# How good are thumbs at Hiding?



## Kaity (Sep 18, 2010)

So I'm just curious to get everyone's thoughts before I do something drastic. I have three 6 month old Vanzolinii. I moved two to a bigger viv about a month ago but havent been able to find the third to move. I finally decided tonight was the night and went through the whole viv, took out all the plants to get room to search, and STILL CANT FIND IT! I have tried the not feeding thing for a while and then feeding heavy and it doesnt come out. Do you think it's escaped? The only other option is to start removing the soil slowly until I find it. What do you think?


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

They are VERY good at shooting by you at light speed when you least expect it or can't see it.

I would NEVER tear down a viv with thumbs or even most pums without a second person nearby to help - second set of eyes.

There's a good chance it may have gotten by you......


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

They are crazy good at hiding...and fassst! Light travels at 1/5th the speed of thumbnails!
Doug


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## Kaity (Sep 18, 2010)

Maybe it got out when I was getting the other ones out....crap. I scoured the floor trying to find a body and nothing. I need to know!!! Maybe the dogs ate it... This is driving me crazy. At this point would you suggest I take out all the soil just to be certain as long as I have a buddy standing by?


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## fleshfrombone (Jun 15, 2008)

1)I concur, blinding speed. In fact I'm still not sure if my female GL lamasi is frog jerky or if she banged her head and died in her viv when I disturbed a film cannister she was in and this was quite some time ago.

2)It never ceases to amaze me that something so brightly colored can blend so well in a mostly green environment.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Kaity said:


> This is driving me crazy. At this point would you suggest I take out all the soil just to be certain as long as I have a buddy standing by?


Yeah..you'll never know otherwise.....get a buddy and make sure the room you have the viv in, is conducive to keeping the frog from getting under stuff in case it shoots out. I've taken a small exo into the bathroom once time to make sure if the vents shot out, they would have nowhere to crawl under.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Ya even the larger frogs are crazy good at hiding and can squeeze into places you'd never suspect. I had to rip the centerpiece log out of my 20H because the red galacts I originally put in there found a space to crawl up into it I thought was sealed, and were able to squeeze themselves into these tiny cracks that I could barely get my pinky in and hide inches up in the log...I mean I didn't even realize the holes went that deep till I shined a flashlight and saw the frogs in them after pulling the log out of the tank. 

I also lost my last black bassleri because It disappeared in my 75 for 6 months. Used to call all the time, stopped...used to see it fairly often, stopped. The only real change was one of the tank lights went out and I didn't get around to replacing it for awhile and I guess it pissed him off because for 6mo I didn't see or hear that frog in a tank 6 feet to the left of my PC which I'm always on if i'm home usually. I gave up after tearing through the tank several times and feeding what I thought was a dead frog for 3 months only to have the thing pop up one day when I took some moss from the tank nearly starved, lasted 48 hours but was beyond help. It was like he just popped up to say "screw you"..."Now I can die"


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## james67 (Jun 28, 2008)

if i were you i'd leave the tank alone, i almost always find the "missing" frog in the tank later.

you could easily have removed it with a brom though as this isnt uncommon, and they can really get down into those things and simply hitch a ride out of the tank, same goes for wood, substrate etc.

james


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

james67 said:


> if i were you i'd leave the tank alone, i almost always find the "missing" frog in the tank later.
> 
> you could easily have removed it with a brom though as this isnt uncommon, and they can really get down into those things and simply hitch a ride out of the tank, same goes for wood, substrate etc.
> 
> james


Agreed, unless it is a situation where you could flood the area they might be when filling a pond and drown them, or have accidentally buried one, or maybe there is tree fern panel and they could be stuck in it, they can usually get themselves out of whatever they get into and will eventually. Almost every time I've gone digging If I would have been patient the frog probably would have turned up anyways...though there is the peace of mind factor. It can drive u crazy. And there exceptions like those I just mentioned and my 2 stories...the reds were in a spot that floods if I fill the pond up to its normal depth, and the black just never showed up even in all that time but that was an exceptionally large and overgrown tank.


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## Kaity (Sep 18, 2010)

The tank is only 15 gals so not too big. This frog I have probably only seen three times in the 5 months I have owned it...one of those times was when I put it in. I know what you mean by feeding a "dead" frog for months. Although it has only been a month for me. That is why I think if I just leave it alone I will never know because if it is alive it will never come out.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Kaity said:


> The tank is only 15 gals so not too big. This frog I have probably only seen three times in the 5 months I have owned it...one of those times was when I put it in. I know what you mean by feeding a "dead" frog for months. Although it has only been a month for me. That is why I think if I just leave it alone I will never know because if it is alive it will never come out.


If you've looked outside the tank all you can, and are fairly sure it isn't somewhere that it is trapped inside the tank the best thing is probably to wait it out as long as you can stand it, and just keep feeding.


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## Kaity (Sep 18, 2010)

I hate waiting...pout


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

ya definitely wait. i once "dug" for a vent in a 55 tall and accidentally crushed it while removing a bromeliad that it was wedged into


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## goatdude (Apr 24, 2009)

i'm in the same boat with my vent. it's been 3 weeks now and no signs. can't they just put up a sign that says."i'm still alive" then maybe us thumb collectors wouldn't worry so much


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## bshmerlie (Jun 2, 2010)

Wow...you guys really know how to make me nervous about getting a thumb. Feeding immaginary frogs....hmmm....sounds fun.


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## goatdude (Apr 24, 2009)

bshmerlie said:


> Wow...you guys really know how to make me nervous about getting a thumb. Feeding immaginary frogs....hmmm....sounds fun.


you sound like my wife. she keeps saying where's the frog. did you see it today. and i keep saying look for the white flag. if you don't see it he's still alive


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## Kaity (Sep 18, 2010)

Ya...my next frogs will be tincs. I feel they will be less stressful!


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## Chris155hp (Mar 17, 2010)

Pumilo said:


> They are crazy good at hiding...and fassst! Light travels at 1/5th the speed of thumbnails!
> Doug


 I dont even have thumbs (yet) but i like it


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## btcope (Jan 7, 2009)

picking up my first thumbs saturday. thoroughly scared after reading this post. my azureus are so easy to see and rather calm when i dig in the viv for some reason. 

plus, how terrible of a concept is "frog jerky" ... ? I feel miserable just saying the phrase.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Don't let us scare you off of thumbnails. They can be very rewarding to work with. But it's no joke that you want to take every precaution. You always look carefully all around the door before you open the viv. You try to get a second set of eyes if you have to work inside the viv.
Doug


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## milez803 (Jun 10, 2009)

didn't mean to jack your thread, but same thing happen to me, my 90 gallon tank has 4 yellow splashback, i always see 3 only, hope the little guy didn't die.  . even during feeding time..only three would come out, but there are alot of crack in the driftwood for them to hide. any way to find out if a frog die inside and rot? cause the tank doesn't smell at all. and i'm sure it didn't escape..cause only time i open it is when feeding time. the tank is perfectly seal. i think the guppies might have ate the dead body in the pond. .


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

i had 4 fantastica in a 26 gallon tank for about a year and i only ever saw 1 of them. when i tore the tank down i found 3 of them. the only thing i didnt take out of the tank was a great foam background. i left the tank for 4 months while i had nothing to put in it and one day there was the 4th one!!! there wasnt a way for it to get behind the background and i really thoroughly searched it. its like it snuck out while i was searching and snuck back in when i went to put the lid on. coolest thing was i never fed it! it was living off silver springs living on the background!


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## bshmerlie (Jun 2, 2010)

I'm looking to get a couple of Varaderos. Am I ever going to see them or are they going to hide all the time?


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## Okapi (Oct 12, 2007)

If it goes more than a few days that I havent seen my imitators, I play a clip of a male imitator calling and both come out to investigate within 10 minutes.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

bshmerlie said:


> I'm looking to get a couple of Varaderos. Am I ever going to see them or are they going to hide all the time?


Imitators (including Varadero) are one of the bolder thumbnails. I would say that 70 percent of the time, when I spend 30 minutes doing maintanance in the frog room, I will spot at least one of them in each Varadero viv. But it will depend some upon your frogs, your setup, and the age of your frogs. Also, they will be bolder when breeding/calling.
Doug


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## Azurel (Aug 5, 2010)

I have a group of 5 varaderos and I see 3 of the 5 about 80%-90% of the time....My male has been calling for the last 3 months.....They are in a heavy planted 60g cube....


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## Rski (Jan 25, 2010)

I have 3 FG vents and I amlost always see at least 2 of them. I do know where several of their hiding spots are though, so I usually check those. (I can see them from outside the glass) Sometimes I can only see a tip of a nose but I know shes there.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Best tips I've got for you, so that you see them often, are these.
1) Well planted viv with lots of cover and leaf litter. This way, eventually they realize that cover is only a hop away, so they are bolder about being out in the open.
2) Don't squeeze them into a tiny viv. They seem to be bolder when given some room to move around.
Doug


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## btcope (Jan 7, 2009)

going to get my pair tomorrow. so excited. i have a quarantine for the w/ lots of leaf litter and terrarium weed (wandering jew) growing all over the place so they have something to climb on. I AM SO EXCITED. i can't wait to put them in their new home. i just want to make sure they're healthy and eating before i dump them in. hopefully they'll love it.

sorry to be a thread hijacker ... first time thumbs ... sort of related, right??? besides, who isn't excited about new frogs!?


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## salix (Mar 28, 2008)

I had a similar situation with vanzos. I had a trio in a 20 gal vert and I never saw them. I finally did some digging around and couldn't find a single frog. I took out all the leaf litter and wood and dug through the tank with no frogs. I then completely flooded the substrate with a couple of inches of water. There had been a place they were able to get under the false bottom and I was trying to make sure they hadn't gone underground. Nothing ever showed up and I decided they had died and been consumed by the springtails.

I went out and bought another pair of vanzo and put them in a new viv. Several weeks later, I got some anthonyii and added them to the old vanzo viv. Weeks later I saw movement on the background and there was a vanzo in the tank with them. I did a quick catch and moved it in with my new pair. Over the next couple of weeks, the other two turned up one by one as well.

I have no idea where they could have been hiding, but all three were still in that tank and I now have a group of five. I realize sometimes they do escape or die and the body just disappears, but I have a much greater respect for their ability to hide.

Good luck with yours.

Deb


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## Kaity (Sep 18, 2010)

Thanks Salix!

I think I am going to wait a while and try playing a Vanzolinii call for it. See if it comes out. I noticed that the other two are getting a little more bold and I'm wondering if that is because they are becoming sexually mature. How old do they need to be for that to work? They are about 6-7 months now.


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## salix (Mar 28, 2008)

Frankly I think it's the individual frog. I see two all the time, a third now and then and I still never see the other two. They are such a beautiful frog, I just enjoy them when I do see them. Just keep feeding the tank and assume the frog is still hiding, don't give up on them too quickly.

Deb


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