How necessary is a water feature for Dart Frog husbandry ?
"Water Feature" being defined as BIG; a big pond, waterfall,stream, huge bowl of some sort. Any type of LARGE standing water other than misting.
We have some kind of small pools of water in all of our tanks. We see our Tincs using them on a regular basis especially during the courting and breeding process. Our Auratus will float themselves in it. Our Leucs never use the pool unless dropping off Tads. I think they are helpful, but plenty of people have frogs breeding without them. The main reason that I want water in the tanks is to see if the frogs are soaking excessively.
Interesting thoughts on frog behaviour with a water feature, Glenn.
I believe that most larger frogs, such as tinctorious, auratus and leucomelas benefit from being able to take in water to hydrate their eggs with. Again, not necessary for health and well being and I've seen all of those above mentioned species lay eggs in my care without a water feature.
Water features are often horribly designed by the new hobbyist and create more problems than good. That's probably the main reason that they remain a controversial topic of husbandry.
I have some kind of flowing water in all my display vivs just because I like it and it's easier to grow certain mosses and plants. I don't typically have them in my grow-out tanks. It's probably less important if you have an automated misting systems, but I hand mist all my vivs so that I give each one a good looking over several times a week.
None of my pumilio or thumbs have ever shown much interest in water features (except brom axials, of course), but I have seen my azureus and auratus hanging out in the water occasionally.
I only have Pums and Thumbs and a water feature in my 75gal. It was a pretty sweet looking set up but the Pums could give a dang less about it. Mater of fact they do not even venture on the other side of the small pond dispite the fact that there is nothing physically keeping them from it.
I'd like to see you have a poll about the necessity of a False Bottom...
False bottom. Not needed at all.
Standing water of some sort, 100% needed for in-viv rearing.
RichFrye Wrote:False bottom. Not needed at all.
Standing water of some sort, 100% needed for in-viv rearing.
I have tanks both with and without false bottoms. I haven't really noticed a difference in either.
I don't think a waterfall is needed in any tank, but I can see the benefits of small areas of standing water, like film canisters, or a very small puddle like feature.
I have 3 vivs 2 w darts and 1 w red eyes.both the darts have water features the red eyes have standing water.all 3 tanks false bottoms.the humidity levels never drop below 80% in my darts I'm constantly misting the red eyes to keep the humidity at 70%.so I think it helps w rearing as well as constant humidity...