Dart Den

joneill809 Wrote:The background for the new viv looks great! The ledges should make for great perches. Well done and can't wait to see the finished product!

Cheers,I hope we'll see the finished product,I won't be totally planting it,because of it being moved to the guy i built it for,its heavy as hell so don't wan't to make things anyworse with wet subs etc,i just hope he gets it back ok and in one piece!!! It should work well for the SB's i hope,nice having kept the parents for a while and having their habits to base this on
thankyou
Stu

Stu&Shaz Wrote:Thanks do you have many mysties in France? We are doing very well with them at the moment,mind its all going well,we are still bewildered ,but all is good,everything just is coming ootw right and growing like hell,although the last couple of mystie hatches are a ruddy pain they are climbing evrything,but all good all fat,well as fat as i want to see them anyway
thanks
Stu

Hi Stu,

I know some people over here who are sucessfull with Mysteriosus.
A good friend of mine just aquired a group of five (60 euro each) and they already spend alot of time in the film canisters.
A quite beauifull frog, I may set up a terrarium for a group.

K.

Love the shots, as always, Stu. I hope this finds you both well.

Swampfox Wrote:Love the shots, as always, Stu. I hope this finds you both well.

Heart felt back at you too sir,our best to your little one,will be intouch soon super super busy,have thought of you much of late much to talk on buddy
Stu

krakanax Wrote:

Stu&Shaz Wrote:Thanks do you have many mysties in France? We are doing very well with them at the moment,mind its all going well,we are still bewildered ,but all is good,everything just is coming ootw right and growing like hell,although the last couple of mystie hatches are a ruddy pain they are climbing evrything,but all good all fat,well as fat as i want to see them anyway
thanks
Stu

Hi Stu,

I know some people over here who are sucessfull with Mysteriosus.
A good friend of mine just aquired a group of five (60 euro each) and they already spend alot of time in the film canisters.
A quite beauifull frog, I may set up a terrarium for a group.

K.

Its not just the beauty ,but the character that absorbs me with them K. So i say start building 8) ...good luck. If i can help your friend in anyway tell him to contact us,
regards
Stu

For a friend over there,who is doing something awesome. Buddy its not much,i hope your new guys are settling in,i can't think that they could be in better hands than yours, bring it on hey mate. I know this hasn't got the purity of what your trying to achieve,but its my little homage to what your doing
some of our superblue kids





oh and this is blue nose,not the best pics but how many times does one see a frog with a blue nose and bright blue eyelashes :lol:



Some of our panama specials showing the classic signs of a narrow gene pool,they are throwing froglets of a mutant colour pattern,exceedingly dark just ootw,but getting paler as they get older

froglet on the right normal,on the left abberant


left normal right abberant,i hope the colours are showing something like true

winner of best face on a froglets back produced here



some other stuff
some tads

which can be reared in glasses,more work less risks

or in Da gizmo,less work and the risk of 24 in shared water,so far the risk factor is in my head,but doubtless its there


comparison of mystie and auratus tad at exactly the same age

some attachi bakka,different batches different ages,all good all strong all .....so far,apart from that first clutch which still haunts me,probably not anything i could do about it,especially with what has followed, but well you know,one has to blame someone if its not perfect,and that buck stops here.Now I'm just nailing the last morphout,then its all about getting them real strong and to the size of their parents,or laying the foundations for their new custodians to achieve this.


















a rare import from asia


Leuc



Oh and a failed experiment to grab some extra greenfly lead to these,not frogs but our most beautiful 2 british finches
feeding less than a foot from my lounge window.GET IN











Last but not least
another native,and why we'll repeat the mandate bleech ya waste water,double bag.or in my case burn(woodburner so heat house) your solid waste. This is in a capsicum pepper plant water tray,right beside the house,so no margins for error here at least, cute huh





yup[ she's called bufo bufo our common toad,bright eyes to stu
take care ya all
weldone on your olympic teams efforts
have a great weekend
Stu

Stu, epic photos man! You really have some top-notch animals.

Be in touch soon.

Superb picys as always Stu.....lovely !

*edit*

This thread is one of the most helpful and comprehensive 'Frog Room' threads I've seen on any forum. You are to be congratulated for your time and effort here Stu and Shaz. The hobby thanks you both and I certainly thank you as well !

This thread is now a 'Sticky'... immortalized !

Stu, awesome pics!!!! I must say I liked the bird pics as much as the frogs pics. Do you or Shaz do any bird watching?
I like you "tad gizmo" I have a big shallow tub and a canister filter lying around, I just may build one of those. Thanks for the great idea!!
Best always my friend.

Nice pics as always, Stu.

How many tads do you have on the go right now?

Cheers

Swampfox Wrote:Stu, epic photos man! You really have some top-notch animals.

Be in touch soon.

why thankyou kind Sir Still learning at a stupid rate still loving it Jeff. We have now found homes for several batches of mystie,in each case one has run up too the top of the tank and started shouting its head off,so obviously they are staking a claim to their new territory,none of these have ever called here,plus we now know that they can call at as little as 5 months old. Its all going really well
best
Stu

Philsuma Wrote:Superb picys as always Stu.....lovely !

hope you don't mind the offtopic birds,Phil,theyare two of our most stunning natives nad i know some of your members will get some joy from them.

Phil thanks for all the effort you put in to this,it can't be easy!! Your mission to help guys like me starting out with their frogs is hugely appreciated, plus some of the things we learn here gets brought home for me to help new guys here, don't underestimate what your doing for the hobby bro 8)

best
Stu

Rusty_Shackleford Wrote:Stu, awesome pics!!!! I must say I liked the bird pics as much as the frogs pics. Do you or Shaz do any bird watching?
I like you "tad gizmo" I have a big shallow tub and a canister filter lying around, I just may build one of those. Thanks for the great idea!!
Best always my friend.

Jon,too long no speak buddy,hope you and yours are in fine fettle mate,ha and those wonderful frogs you keep.
The gizmo works really well ,for us at least Jon,I can't really keep track of numbers through it,but the damn thing is effortless,i have not experienced any problems with growth inhibitors so far,and hardly a loss,i think one of memory serves.Actually Ive just given all the boxes a good clean out,having them individual was taxing to build,but a great move,as i can pop a tad in a glass and remove excess algae etc from the box then just pop it back in the gizmo and return the tad,but this chore is very infrequent,say 6monthly. One thing i did was set it all up slowly jon,one td for a while just to be sure nothing bad was leaching from the plastic,then gradually fill her up.For busy folks this system and those lie it give you more time to spend watching stock,its a godsend. Many guys use incarnations of this set up here, i lay no claim to it,i just tried to make a design that was really easy for us to work with.Nice and simple,but works.bit like me :lol:
Hmm i 'm not really a bird watcher as such mate,i just adore them,i need to be outside in the woods alot,always have since childhood so i don't miss much of whats going on. Ha I'm glad you liked the pics,abit special this having these two finches right besides the window,i mean right there. The bull finch can been a major pain to fruit growers as they can strip a fruit bush of buds in no time,ha i just grow abit more and enjoy seeing them here
lovely to hear from ya mate
best
Stu

frogfreak Wrote:Nice pics as always, Stu.

How many tads do you have on the go right now?

Cheers

Bloody heck mate,your not going to make me count them are you :lol:
What about the ones going in and the ones going ootw,both happening today.

He he another apology Glenn,
I'll behave we have around 100 tads in the water,we have had more or less that number for a good long while now this is spread over 5morphs/species. But this is not the same picture that one would get if one didn't keep mysties ,they are in the water betwixt 4and 6months so bugger everything up :lol: Essentially we are hanging on to a mystie youngster for the best part of ayear ,before parting with them. We have been really lucky to get this oppurtunity to care for so many young tads and froglets so soon,as it has meant that we can really reinforce the rearing process on our selves and tweak it,find the little nuances best suited to each frog/tad .They are subtle for sure,but they are there i think. Doing it over and over makes it much easier to be aware of this. It has really become apparent to me how difficult it is to predict,what numbers one can get from a species,how many eggs a given female will lay. Also how some frogs are the devils own job to stop breeding and others seem really sensitive to a drop in food/humidity.Glenn it is all a work in progress,all being evaluated constantly,all hunches really. But this bang here we go approach,not really my doing or what i was expecting has definately allowed us to get a strong working method into place,to rear a dart. Granted all with so called beginner species,hmm except perhaps the spotty guys which are doubtless trickier.
best
Stu

Hey Stu, I almost wet my pants when I saw that "lehmanni"...Took me a minute to figure it out haha. All the frogs look great, some awesome patterns on those auratus!

fieldsmith Wrote:Hey Stu, I almost wet my pants when I saw that "lehmanni"...Took me a minute to figure it out haha. All the frogs look great, some awesome patterns on those auratus!

Field,things have been abit serious around here of late,so the devil in me wanted to pop a smile on a few faces,ha mate your too observant....busted :lol: . Buddy these were bought by a real close mate,he was taking the micky out of me for researching for so long before buying any frogs. The funny bit is i have slipped pictures of these in right from the off on our various room threads,so every now and then i get a PM all hush hush ,"where did you get those". ha ha i just caught a guy over here another mate,whom has actually been here :lol: with this very pic
Its evident i guess from my post how passionate we are about these amazing animals,but hell a bit of laughter in the world ain't no hardship 8)
Its a shame that the hobby didn't have the knowledge back in the day to make the most of the lehmans, they came here way back i found out recently,and were sold for almost nothing, what a missed oppurtunity. They were probably available when i kept phibs as a child,around 30 yrs ago
oh just to prevent any other heart attacks caused by said picture :lol:




Thanks for the words on the frogs,i'm amazed by the face pattern which we noted last night has reappeared,in a similar way on a younger frog,
take care bro
Stu

Philsuma Wrote:Superb picys as always Stu.....lovely !

*edit*

This thread is one of the most helpful and comprehensive 'Frog Room' threads I've seen on any forum. You are to be congratulated for your time and effort here Stu and Shaz. The hobby thanks you both and I certainly thank you as well !

This thread is now a 'Sticky'... immortalized !

Phil,thats humbling !! Mate folks have been so kind advice thoughts kindness ,have been given to us.I've had mails privately going in to imense detail about things i wanted to know more about,folks giving their precious time,to a couple of little guys starting out. So we have just tried to pop abit aback into the pot,
the thanks come from us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh i did notice you'ld stuck pins in Glenn and I,i thought maybe it was an age thang :lol: , or some strange american custom i 'm unaware of
we'll keep bumbling along mate,making mistakes learning stuff throwing it out there,
best always kiddo

Stu

Phil this is the first time I've ever copied a post i have made elsewhere,i hope you don't mind,it is so long and so detailed ,plus my ineptitude with letters meant this took me hours to accomplish,but after 4 folks had contacted me having problems in just one week here i thought hell i'd give it a bash. So Its written for other beginners here in england,but its largely transferable to you guys,much of this technique,has come from advice gleaned here in the den,my humble thanks to all,that have allowed us to take one small starter culture,and feed all our kids whilst still expanding,this could be moved elsewhere i guess,but it is such an integral part of our room and our frogs,i thought I'd bang it up here,it might just help someone out there having problems,which is why it was written,do as you see fit mate. 8)
This is not the only method to culture a springtail,it is one of many,its is a work in progress,by no means complete,I'm just starting to experiment with 2 other species of spring,we have got our grubby mitts on recently,so i don't yet know whether it is universal,but it is working well for us,so might just do that for others
Anyway for you lot,the charcoal method
Basically one needs charcoal,NOT THE EASY LIGHTING STUFF,source this from Morrisons petrol station in an orange bag costs £5 or other sources We can use a variety of different containers,principally working on bigger is better,my favourites are a £3 tub from morrisons about 14" square and the bird fat ball tubs. As feed we are going to use Allinsons yeast.
A method
Pop the charcoal ina 10 L flower pot to act as a sieve,and wash the hell out of it by pouring rainwater over it.If you abit mad like me and actually believe water is something precious then pop the flower pot on a crate and the crate on abucket,then you can catch the water and charcoal dust and use this on your veggies.
So you now have a clean pot of charcoal with no dust on it,bang it in a big pot, fill with more rainwater,put a lid on this. pop this on the cooker and boil it .
you now have a sterilised pot of charcoal with absolutely no mites present.
Leave the lid on this put it outside and let it cool,this will take along time,but leave it cool naturally as this way your charcoal will contain alot of water,if you tip the water away it will cool quicker,but the charcoal will dry out,you don't want this..
Clean up your said container of choice,and keep back some big lumps of charcoal for the top.
Put the smaller charcoal lumps at the bottom,and one big lump in a corner,this is important
now top off the culture with all those big lumps you saved,putting the flatest sides uppermost

Pour rainwater over the top,so you have about an inch of water in the bottom,pay real attention to those big flat lumps you want them wet!!!

Pour little piles of your yeast on to the flats so you don't spill much yeast,mist the yeast so you have little wet piles of food for your springs.

now add your springtails,Ha this might be tricky so I'll chuck some methods at you.
You can place abit of say xaxim in your ecoearth based culture and tap this into the charcoal one.
you can blow the springs into your charcoal culture using a straw,or you can flood the culture and again blow the springs off the top.
Or one can simply place the whole culture in the charcoal one and not feed it letting the springs migrate to the food source.

Best method is dependant on your circumstances,always remember springs are masters of walking on water mites are not.....use this one!!!!!

now you have your seeded culture ,open it every other day or more often if you wish yeast can produce CO2 so regular venting of the culture helps negate O2 starvation,yeah its unvented,it carries a risk,leave it and,what can i say one keeps darts one makes sh*t happen,the reason its unvented is hopefully no access to mites,there are ways around this,but i haven't yet found them here,so the graft ethic replaces this...until.......
Replace the yeast as it gets used up,I'm still working out the hows and whys of this,but make sure they have enough,but not too much,work it out i guess is the answer
These cultures will last,if one changes the water every few weeks,this my friends is a big deal,some springtails produce inhibitors its documented,some maybe don't,but all excrete waste,so every couple of weeks or so suck out all that water,swill it around and this is why there is that damn big lump of charcoal in a corner,pull it out and tip the culture towards this corner.whip out your old trusty turkey baster,suck out the water from the bottom.Remember springs are masters of walking on water,so you'll not be sucking them up,just all that waste,which will stop the buggers breeding.
I think I've got all of it so I'll post this and do a few pics,not all of what i wanted,but what i could do today.bugger there is more
Every time you open this container mist the top with your hand mister!!!!!!!!!!
Springtails and woodlice require a source of Ca to produce at optimum,so i'm experimenting with grated cuttle fish bone as an easy source,yes we popped it in the microwave just to be sure no mites present
when you feed........ well thats why there are those big lumps at the top,pull one covered in springs,and tap into the frogets,or adults it matters not,what does matter is no bits,no little frogs with ecoearth stuck to their tongues,just little frogs looking up for the food dropping from heaven(yup we have some little guys whom actually look for this,clever bleeders)
Finally I'll repeat there are other methods,find them try them,don't use too much fish flake as the feeders have the capacity to collect large quantities of tocopherols,which can inhibit your frogs uptake of Ca,the science is out there,but it wouldn't be any fun if i did it all for you. Grain mites don't eat yeast so way less of a problem in these cultures,oh and if they are,well wash the buggers away at water change.

If it helps one beginner over there or sparks some thoughts in a new guy's head then thats enough for me,you'll find many ideas on this subject in the feeder section, from way more experianced folks than i ,and probably with better results ,but this is the best i have,for the moment :lol:
I'll get some pics up soon to accompany this
regards
Stu

where to start.....
The all important Stu proof lable,giving detail of culture set up and when each water change was accomplished


2 types of container we are using



our staple food...maybe we can do better than this,but its working well so far


A detail of a little pile of yeast note the ground cuttlefish bone as a source of Calcium



big lump of charcoal,one tap away from a clean feed to the froglets

the tool of the trade to suck out the water,my trusty turkey baster and in use during a water change....remember that big lump of charcoal placed in a corner.the springs flot of course so if you keep the tip of the baster below the water level,you remove very very few springs


finally some springtails


Good luck guys which ever way you choose to do this,what is important for us is simple we have enough springtails to fed our charges from a good little starter culture,what ever they throw at us
bring it on

Stu

i've got some real great news coming,its not exotic or really special other than to me and someone i care about my little mate the ff guru.I just wanted to give due warning for my esteemed host,not good to shock folks too much . I've been trying to get this one sorted for ages and finally it is done,i promise to come back soon and tell all.


Due to some help from a great young frogger here,get well soon bro!! We have finally got some turks,thanks to all here for the help waying up a real productive mel,Shaz has got them going and the frogs love the chase,here's one of her starters


She is still using that real simple media cheepo readybreak cheep honey and water,we add in abit of superfly for the hell of it really plus raffia. Ff culturing is stable no shortages,Shaz is also trying to nail down some other varieties of fly for the hell of it. You might of guessed that I'm in awe of what she is achieving,
regards

Stu