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Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...

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On raising R. Imitator "Chazuta"
#1
I'd like to give you my firsthand experience with raising Imitators. I've only been keeping them a little more than a year but after keeping four of the different types of Imitator I've noticed certain differences. Below is my experience with Imitators raising young.

I have two pairs of Chazuta and one of the pairs is quite prolic and the other still hasn't laid any eggs at all, or at least any that I've seen.

In the enclosure with the producing pair I keep six white film canisters nearly vertical, filled halfway up with a real weak amount of tadpole tea. So far I can't say if the male has taken any of the tadpoles to the bromeliads but he regularly deposits the tadpoles in the film canisters. The female regularly deposits food eggs in the canisters and once they've been in there several weeks I usually pull them because the water will ultimately get too rank.

Here's the point of my story - The tadpoles that I allow to be raised in the canisters not only grow quicker but grow larger faster as compared to the tadpoles that I've pulled from eggs or have taken out of the canisters immediately after they've been deposited. Whether this is because of the food eggs or the climate inside of the vivarium I don't know. My Nominat Green imitators have always taken the tadpoles to the axils of the Neoregalias but I've found a froglet that was raised in the enclosure. My Varadero were completely secretive and I only new I had offspring when I would go to feed or mist and a tiny froglet would come bounding out of the jungle. I keep film canisters the same way in my Nominant enclosure but they are never used.

So this is something I wanted to contribute. Just my observation. I have so many Chazuta tadpoles right now from this one pair that I've decided to just leave any more of the tadpoles alone and let the parents raise them.
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#2
I edited too many times so I was stopped from editing my original post. I use an IPad and if I go to another window it will wipe out what I've written so I tend to submit too much.

In the fourth paragraph I wanted to say that I've never found a froglet raised in the Nominant's enclosure. There could some in there but I tend to plant really heavy in my enclosures. My Exo Terra's truly are little overgrown jungles. This could be the reason why I've always had good egg production.

Another thing I forgot to add; my Imitators have never deposited a tadpole in a canister that was at an angle. And they've never deposited a tapole in a black one. You would think they would prefer the black ones because they are darker and closure looking to the environment deep within the axil of a bromeliad.
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