# Cacti & Fruiting Plants



## Conman3880 (Jul 8, 2007)

A few questions...

1) Is it okay to have tropical cacti in a vivarium? I worry about the spines injuring frogs.

2) Has anyone used Hylocereus undatus (dragon fruit) in their vivarium? It's an epiphyte, so I thought it might be a neat addition.

3) Has anyone kept _any_ fruiting plants in their vivarium? I think it might be neat to have a dwarf pomegranate or something.

Thanks!


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2007)

Nope, haven't tried it and would be interesting to see if a suitable one can show up. :?


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## zBrinks (Jul 16, 2006)

Ive used Christmas cacti in a customer's viv before. Zygocactus, if I recall. It is really easy to propagate, just take a 'section' and stick one cut end in well-draining soil, and it roots! I used cuttings in the viv, and they grew well in a substrate of orchid bark and LFS. Some of the larger peices bloomed about 6 months later, I was told. The viv held green anoles, not frogs, but they were never injured.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

I agree with Zach, Zyogcactus works very well and doesn’t have much in the way of spines. In a high humidity environment it throws a ton of roots. I have not had any blooms though, just growth.


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## Conman3880 (Jul 8, 2007)

What about coffee (Coffea arabica), cacao (Theobroma cacao) or banana (Musa sp.) plants in taller vivs? Anyone know toxicity on these?


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Someone once posted about coffee being used to kill frogs. I have no idea if the plant itself causes problems for frogs though. The Banana will be almost impossible to contain. Even the dwarfs get to be over three feet tall and wide. I can’t tell you anything about the chocolate tree but I assume it gets huge. You have to remember that healthy dart frogs are very long lived. The oldest frogs that I’ve heard of so far were 18 years old. Vivs can last longer than five years. If you plant things that will get huge, you are going to be making a lot of work for yourself.


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## Conman3880 (Jul 8, 2007)

Coffee and cacao both grow insanely slow... The opposite is true with bananas (or so they say, I've had mine for a year and they're growing snail-paced), but if any part of coffee can kill a frog, I dont think i'll be using the plant any time soon :shock:


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## harrywitmore (Feb 9, 2004)

If interested in cactus in Vivs you should look into Rhipsalis, Lepismium and Hatoria. They are all epiphytic and have no real spines to speak of except a few. Many are pendant growers and would look great mounted to the back wall.


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## Tim F (Jan 27, 2006)

Fiscus diversifolia (mistletoe fig) works great! They bear fruit throughout the year, so there are pretty much always little figs on them in varying stages of ripeness (green-yellow-red). They're epihytic, but can be grown terrestrially in a well-draining medium. They also have a small, loose, shrub-like nature (as opposed to tree-like), so they're easy to keep in check in a larger viv. 

I have also noticed that the fruit does not die off en mass, so I never have a mess to clean up from that. The pods and whatnot take care of it.

Finally, the small circular leaves are slow to degrade, so they add to the leaf litter.

So yeah. There's my vote!


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

Some of the epiphytic gesneriads will fruit in the viv as well if they get pollentated.

I second Harry's post. Rhips are awesome. I've got one in a 35 hex I did a while back. Its doing great...


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## slaytonp (Nov 14, 2004)

harrywitmore said:


> If interested in cactus in Vivs you should look into Rhipsalis, Lepismium and Hatoria. They are all epiphytic and have no real spines to speak of except a few. Many are pendant growers and would look great mounted to the back wall.


I second this. I use several species of Rhipsalis in some of my dart frog vivariums and in the long past, was into cacti with a vengeance, growing some 2,000 species of all sorts, from desert to tropical epiphytes. The epiphytics like the Rhipsalis, and Hatoria, do need a lot of light, but they will get it near the light source on the top of a background. The spines are usually soft, and the bristles in the areoles don't protrude much, and dart frogs seem to be quite able to avoid injury from most plant spines. A lot of us use bromeliads that have nasty spines on the leaf margins, and the the frogs breed, raise tadpoles in the axils with impunity. The darts won't climb around on the epiphytic cacti or use them, so this choice is strictly decorative.


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## shortymac83 (Jun 27, 2007)

Grassypeak said:


> Someone once posted about coffee being used to kill frogs. I have no idea if the plant itself causes problems for frogs though. The Banana will be almost impossible to contain. Even the dwarfs get to be over three feet tall and wide. I can’t tell you anything about the chocolate tree but I assume it gets huge. You have to remember that healthy dart frogs are very long lived. The oldest frogs that I’ve heard of so far were 18 years old. Vivs can last longer than five years. If you plant things that will get huge, you are going to be making a lot of work for yourself.



In Hawaii, Coqui frogs are an invasive species (their Puerto Rican...and cute as hell). Anyway, in places they use caffeine that is 100 times the strength found in a cup of coffee. The idea is that it will be absorbed and will give the frogs a heart attack. hwoever, it is dangerous to humans and pets, and is toxic enough to burn skin. I think you'd be OK with coffee. Unless they like spending time sitting on the actual beans, you should be fine.


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## jundox (Jul 5, 2007)

I have had zero luck with Rhipsalis in my Viv... I don't know if it is too humid, or what, but I tried mounting cuttings to the background with some wet sphagnum moss around the bottoms, and it just rotted away in about 2 weeks.

The tips started getting a reddish orange color and became very stiff before completely wilting. Anyone have any suggestions or tips for growing Rhipsalis in a viv?


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Lots of epiphytes like it humid, but with air movement... lack of air movement tends to be the big killer of orchids and other epiphytes...

The problem with the fruiting trees is that they are trees! While I do know of a tank with coffee seedlings in it, it was to show what was more typical of the rainforest bottom and they won't be in there long term. Coffee trees are kept TRIMMED to under 10 feet for ease of harvesting, and are capable of reaching a few times that in hieght. I did recently see a smaller variety... they stayed under 4' 

You have to take into account the height and spread of the plant above the ground, and also what it would take to support it below the ground... they are usually grown in gallon sized pots or larger, so you'd likely need at least that depth as well (and that's nearly a foot of substrate! Not including the drainage layer needed for that much substrate!). A tank the size of a walk in closet? Sure! Anything much shorter and you'll start running into issues!

Coffee plants are perfectly harmless to the frogs, and I've seen pumilio living in a shade grown coffee field. Coffee beans are actually processed from coffee cherries which are also completely harmelss... and unless you pour a bag of roasted and processed coffee beans in the tank, they will never come across them to sit on 

Coquis are cute as hell until you have a breeding congregation defining you... not to mention what they do as an invasive species...


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