# astaxanthin or similar supplements for froglets



## Cutterfly (Apr 9, 2009)

Hello,
this is my first post.
I am from Germany, therefore my english might be not as proper as I wish it to be ; )
Me and my brother breed dartfrogs since many years, so I'm not too unversed in this. In Germany almost no one uses color enhancers within breeding dartfrogs, while I often read in american boards people do. For tadpoles of "red" frogs (e.g. E. athonyi, P. vittatus, A. trivittata, R. amazonica) I use my own food (containing grinded krill, tropical gammarus and other things) to supply them with carotinoids, but I don't know (or don't understand) how to supply the FROGLETS periodly with these carotinoids. Of course I could feed drosophila with something like carrot juice or beetroot, but I think these vegetables contain other carotinoids than asthaxanthin and I sometimes read, these carotinoids wouldn't work for frogs. On the other hand I heard it to be very important to supply the froglets as well as the tadpoles. Spirulina or some vitamin complex powders are "sticky" (don't know the right english word here) when drosophila or other insects get dusted with them, but e.g. powdered krill isn't. Does some one know, how to supply astaxanthin or similar (working) carotinoids to froglets?

Thanks for reading, I hope my english isn't TOO bad.
Kind regards,
CF


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## NathalieB (Apr 23, 2007)

you can often buy naturose at the same places that sell powdered spirulina (I bought mine on ebay) and just can just mix a little bit of the powder in with the vitamins you use for dusting.


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## Cutterfly (Apr 9, 2009)

Thank you for answering so fast. 
In Germany there are no (web)shops offering NatuRose, but I ordered a similar product: astaxanthin capsules containing pure Haematococcus pluvialis.
They are mentioned as supplement for human beings, but I think, they are ok for my frogs. Now I hope, the algae in the capsules is grinded very fine, so I can mix it with vitamin powder as you told me.

Greets,
CF


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## Jonny5 (Jan 26, 2005)

Welcome to the board. The company that makes naturose stopped making the pet
quality product to focus on human grade product. The capsules you got should work
just fine. I use the naturose and mix a little paprika with it and use a pedistle and mortar to grind it a little. I mix it in with the insects when I supplement. Hope this helps a little.

Jon


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I'm going to cut and past some comments in between your questions



Cutterfly said:


> In Germany almost no one uses color enhancers within breeding dartfrogs, while I often read in american boards people do. For tadpoles of "red" frogs (e.g. E. athonyi, P. vittatus, A. trivittata, R. amazonica) I use my own food (containing grinded krill, tropical gammarus and other things) to supply them with carotinoids, but I don't know (or don't understand) how to supply the FROGLETS periodly with these carotinoids.


These foods are not what I would consider true color enhancers as we are simply trying to get the frogs closer to the color that is found in the parental populations. In addition carotenoids are important in the metabolism of many vertebrates as some are converted to vitamin A and others have antioxident activity or increase the frog's immune system. 
If you are using ground up krill, and gammarus then you are already supplying them with some carotenoids like astaxanthin. 
There are two ways to answer your question on the froglets so I'm going to answer it both ways, supplemetation of carotenoids can be through the feeder insects (such as feeding it to pinhead crickets) or if it can be powdered fine enough by dusting it onto the feeder insects. 



Cutterfly said:


> Of course I could feed drosophila with something like carrot juice or beetroot, but I think these vegetables contain other carotinoids than asthaxanthin and I sometimes read, these carotinoids wouldn't work for frogs.


Color of the vegetable or plant can't always be used to determine the carotenoids, for example the red/purple of beets is due to flavenoids which are not going to be stored in the chromatophores of the frog. Both beets and carrots supply basically the same carotenoids which are mainly beta carotene, however these do affect the frogs as it is used more for yellow and orange but is also metabolically important as a non-toxic (can't overdose on it) source of vitamin A, and an antioxident. 



Cutterfly said:


> On the other hand I heard it to be very important to supply the froglets as well as the tadpoles. Spirulina or some vitamin complex powders are "sticky" (don't know the right english word here) when drosophila or other insects get dusted with them, but e.g. powdered krill isn't. Does some one know, how to supply astaxanthin or similar (working) carotinoids to froglets?.


If you can't powder it fine enough (try a coffee grinder, something like this Amazon.com: Krups 203-42 Fast Touch Coffee Grinder, Black: Kitchen & Dining) then can try feeding it to some of the feeder insects. We don't have any solid information on it yet, but it might be able to be supplemented via adding it to the fruit fly cultures and feeding out the fruit fly maggots. 




Cutterfly said:


> Thanks for reading, I hope my english isn't TOO bad.
> Kind regards,
> CF


Your English is fine. Much, much better than if I was trying to translate my answer into German. 

In one of the upcoming issues of Leaf Litter (Education), there should be an article on color, carotenoids and vitamin A. 

Ed


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## NathalieB (Apr 23, 2007)

Cutterfly said:


> Thank you for answering so fast.
> In Germany there are no (web)shops offering NatuRose, but I ordered a similar product: astaxanthin capsules containing pure Haematococcus pluvialis.
> They are mentioned as supplement for human beings, but I think, they are ok for my frogs. Now I hope, the algae in the capsules is grinded very fine, so I can mix it with vitamin powder as you told me.
> 
> ...


I have seen that the human supplements are mostly oil-based so make sure you buy powder or capsules that can grinded.
there is also fish-food available with astaxanthin.


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## Cutterfly (Apr 9, 2009)

@Ed:
Thank you very much for answering my question(s) in detail 
You wrote, you (and others) are trying to get the frogs closer to the color that is found in the parental populations. That's exactly what I want my frogs to be. I think if they don't keep the color, which they have in nature, there is something missing within their metabolism. In Germany most breeders tell you, you would have to use (more) UV. UV might be *one* criterion, but I think there are more. Might be in nature our frogs eat some kind of unknown microorganism (tropical mites or something like that) which helps them to synthesize their colors. But even if I content that many "red" organisms naturally contain astaxanthin, most German breeders tell me a load of rubbish, e.g. "astaxanthin? sounds chemically and chemical things have to be kept away from frogs!" 
For this reason I am very happy to get good replies here, which make more sense.

Thanks to the others as well.

Edit: By the way we have a herpetologist in a common German dartfrog board who says that any larvae which becomes a fly (or some other insect) during pupation loses the things you have fed it. If this is true, I think feeding the maggots cannot be the right way. But I don't know... may be some of you knows better. 

Greets,
CF


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Using a mortar and pestle (picture link supplied below) will produce a much finer powder in most cases...the advantage is that you can work on very small volumes and avoid wasting material. You can also blend various powders while grinding them to produce very fine (and mixed) materials. 

Good luck!

http://www.fantes.com/images/12617mortar_pestle.jpg

Bill


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