Dart Den

Ok, let me give some background on my little froggy friends before I ask my questions. My sister gave me her 2 D. azureus. She was feeding them fruit flies 3-5 times per week with the Herpivite sprinkled on every meal. Since reading so much conflicting information during my research, I haven't been adding any supplement to the fruit flies. I figured it's better for them to get just naked fruit flies than to get a supplement that can harm them. I have had my little frogs since 7/2.

Question 1: I am very confused about the phosphorus in supplements. Some sites(and the guy at the reptile specialty store) say they shouldn't have any phosphorus at all. But the supplement I've been recommended Rep-cal Herpivite has a calcium to phosphorus ratio or roughly 2:1. What is the proper calcium to phosphorus ratio? If no phosphorus is best, what supplement would you recommend instead of the Herpivite?

Question 2: My frogs were only getting the Herpivite and no calcuim/D3 supplement at all. Is there any danger in just starting them on the calcium/D3 or do I need to ease them into it since they haven't had it before?

Thank you and may the Fourth be with you!

Chrystal

Calcium is needed for metabolic bone growth. Bad things will happen quickly without it.

Rapashy products are very well received in the hobby, if you are skeptical about those others.

Dendrocare - avial thru Black Jungle

Nekton Rep - German superfine powder is excellent as well. Can be found on eBay.


Rotation is key IMO. Buy 3-4 different types and rotate their use.

Rep-cal is an OK one to use? It is most readily available in my area(petsmart) and I'm guessing that ordering from an online store, I wouldn't even get it until sometime next week. Can the frogs wait that long? Have I already done damage to them?

Regarding the calcium, is it ok to just start them on it?

Thank you!

Rep Cal is fine. Months and Months of no dusting whatsoever would be bad, but if it's only been a couple weeks, you should be ok - I would think.

I dust alternated supps and then 2 different calcs...one at a time but at every single feeding. Does that make sense ?

It makes perfect sense. Are Fluker's supplements any good? Thanks so much for the quick reply

Is there any way to edit posts? I just noticed I kept spelling Herptivite wrong.

Chyrstal I'm not familiar with the Flukers vitamins, so can't say one way or the other, perhaps someone has some experience with them and can give us some info.
We have been using the Rep-Cal and Herptivite, through the years and have been very satisfied
with it.
We have heard good things about the Repashy, so we might see about working that in.

Here's a good thread...you may have already seen it.

feeder-insects-nutrition-how-to-feed-your-frogs-f22/repashy-calcium-plus-icb-t3625.html

I'm not aware flukers made anything for amphibians.....

"The pink and the blue containers" work fine. People have had sucess with them for a long time now. That's not saying that they are the end-all-be-all.....just that there are ok to pick up quickly at your local Petsmart / Petco until you get better established.

Here's the Flukers Calc.....interesting. I like the looks of it.

http://www.flukerfarms.com/calciumd3fre ... ediet.aspx

Awesome! Thanks a bunch! =D

Anyone aware of any more scientific measurements on the nutrition of our fruitflies? I have seen so much variance in ff media that I would love to see some real data. Some of the simple online recipes are very basic, would seem the flies produced with them would be lacking. After all, a df's wild prey would be eating much more nutritional stuff than potatoes and sugar. Hence the need for so much supplementation in captivity.

I will be putting together the final mix of media enhancer this week. Should be a fun informal experiment.