retaining wall around the perimeter of the pool to keep the frogs and tadpoles from getting under the false bottom, but water can pass under the wall. The frogs use that as their in-viv deposition area; they would drop a lot of clutches outside their film cans, so I pretty much gave up trying to coax them to a bower of my choice and let them just deposit where they want and bring the tads to me :slight_smile: .

I’ve got another rebuild coming up of an 18"x18"x24" that has a failed cork tube that I’m converting to foam. I can start a build thread on that one if anyone is interested. Might be old-hat for some of you.

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That’s helpful, I might use that trick for crested gecko tanks too. Currently I use hydroton and screen for my false bottom and substrate layer but I might try diffuser and plexiglass to experiment. I think a build thread would be great.

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Sadly, I have no amphibians currently, but I’m hoping to get some dart frogs at some point.

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I’m only getting my dream frog!
Well the other half has got me them for Christmas, just sorting a courier! 5 of them, cannot wait, best sort the viv! :sob: 🥲 :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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What are they? Don’t leave us waiting. :grin:

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Dendrobates Tinctorius Tumucumaques!

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I just looked them up and they are so cool! I’m going to start dedicating space for more frog tanks, lol.

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I think they’re as bad as geckos…

We’ve had alsorts over the years, tinc, pumilio, terribilis etc.
Just the colons now, and then the Tums when they’re here.
But there is so many amazing types… :heart_eyes:
Breeding the goldens was a fun experience when we had them, we took out and raised the eggs, tadpoles and then froglets ourselves!
I’ll do that with the Tums too.
The colons just do it themselves and then the babies appear when ready! :blush:

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The only problem is that I’m running out of room. I shouldn’t have to choose between a wall full of day geckos or dart frogs, I want both! :sob: :rofl:
Frogs are very easy to maintain, just put flies in a dusting container and give each tank some, so it’s very easy to get more. :shushing_face:
I’m hoping to breed my dart frogs, I just have to wait until they’re big enough.

Theres an easy solution to this.
Days and frogs together :wink:
I’m going to be adding giant Madagascar day geckos eventually (Phelsuma Grandis). A pair of them in with a pair/trio of Tums :blush:

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I could keep them together but at least for now I won’t. Do you think a giant day gecko would be too big? I’ve heard reports of giant day geckos eating dart frogs (which I don’t doubt).

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