# Microfauna



## raptorslovepuns (Jul 26, 2007)

So what sorts of inverts can and should be kept with dart frogs? I'm keeping a ten gallon with only one or two frogs, so I'm not asking about a pygmy chameleon or a day gecko or a fish or anything of that nature.

I guess I _really_ like mini reef aquariums (who doesn't? I don't have that kind of cash though *sigh*), especially how they have a ton of different organisms all living in the same area. So what am I able to keep in with dart frogs that won't stress the frog out or eat the plants? I was thinking isopods might be a good idea to eat some of the frogs poop, and I know some people mentioned tiny web making spiders and jumping spiders that took up residence as well. Are there any prey species that can breed fast enough to keep up with the darts? Any other critters I could think about?

I know that it's very limited in a ten gallon, but I was curious to see.


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## MELLOWROO421 (Feb 21, 2007)

Springtails will help keep a good balance in your viv as well as act as a snack for your frogs. If you give them a little leaf litter they can maintain pretty high populations and mine seem to reproduce pretty quick. You can get them from a lot of the sponsors or other members here on Dendroboard.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

I have a vivarium that has been going for a decade that contains the following:

isopods (2 species)
snails (1 species)
slug (1 species)
millipede (1 species)
centipede (1 species)
earwig (1 species)
beetle (1 species) 
springtails (1 species)
earthworm (1 species)

Of course you never see any of them unless you dig around in the leaf litter.


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## raptorslovepuns (Jul 26, 2007)

Wow Bbrock, that's awesome! How big is your setup?


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Cool Brent! 

I have orange isopods and the normal pillbugs in my viv. I am tempted to add some green banana roaches(Panchlora nivea)...as I don't think they would bother the frogs much. 

It must be due to their being no frogs in my viv...I see them all the time. In fact, they like to drown in the watersection or on the glass.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

This is in 36"Wx36"Tx18"D viv approximately 100 gallons. It houses just a pair of pumilio and usually a few froglets. The last batch of froglets to emerge was 7 and that number of hungry mouths did a number on the microfauna population. I had to supplement with springtails for the first time. I'm hoping the microfauna will recover before the next batch of froglets but there are still 2 from the last batch in there and I just saw a new froglet emerge this week. This just goes to show how much of an impact these frogs can have on invertebrate populations.

There was a thread about pumilio vivs and I posted quite a bit of info about this viv there.


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## raptorslovepuns (Jul 26, 2007)

Wow bbrock, that sounds like the kind of tank I'm going to have dreams about. One day I hope I can keep advanced frogs like pumilio, but I'm young I have time 

How do I get a good load of microfauna in a 10 gallon? Just leaf litter?


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

raptorslovepuns said:


> How do I get a good load of microfauna in a 10 gallon? Just leaf litter?


Leaf litter and no frogs. That's not really a joke unfortunately. To maintain diverse and abundant microfauna, you need to keep the predation pressure pretty low. There are a number of ecological models and mathematical formulaes I could bore you with, but you notice that the frog density in the above setup is about 1 gram of frog per 50 gallons of volume. And as soon as that ration went up to about 2 grams of frog/50 gallons, I saw noticeable reductions in microfauna numbers. Those are pretty sobering stats for a 10 gal. setup. 

But there a a couple things you can do to help offset this limitation. One is pick a good substrate. A substrate that offers a lot of pore spaces between the substrate particles of a variety of sizes will provide lots of living space for a greater diversity of amphibians than a substrate that provides little pore space or pore spaces that are all large. The second thing you can do is create internal refugia where the microfauna can live and reproduce but the frogs can't reach them. Do a search for posts by Ben Eiben and look for a thread about plenums or refugia for one idea for doing this. And you already guessed the last part, lots of leaf litter. Leaf litter and root turnover are the food sources for the soil microfauna so have lots of it in there and continually add to it to keep leaf litter in various stages of decay.


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## raptorslovepuns (Jul 26, 2007)

Well, I guess I'll have to wait to do a microfauna tank. Someday though.


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## naja_naja (Sep 8, 2006)

You put centipedes in your tank i dont know what species you have in there brock but i would think centipedes would pose a serious threat to little frogs like pumilio babies


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

naja_naja said:


> You put centipedes in your tank i dont know what species you have in there brock but i would think centipedes would pose a serious threat to little frogs like pumilio babies


It is a very small, threadlike species that preys on soil fauna. They are way too small to take even a small pumilio froglet.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

raptorslovepuns said:


> Well, I guess I'll have to wait to do a microfauna tank. Someday though.


I probably shouldn't have been so discouraging. What I should say is that as the size of the viv increases, so does the number of species that can be sustained in the vivarium. This is known as the species-area curve. But you can still maintain microfauna in a 10 gallon with frogs. You will just have to be satisfied with 2-3 species or so rather than a dozen. Also, not all pdf devour every soil invertebrate they see. From my experience, thumbnails tend to crush springtail populations while Phyllobates do not. Millipedes are pretty immune to frog predation. Isopods are somewhere in between. So even in a 10 gallon tank, You probably could support springtails, and a few species of isopods. If you have the stomach for it, snails and millipedes can be added but be aware they can negatively impact plants and/or frog eggs in some cases.

I would like to experiment with more beetles and tree crickets would be interesting to test as well.


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## MRI_GUY (Jul 31, 2006)

Would it make sense to set up a seperate 10g tank with lots of leaf litter and no frogs? Seed it and allow it to mature and develope a nice diversity. Then anout once or twice a month just swap a handfull of the mature litter for some of the less so stuff in the frog tank. I have not kept Dendrobates so I have no feeling for the stress it would introduce but it seems like a reasonable way to keep the microfauna in place.

A refugia of some sort would also work but in a 10g I can't see having one large enough to have an impact.


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## raptorslovepuns (Jul 26, 2007)

bbrock said:


> I probably shouldn't have been so discouraging. What I should say is that as the size of the viv increases, so does the number of species that can be sustained in the vivarium. This is known as the species-area curve. But you can still maintain microfauna in a 10 gallon with frogs. You will just have to be satisfied with 2-3 species or so rather than a dozen. Also, not all pdf devour every soil invertebrate they see. From my experience, thumbnails tend to crush springtail populations while Phyllobates do not. Millipedes are pretty immune to frog predation. Isopods are somewhere in between. So even in a 10 gallon tank, You probably could support springtails, and a few species of isopods. If you have the stomach for it, snails and millipedes can be added but be aware they can negatively impact plants and/or frog eggs in some cases.
> 
> I would like to experiment with more beetles and tree crickets would be interesting to test as well.


Good call, I think, maybe I can be satisfied with 2-3 species. _For now_, lol. 

I won't be keeping any expensive exotic plants except maybe a cheap nepenthes, so I think I could tolerate a couple pedes, maybe a snail. Springtails and isopods are absolutely necessary as well, so that's 3 already. Thanks for all your help!


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

MRI_GUY said:


> Would it make sense to set up a seperate 10g tank with lots of leaf litter and no frogs? Seed it and allow it to mature and develope a nice diversity. Then anout once or twice a month just swap a handfull of the mature litter for some of the less so stuff in the frog tank. I have not kept Dendrobates so I have no feeling for the stress it would introduce but it seems like a reasonable way to keep the microfauna in place.


Absolutely. Several people do exactly that. For example, Lars Osterdahl in Sweden sinks little compost baskets into his vivs and these baskets are swapped out as the fauna becomes depleted.



> A refugia of some sort would also work but in a 10g I can't see having one large enough to have an impact.


That depends on the frogs and how it is arranged. Remember that the substrate acts as a refugia since the frogs can only access critters on the surface. So a few inches of the right substrate can make a pretty good refugia.


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Coconut fiber mat, buried an inch or two in the substrate makes an excellent refugia for dwarf white woodlice, and probably other things as well.


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## MRI_GUY (Jul 31, 2006)

Makes perfect sense to me. I used to keep a 5 gallon salt tank with rock and algae just to culture Amphipods for my finicky fish. This seemed like a reasonable comparison. Thanks


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