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Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...

Weather and dart frog spawning.
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Weather and dart frog spawning.
#1
I came to dart frogs from a background of cichlids and herps. It's long been known in the fish keeping world that if you had a fish that was hard to spawn an old timers trick was to do a big water change in conjunction with a storm front passing through. Being a bit of a weather nut I have a really nice personal weather station in my back yard. I'm exploring starting an experiment to determine if barometric pressure changes influence breeding activity in dart frogs. I think we all have noticed increased calling from our frogs every time it's raining outside. With my weather station I am able to measure and record permanently on my computer every weather variable there is. I want to explore the possibility of a link between the two events. Any thoughts anyone?
Jon
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#2
I believe it's a direct correlation, yep.
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#3
Yup, many animals feed and breed with large swings in barometric pressure. It's a stressor. Huge storm coming must do two things. Immediate (feed) and long term (breed) to pass along genetic material.
Take a pair that has not bred in awhile and move them into a new viv . There's a good chance you'll see short term breeding . They are stressed and feel the need to get their genetic material out before the end of times.
Fish do it, crocs do it, darts do it. I've seen laying in shipping containers.

Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
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#4
Thanks for the reply gentleman. I've been talking with a couple if the "scientific" minds about designing a test with three groups of frogs fed and housed identically to see if there is a certain drop in pressure required to induce spawning. It's not earth shattering info but from what I've found so far it's an area of dart frog husbandry that is completely unexplored.


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Jon
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#5
Jon I've mentioned this before a few times,i think there might be a hardwire trigger for darts to breed at certain times of the year,I'm constantly seeing parallel behaviour posted here and stateside...might be day length as we are all northern hemisphere a guy here, a scientist, is exploring the angle of the sun as a potential trigger?Beyond this,my observations say a drop in barometric pressure and rain falling affect our frogs behaviour and are players in causing breeding. But once my/our larger frogs get going it seems external factors play second fiddle to the fact that they have full bellies.I am sure of nothing my friend,not enough time keeping for that,but even at this early stage I'm seeing patterns that must be more than co-incidence.
your thoughtful experiments intregue me sir!!!! please keep us updated
Stu
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#6
Stu, I think length of day can be taken out of the equation. When researching where my El Cope's come from in Panama I found that the most daylight they receive at the height of summer is 12:36, and the least at the height of winter is 11:36. That's only a 1 hour derivation all year long. The closer you get to the equator the closer to 12 hours light and 12 hours dark you get.
Here is a cool site to determine how many hours of light your frogs would get in the wild.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunrise.html
Jon
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#7
Rusty_Shackleford Wrote:Stu, I think length of day can be taken out of the equation. When researching where my El Cope's come from in Panama I found that the most daylight they receive at the height of summer is 12:36, and the least at the height of winter is 11:36. That's only a 1 hour derivation all year long. The closer you get to the equator the closer to 12 hours light and 12 hours dark you get.
Here is a cool site to determine how many hours of light your frogs would get in the wild.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunrise.html


thanks for the link buddy,speaks volumes to me that you know how much the day length differs where your Elcope come from...WOW.
it might just work the other way around though,as they might be that much more sensitive to day length,i'm not arguing Jon i don't know I haven't answers,I'm seeing behaviour posted here and in the states over and over relating to breeding activity,that just seems more than a co incidence,although i have noted weather similarities aswell
really am grateful for the link mate its made me reappraise as although i knew about the day length getting close to 12hrs the nearer the equator a though it was more 10hrs winter 12 summer of daylight which is the lighting regime i use. I must add having a north facing room which gets very little natural sunlight we no longer shut the blind,and also apologise if i've gone slightly off topic,i just find all this fascinating
cheers
Stu
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#8
Stu, I'm no expert either. I just think this all interconnects somehow. I find it interesting that your friend the scientist is exploring the relationship between dart breeding and the angle of the sun. I may be wrong about this but I believe the angle of the sun changes very little at the equator. Of course in the Northern Hemisphere where we live it varies greatly from summer to winter which is what gives us our change in seasons. It would probably be more of a factor in captivity than it is in the wild. Still very interesting though. I think it truly surprises people how much light/dark their frogs get in the wild. All of this is just a part of giving our frogs the best possible environment we can in captivity.
Jon
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#9
Areas on the equator -ish are more prone to weather patterns than sun movement...
Costa Rica's Pac side's summer , above the equator, is January peak.



Rich
Darts with parasites are analogous to mixed tanks, there are no known benefits to the frogs with either.


If tone is more important to you than content, you are at the wrong place.

My new email address is: rich.frye@icloud.com and new phone number is 773 577 3476
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#10
RichFrye Wrote:Areas on the equator -ish are more prone to weather patterns than sun movement...
Costa Rica's Pac side's summer , above the equator, is January peak.



Rich

Bingo!! Given that fact and the fact that weather is pretty stable overall. Leads me to believe that small fluctuation like a drop in barometric pressure has a great influence on spawning behavior. I know there is some seasonal variability in weather patterns ie wet and dry seasons, but for the most part it rains and is warm every day, the climate is pretty much the same all year. No drastic difference like say the dry and monsoon seasons in Australia for example. What I want to find out is how much of a barometric pressure drop do the frogs respond to? I already have a solid 2 years worth of weather readings, taken every 5 minutes for two years. Now I want to couple that data with frog spawning activity and come up with some useful hard data. You see where I'm going with this RIch.
Jon
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#11
leave asid my offtopic stuff, Jon for now,i'll find out more if i can and come back elsewhere. but it really does sound like your going to achieve something really useable with your ability to streamline this amount of data with dart behaviour i'm really looking forward to what you find out,good luck to you with this,enlightening stuff,
regards
Stu
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#12
I read this back about a month ago and found it interesting. I'm not sure on the breeding side since my leucs are still too young but I have 1 that's active most all the time and 1 that hides almost all the time. I don't have stuff to measure anything outside but yesterday we had a clouds coming in for rain last night and today. Well yesterday afternoon when the clouds rolled in, the leuc that hides all the time came out (I hadn't seen it in at least 4-5 days). I'm never sure if it's eating or not since I hardly ever see him. I'm pretty sure it's not getting dusted flies but may pick up some here and there. Today I get up at 7am seeing that my active one out like usual and look around a bit more to find the other actually out (I've never seen it 2 days in a row in the month and a half I've had them). I did my normal morning feeding and both got dusted flies. As the day has gone on, I've been really watching because this is different than what I'm used to. My active one is MORE active than usual, climbing on plants, the coco hut, the vine I have in the tank. The less active is climbing the glass and plants, and has been chasing the more active one around. The active one, when they're close together is also doing weird twitching and head bobbing that I haven't seen before (if anyone has any ideas would be great to know). Seems as though to me, the change in pressures outside along with the rain we've gotten have really woken these 2 up a lot. Just my input from a completely non-scientific observation on the subject.
Jon
1.0.6 D. Leucomelas
0.0.2 D. Azureus
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#13
Here's a link for weatherunderground. If you don't have your own weather station, type in your address you can find someone close to you, probably within a couple of miles, that is a weather geek like me and broadcasts their weather data live onto the net. These conditions will be more accurate and more real time than the weather you get from the tv, radio, or a large website.
When your leucs are a bit older, you may hear them call a lot on days like you had the other day. I personally think that if the frogs are ready, the drop in barometric pressure, coupled with a good misting may trigger them to breed.
Jon
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