Dart Den

Hi everyone! I have a gofundme set up and I'm hoping that my fellow froggers might be willing to help. TL;DR version: Disability killed my career in academia in 2008, as well as my ability to do much of anything at all, i.e. I'm mostly housebound. (Which is a major boon for the frogs, of course!) I'...

Thanks Jim! Yeah, the frogs just love it. As it's been growing in they've been using the plants more and more as a, well, literal jungle gym I guess! Lots of jumping from plant to plant, like they used to do in their previous but broken vivarium. They've even been using the ghostwood more as well as...

Just thought I'd post some pictures of the tank grown in. I've been planning to landscape it a little more, but honestly I like the wild look of it, and in the past few months the frogs have really started using the plants to sit and climb on. At some point I'll probably pin more of that peperomia (...

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1425972778.466374.jpg Nice view of the limbs -- look good so far! Glad my new supplements are coming tomorrow. Do you recommend dusting flies for the froglet with more calcium than the adults get? I don't think it's big enough for melanos yet, but I have a few in there just t...

Thanks Phil, for some reason I was thinking he had to come out on his own. I did as I said above and evened out the springtail-infested sphagnum substrate. He's hiding under a leaf right now.

He's actually in the tub where he's been morphing out and where I will watch him for a little while before setting up a real grow-out. There's some water and it's tilted. Should I remove the water and scoot him over to the sphagnum then?

Well, it hasn't made its way to land yet, but I'm calling "froglet" now.

This is the most I've seen it out of the water! (Its face is refracted a little oddly here.) Hoping it's considering a move pretty soon. Sorry the quality isn't great; I had to take it through the plastic. If it comes out of the water still with some tail, will it wait to eat until the whole thing's...

Thanks, Diane! It's getting close. I didn't quite understand why it wasn't as active as usual, and then I watched it swim. Or rather try to. It's more of a frantic flailing of limbs now, probably compounded by the loss of all but an inch or so of tail. I feel kinda bad watching it forget how to swim...

Here's the big guy in its morph-out container. I put it in on the same day I had to euthanize my tiny 15-year-old kitty. Weird juxtaposition.

Thanks for the input, gentlemen. The tadpole does actually seem more symmetrical today with the right bump even bigger, so from what I can tell (which isn't much) the left arm is growing, just slower than the right. And thank you for the warning about the one-armed tad! I vaguely remembered reading ...

tadpole.jpg This is the first of my auratus tadpoles I'm raising instead of giving away to good homes. Today was the first day I noticed the coloration, which will be turquoise & dark bronze. It hasn't been eating much, but I understand that's usual if it's absorbing the tail, which it is. That...

Well, I've been treating the viv for spider mites with a "tea" made from spices that a frogger & plant expert friend recommended, and I think I'm finally on top of it, though I can't say whether they're all gone. No dead plants, just leaves. I really want to get the frogs in there beca...

Ah, drat. I can drive to AZ from here! I'm not flying to NY though.

I put mite paper under all insect cultures. I would hope ants would avoid mite paper, or die on it. You have NO IDEA. These things are so plentiful and persistent even a moat wouldn't hold them off entirely. They came in through the bathroom yards and yards down the hall and paraded all the way dow...

It was suggested I add some ghostwood to fill the upper space, so this is how it looks now. NEHERP rocks! They sent great pieces with beautiful coloration when they're wet. I think the frogs will love it as a replacement for the tall but horribly invasive plants they jump around on now. http://tapat...

Thanks both of you! Beth, it's a little hard to see in the photos, but the two big broms aren't actually taking up any floor space. One is attached to the little cork "tree trunk", and the other to the cork tube. Does that change your opinion regarding the floor space? I'm sure you're righ...

Here is the first viv I've designed and built. It's an 18x18x24 ExoTerra with a glass top, for an established auratus trio I'm moving out of a viv not really built for dart frogs. I've been letting it grow in and also futzing with the plants for a while. The photos are too big so I just put them in ...

The plants love it, actually, as long as they don't get too cold. I've read that some people do a gentler version from time to time just to "pick up" the plants a little. The dry ice technique gives you a nice "Land of the Lost" feel in the viv. ;-) Theoretically it should have k...

There's a very good reason why I've started slow and it'll be at least a year and a half since I got started that I'll be getting my second species: I don't want to burn out. I imagine myself in the hobby for quite a while (it was a year in August) because I actually enjoy working for the rewards. B...