Jim from Austin's frog wall

[joneill809]

My kid manages to catch all kinds of stuff in the yard. A ground skink showed up yesterday. Cool little lizard. It was released back into the greenbelt near us after the photo op:

   
   

Also figured out the weird picture colors. Seems to be glare from the led lamps on the iPhone 11 lens. Here’s a picture of a Lorenzo male above his hut:
   

And the same picture with my hand shielding the glare:
   

So there is something weird with the lens and this led spectrum / angle. Anyhow this is a young male (about 2 years old) from a UE male x (UExStewart female) pair that I just paired up with one of my original Stewart females. Added him to her viv Sunday - clutch today! We will see if the clutch is good soon.

[Philsuma]

You are definitely raising the boy in a fine manner, Jim. Respectful of nature.

[joneill809]

Thanks Phil! He enjoys catching critters. He’s been lobbying for a GTP or a green tree monitor so I’m making him earn it lol. I’m partial to the monitor but that may be tough. Lots of research...taking our time. 

I am jazzed up about the Lorenzo though. Pulled two clutches from two pair today today and another tad in the water. Good season so far.
   

F is a newly formed pair with a young male. E is from my established pair. Amazing how tiny Lorenzo clutches are for tincs eh?

Here’s this spring so far:
   

And I’m finally close to getting another Lamasi:
   

[joneill809]

Pretty good start to the spring for D tinctorius Lorenzo:
   

Here’s my proven pair “E” - a pretty good example of a male and female and their relative sizes:
   

And an example of how I set them up - lots of shade with a tiered hardscape. I’ve done really well with cocohuts and Petri dishes:
   

[Philsuma]

look at the size of that female! She is behind him saying 'after the movie, we'll go out to eat, then shopping'

yes dear...yeas dear...

Those are small clutch sizes for a Tinc.

[joneill809]

Yeah small clutches for a tinc ... normal for Lorenzo. Typical clutches are 2-4 eggs every 2-3 weeks during the spring. I'll dry them out (crank up the exhaust fans in the hood over their vivs to increase airflow) and pull their dishes in another month or two. If the female is young I may even pull the male. I've lost two females over the years (Kris too) when they started breeding at 18-24 months. I try to slow them down as much as I can, especially when they are younger (this female is just filling out ... after almost 4 years!). Her male is 9ish - UE male via Zack. I have another pair ("F") that is an original Stewart animal (2013) paired with a young male (2018) - they have produced two good clutches this spring so fingers crossed.

Slow growing
Small clutches
Limited genetics

Just can't treat them like another tinc.

[joneill809]

Lots of work in the frog room today. I prepped some small grow out vivs for froglets. These are grow outs before transitioning to larger vivs. Had to get these vivs drilled, FBs installed and living hinges glued:
   

Had to get going because these guys were ready to go:
   
   

The Lorenzo are doing well this year:
   
   
   

And bean beetles!! Great supplemental tinc food:
   

[joneill809]

New labels are up!
   

[Matt_Marsee]

New labels are up!

This is a cool set up! I like the way you're displaying them!

[joneill809]

This is a cool set up! I like the way you're displaying them!

Thanks! The kids love them. The lizard labels were for them. 

Got my new batch of bulk cork in today. Buying bulk boxes has its risks - sometimes I get lots of flats, sometimes lots of rounds, sometimes lots of broken bits. Nothing a saw, six tubes of silicone and a few hours can’t fix

   
   

What a round! I think we will be saving this one for our new V prasinus enclosure that will be our summer project. 
   

[joneill809]

Ok this technically is not in my frog room nor is it a frog viv, but this is phase 1 of the biggest viv I have ever attempted that will house our green tree monitor Echo. 

It’s 4’x2’x4’ from Zen Habitats. It’s PVC panels that slip into an aluminum frame. Being modular you can stack them so my plan is to add a 4’x2’x2’ extension to the top when it becomes available. That will be phase 2 and it will be painted sky blue to simulate a tree canopy with more branches and basking areas. 

I waffled on build vs buy but in the end the kit with an aluminum frame won out. 

It’s running an egg crate false bottom supporting a plexiglass sheet with holes drilled through it supporting a solar fiberglass screen. I had to try to make this as “clawproof” as possible. Cork work is anchored by zip ties to a vertical set of egg crate panels with cork board squares glued in place. Again I have to be claw proof and support the weight of a larger animal so I wanted to be sure I didn’t rely on glues alone. 

I used gorilla glue and sphagnum moss on the background. The unique twist here is the entire background is removable. Disassemble the top panel and the entire background can be lifted out of the viv. 

I have a temp and RH probe in the upper left basking area and another in the lower right. I pieced together my own misting system on this one running off a Bluetooth power switch I can run through my home automation. (I can be lazy and trigger it from the couch).

   
   

You can see the Temp/RH data loggers on the back left. They run circular logging and I can store 11 days on 1 minute sample increments.

Echo is pretty shy and though she was sold as CB we suspect she was WC. We are patient with her but either way she’s just awesome. We are on the lookout for a male so we will see what happens. Overall this was fun thinking through my viv construction approach for an animal with very similar environmental requirements but with big claws.

Here’s Echo in QT: 
   
   

[joneill809]

Been a while. Lots of changes for me! I sold off my 18x18x24s and all my tincs. I got frustrated with the tinc hobby in general and decided to move to bigger enclosures and fewer species. The six 18x18x24s were replaced with three 36x18x36s. I expanded my summersi footprint (9 animals and growing) in one of those vivs, and moved my fants into another. I keep G. prasina tree lizards in the third.

I recently acquired a group of Atelopus barbotini - it will be a long term challenging breeding project that requires three builds; a forest build (done), a stream build for breeding, and a grow out tank for tadpoles that will be a sump for the stream build. These will all go in a custom built cabinet that highlights their lifecycle. 

Overall this was a pretty big shift for me in terms of amphibians. I do have a group of reticulata in my office that just started breeding. I have them along with a collection of micro-geckos since they are on the same diet. Some random recent photos.

I've been focused more on the builds as I reduce my footprint. The reticulata enclosure took a month to build - it is carved foam board and drylock. I designed it specifically for the fern  .

Atelopus barbotini
       

Ranitomeya reticulata and enclosure
           

Gonatodes ocellatus
       

Varanus prasinus and enclosure
       

Gonatodes vittatus & micro-gecko enclosures