# Darklands pumilio



## snooknfrogs (Sep 25, 2009)

I've been reading up on pumilio lately and I LOVE the darklands morph. 

I'm curious though... It sounds like these are VERY hard to breed and if they do that the odds of froglets surviving are minimal at best... In fact from what I could find nobody has been overly successful.

Is anyone breeding them successfully here? And if so what's the "trick"? 

I've also noticed that most people breeding pumilio at all are doing so with a marked number of WC animals... Why is that? Is it because they are difficult to breed thus the amount of CB animals is too low to sustain demand? 

Pictures and details of set ups would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

JP


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## MeiKVR6 (Sep 16, 2008)

Andy @ Brooklyn Darts has gotten his to breed successfully... 

He's not on here too often - maybe shoot him an email about his setup?

[email protected]


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## snooknfrogs (Sep 25, 2009)

Yeah I saw he had some for sale on here... I'll get in touch with him and see what his "secret" is. He seems like a super nice guy too so if/when I'm ready I know who'll I'll be getting them from!!!

JP


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## gluedl (Oct 8, 2008)

Hi,

I had quite some success breeding those over this year. I have a trio 1.2. in a 50cm3 tank, small water feature (never gets used by frogs), temps are stabilized at around 25°C (+/- 1°C), humidity is less controled and is between 50% and 70% during day and about 90% at night. They get 12 hours light, I feed them melos, hidei, springtails every day. Vitamins get supplemented twice a week.

Now for the tricks I was able to figure out:

- these frogs have behaviours, meaning they need at least 1 brom to hide/live in per animal, another to lay eggs on, and 2-3 at least to raise the tads. Mine lay their eggs on 2! same bromleafs everytime and I can already say where I will find tads.

- I rinse the broms daily, to make sure there are no bacteria building up in the water. I do so by spraying manually until the water escapes through the axils. I have a raining system, but this I only use for humidity, twice a day for 1min, I still prefer to do the flushing myself.

- I have read from an unconfirmed source that good ventilation/air movement is also very important against bacteria. I work in a hospital and in theory this is OK, but I don't have a ventilation system with humidifier and integrated heating/cooling, just too much for the moment.

- I have read from other sources that breeding pums gets harder or impossible with CB as soon as F2, meaning the second generation would not provide viable offsprings. To be confirmed...

From what I tell here you can already see you will need a lot of techs for the viv, meaning thermocontroler, heatmaps, raining/misting system, etc

Here's more about my frogs:

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/breeding-eggs-tadpoles/41127-darklands.html?highlight=gluedl

Since my last post 10 more emerged. None died until now and the first 2 got their own tank about a month ago. I lost some though with sls, because my ff cultures were made with beer (something I came up with and thought it was cool) which lead to diahrea and probably to not so ggod feeding eggs. Since being back on normal cultures, everything is fine.

In short, there are a lot of things to take in account and yet there will be no success guarantee.

Hope I could help a bit, if there are more questions you know where to find me 

have a nice day

gluedl


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## snooknfrogs (Sep 25, 2009)

Thanks for the info... Unfortunate about f2 animals not breeding well!! What would be a solution to maintain genetic integrity for future generations? Besides using WC animals...

JP


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## gluedl (Oct 8, 2008)

> What would be a solution to maintain genetic integrity for future generations? Besides using WC animals...


getting parents from different F1 bloodlines would be the easiest and safest way to get a breeding pair that works...


gluedl


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## EricM (Feb 15, 2004)

Currently I keep and successfully produce 10 morphs of pumilio including two pairs of darklands from Tuss. I keep pumilio pairs in ten gallon tanks with a bromeliad and various foliage plants for cover and egg laying sites. They are fed 3 times a week with dusted fruitflies and the tanks are watered with a manual spray bottle a couple times a week depending on time and weather. The room is set at 75 degrees so the tanks run a couple of degrees higher due to the lights.

Both pairs have produced froglets using the bromeliad, and one pair raised a froglet in the water bowl. Both pairs lay egg clutches on the aroids in the tank. I have a Philo. mamei in one tank and a Monstera obliqua in the other. M. obliqua has the holes in the mature leaves and the frogs will lay the eggs on the solid parts of the leaf, it must be some sort of balancing act to do that. There is also lots of Cissus amazonica in there as well but they so far haven't used it as a laying site.

Both pairs were purchased at the same time as well started juvies. It seemed to have taken over a year until they were able to produce a healthy froglet. The first few were very frail and died. Once they matured past the 2 year mark they have produced much more robust froglets. With age it seemed that they call a lot more and have gotten over their initial shyness. This is pretty typical with most frogs including pumilio.

I don't do anything special with them and they are kept like every other pumilio. I would say feed them well, provide a heavily planted tank with a brom and just wait. I don't get into the tanks much and I leave the animals alone. Sometimes it may be months before I see a frog but I don't rifle through the tanks to make sure they are there. I think this does more harm than good.

The darklands don't produce a lot of froglets compared to other frogs but they also don't seem to be too far behind. As a rule of thumb captive bred frogs do not produce as many eggs/offspring as wild caught frogs, but they usually come with less problems healthwise. As with some of the farm raised frogs you may experience a lot of froglets very fast but then the production will decrease. I think this reflects the amount of food the adults consume in the wild. If you watch adult pumilio they will eat springtails and mites all day, where as a lot of other frogs will not even bother for the smallest of prey. The adults compete for the same food source the froglets are hunting. If your vivarium does not have a soil substrate or support micofauna you may not see too many froglets that live beyond the first few months. Make sure to boost the tank by adding springtails and isopods monthly to keep populations of these food items available to the frogs. 

They are great frogs to observe and care for, so good luck. Hope this helps.
Eric


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## brooklyndartfrogs (Nov 19, 2005)

I have found that these guys are no different than any other pumilio morph that I'm working with. I've had 6 good young so far in the year or so of breeding, 1 more morphed but didn't make it after I pulled him out of the parents tank. There is only one large brom in the viv that they raise there young in so having a few broms doesn't really matter in my experience. I also have all of my tanks automatically misted between one and three times a day with the misting head close to the brom so water is constantly being changed. I think water purity and changes applies to all egg feeders especially pumilio.
Andy


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## snooknfrogs (Sep 25, 2009)

What do you keep yours in Andy? 

I've seen the pictures on your website but it doesn't give dimensions... Thx


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## brooklyndartfrogs (Nov 19, 2005)

I keep all my pumilio in 29 verts.
Andy


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## snooknfrogs (Sep 25, 2009)

Do you use any supplements on the froglets? I was reading somewhere people were using a dropper to put "something" calcium or some type of vitamin on them....

JP


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## brooklyndartfrogs (Nov 19, 2005)

The springtails aren't dusted but the melos are at every feeding.
Also I've been using the Repashy calcium plus ICB with great results.
Andy


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

snooknfrogs said:


> Do you use any supplements on the froglets? I was reading somewhere people were using a dropper to put "something" calcium or some type of vitamin on them....
> 
> JP


Calcium Gluconate. It was theorized that froglets were dying from lack of calcium supplementation. It is unclear whether or not calcium can be absorbed this way, but it seemed to help froglets in many instances. Could also have been the glucose, hard to tell for sure.


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## snooknfrogs (Sep 25, 2009)

That's the stuff!!! Where do you get it and how do you dose it? 

Are darklands the most difficult pumilio? I saw pics on the Frye Brothers website of the Robalo Morph... Those are pretty sweet and I haven't ever seen them offered....

JP


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## Roadrunner (Mar 6, 2004)

I haven`t seen that f1`s or f2`s are any harder to breed than wc`s. Sometimes easier.


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