# How to do it RIGHT



## dwllama (Aug 29, 2020)

Hey! I have been reading everything I can find for a week and unlikely to stop any time soon, but there's been a few topics I haven't seen a consensus or enough detail on, so figured I'd ask some questions. (also, a lot of what I've been reading is 10+ years old.... I'm sure the knowledge has evolved since then!)

I am preparing to set up a frog viv for the first time. All I have bought so far is a 24x18x24 exo terra with a hood (although probably tomorrow I'll be visiting someone local who got out of the hobby but has some leftover equipment and plants, so we'll see what I come home with!). I fully intend to set up and have planted and running for a month or more before frogs....so it'll be a while yet. 

I would really like to do a small water feature (waterfall/drip fall/small pond). I see over and over people say not to do it as a beginner because it is tricky and easy to mess up. But I don't see anyone saying 'this is how beginners mess it up' or 'this is how to do it right and avoid beginner mistakes'. If doing it right is too much work for me I'll scrap it, but I would really prefer to have one and willing to put time, effort, money into it to do a good job. Just not sure what the pitfalls are and what to avoid or look out for.

I've also seen people suggest that the layout of the tank, the relative size and location and accessibility of things like feeding stations and shelter, are more important than the size of the tank itself.... But lacking detail as to what the right way to do it is. The basic tutorials don't address these factors at all. Also, terracing. Seen people scoff about others doing it wrong, but what's the _right_ way?

Last question for now. Choice of frog. Appearance wise I really love the green and black (or turquoise and black) auratus morphs. Which ones are least shy, or will do best in a small group? I'm thinking 3-5 frogs max for my tank (depending on how much water I end up with). And I understand that different frogs like different layouts, but it's hard to find details and examples of what the different frogs like better. If I put broad branches across the tank with easy, gently sloped access, will auratus use it? Or is it wasted on them and I should maximize flat boring floor space? Etc.

Would appreciate any advice or directions to particularly good discussions. Please don't just tell me to research more. I have been and am continuing to do so. These are just questions I've had a hard time answering. Seems like a jump in knowledge between 'beginner basics' and 'all the experienced people just know this stuff' that it's hard to find info in. 

Thanks!

(hopefully this doesn't show twice, I thought it posted but then I looked back for replies after a while and I couldn't find the thread at all)


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

dwllama said:


> Hey! I have been reading everything I can find for a week and unlikely to stop any time soon, but there's been a few topics I haven't seen a consensus or enough detail on, so figured I'd ask some questions. (also, a lot of what I've been reading is 10+ years old.... I'm sure the knowledge has evolved since then!)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


1. It only shows once for me 

2. Here's a post I wrote on my thoughts on vivarium design, based upon my observations of my frogs and tanks:

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/to...2&share_fid=4915&share_type=t&link_source=app

I'm not a fan of water features: they almost always end up either: 
1. Getting plugged and not running properly
2. Keeping the tank TOO WET
3. Getting gross (dead flies, dead Isopods (100% chance that this happens Isopods are drawn to water, and to their demise), etc.)

They also take up valuable floor space from the frogs

The auratus will use branches, cork bark, etc. to climb on. Mine do. 

I love using cork to make ramps and ledges in my tanks. The frogs use them a lot. There are pictures of what I've done on the thread I linked to above. 

Those are my initial thoughts for you.


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## gonzalez (Mar 28, 2018)

A water feature like a waterfall or pond will take up too much space in a tank of your size. Waterfalls need somewhere to drain into, and that usually ends up being a pond. Ponds get gross really easily, tannins from the substrate/branches/leaves make it look like a pool of coke, flies die in them, frogs can potentially die in them, people almost never implement them with filters/sumps to keep them clean. Drip walls will saturate your substrate too much, and even if you do workarounds to keep that from happening your background will be too wet if your running it all the time. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## dwllama (Aug 29, 2020)

@fishingguy, great thoughts and I checked out your link.

@gonzalez, I didn't explain what I meant by drip fall very well. Definitely don't see a need to do an entire wall as a drip; was thinking more like a very slow, vertical waterfall, either straight down to a pond or through one or more terraces in between.

Sounds like it makes sense to have it as separated as possible from the substrate proper, though. How hard is it to prevent 'too wet' with ventilation / fans? 

I have been seriously considering drilling for an overflow bulkhead and plumbing to a sump. I know more water = more stable and resilient water conditions. Also much easier to change out the water as necessary. 

Is there any way to prevent a pond or stream from getting messy with isopods / fruit flies? Would adequate circulation help? 

I'm not really concerned about tannins, though; I'm okay with that look.

From what I understand, frog deaths in ponds are extremely rare if they have easy ways to gst out and plenty of things in the water to stand on/hold on to, and care is taken to make sure they can't get trapped anywhere. 

Alternatively, I could scrap the pond idea and just run the waterfall into a small stream that drains into some manner of gravel pit, with no still open water. Not my preference though.


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## gonzalez (Mar 28, 2018)

You seem pretty committed to a water feature, and it may be possible in a future build, but your tank is too small. It’s not much larger than the minimum recommended size for a pair of frogs, streams/ponds take up a lot of valuable ground space. The size also becomes a problem for other water features, if something happens to drip into your substrate it will saturate much easier with less area for frogs to escape to drier ground. Saturation isn’t really something that can be fixed with circulation, your tank could be at 50% humidity but if something is constantly dripping into your substrate it will become absolutely soaked.

Not saying water features are impossible/can’t be done, people tend to discourage them a lot here because we like to mitigate risk as much as possible. You need to have something solidly planned out, you need a good amount of experience with frog keeping and terrarium making, and you need a larger tank to work with.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Hello and welcome! 

My next frogs are going to be Auratus and I have been having fun researching them as well. From what I have read most morphs will become bold as they reach adulthood if the tank is located in a high traffic area. If you put it in a low traffic area then the results seem mixed, some folks say certain morphs are still bold, others report them being shy. I suspect how much traffic a tank gets is the deciding factor. Highland Bronze and El Cope are both morphs I see a lot of people reporting as being bold.

Regarding tank design,

There is no reason to have a flat substrate layer unless you like that look. There are good reasons not to have one, namely it increases surface area for the frogs. Terracing is somewhat hard to do and make it look good in such a space but there is no reason you can't put a hill or two in there. 

Feed stations are generally discouraged from what I have read and my own limited experience backs this up. Generally when feeding you want to spread the flies out a bit so the frogs will go foraging. I tend to dump a load of flies right in front of wherever my frogs are, then split up the rest over a few different locations. Feed stations are useful when you have sick frogs and really want to make sure they get as much in them as possible. 

I would add some wood into the tank as well so the frogs can climb on something and get up into the middle of the tank (meaning more then just whatever cork you have stuck to the sides). 

Regarding the water feature. This one has been visited a LOT because most people want one ;P Its also discouraged as you noted because most people mess it up 

Anyway the trouble is that folks don't realize they are making an aquarium inside their vivarium. If you have standing water then you need to go through all the same jazz you go through with an aquarium as far as maintenance is concerned plus some extra stuff. A planted freshwater aquarium thats high on nutrients is going to need a 50% water change per week, its going to need a means of removing algae, and its going to need a filter except under very special circumstances that are frankly not applicable here.

So what does that mean for us here? Well there is absolutely no way to stop isopods and flies from drowning themselves in a pool of standing water. That's just what they do. This means you will need a way to remove their corpses plus a means of cleaning algae. The latter you just have to do manually. The former can likely be accomplished with a motorized siphon. On the cheap you could just use a water pump hooked up to a flexible hose but a specific powered gravel vac type device would be better. I would not use a plain siphon because the depth of water is likely to be small enough that you will frequently break siphon and thus prevent you from going over all the surfaces to remove all the dead flies and isopods. This assumes you have standing water from a pool or stream in the viv. 

As for substrate I would under no circumstances use ABG. ABG has some great qualities but it should not be near water. No matter what you do its going to end up getting wet because water will change its direction over time as debris and algae fall/grow in its path. Instead you are going to want to consider aquarium substrate options since that is what you are building in your viv. My next viv will have a mixture of calcined clay (turface, safe-t-sorb, etc) and aquarium aquasoil as the substrate. This substrate has the advantage of being stable when submersed.

This is a lot of trouble for something that doesn't 'need' to be there. I mean for my freshwater aquariums I spend a good hour or 2 a week just maintaining a few nano tanks. But for my vivarium? Almost nothing. Every 3 weeks I trim some plants, takes maybe, 3 minutes. I frankly would not want to turn a near zero maintenance tank into something that takes 20 minutes to an hour a week to deal with when there is no net change to the type of animals I can keep.

There is another type of water feature that would be better then any pool and that is simply drip section that goes straight down into the substrate without a pool. This avoids a lot of the issues that any kind of standing water would have. It still complicates your build because if you want to 'do it right' then you need 2 bulkheads. You would drill a hole in your tank down low and this would be your intake and another drilled up high and this would be your return for the water fall. In between is a canister filter so you can properly filter the water while also giving you an external pump that you can replace or service as needed. 

The problem with this feature is that it will dramatically increase humidity plus maintenance cost of the vivarium. So you will probably need fans to help you get rid of humidity which is its own issue since they can be annoying to balance. But assuming you get that going be aware you are going to need add water to your viv and that water won't be coming from your sink unless your water has really low TDS, like less then 100 and preferably less then 50. This means you are buying Distilled water (what I do) or you need an RO system.

Now Distilled water is not expensive but you will need to buy more then you otherwise would because you will be dumping it into your viv on a regular basis vs one gallon every 3 weeks or so if you were just using it for misting.

This brings us to the last issue which is size of tank. I have an insitu tank which is a little smaller then your tank but not by much. I frankly would not do even the drip wall/branch idea in a tank this size because its probably not going to look good having it crammed in. I am planning exactly this type of system in my next viv but that one will be 4 feet long, 3 feet tall, and 20 inches wide. To the extent you want to do it anyway then I would definitely look around (here, on facebook, instagram, etc) and find a tank of similar size that has a water feature you think looks aesthetically good and then emulate it. 

Hopefully this is helpful.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

There are two basic ways I see people getting into keeping darts (and many other animals, for that matter). 

One is the person who really wants to own a vivarium who comes up with a cool picture and plans in their head, likely formed mostly by looking at many flashy viv pictures and videos and build threads. Then they research -- sometimes a great deal -- to make sure they can do the build right, and not kill their future frogs, and often spend a lot of effort figuring out how to work design elements like water features and drip walls and automated controls and high tech thunderstorm effects in. This is what I see you doing.

The other is the way I see is a person who wants to keep dart frogs since they discover the frogs are beautiful and intriguing and borderline magical. This person starts by learning about frogs, the diversity of species, their needs, their behaviors, their natural history, their natural habitat. Then the person designs and builds an appropriate enclosure, and keeps in mind that this couple cubic feet (six, in the viv mentioned above) has to serve all the function of the thousands of cubic feet (a cube of habitat 50 feet on a side is 125,000 cubic feet) of habitat the animals have unfettered access to in the wild, and so doesn't waste any space. This person never even considers water features, etc, since these 'features' don't add anything to the husbandry of frogs; these features are only for humans.

This is one way I figure out how to build a viv -- I think about whether the feature is for me, or for the animals. I have a swimming pool in the backyard, so I don't force one on my animals.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Let me clarify something: none of us are saying that it can't be done and done well. BUT it's a gigantic challenge to build a water feature that works, looks nice and doesn't take away real estate the frogs need,

In my 36x18x24" tanks, I have a hard time getting what I consider to be enough hiding places and visual barriers for my frogs, and that's with using every square inch of floorspace I can. 

In your tank, after your build a background you've lost at least 2 inches along the back, if you do the sides as well you've lost 2" on each side, reducing your floorspace to 20Lx16Wx24H" , that's before the water feature gets build. You're now into a space that's (in my opinion) JUST BARELY big enough for a pair of frogs (unless you're planning on Ranitomeya species of frogs).


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

To someone starting out a tank can look really big, juicy with possibilities and daydreams when we look into the space inside. 

But I would bet everyone who has responded here has watched their animals in viv and enlarged it in their minds eye sometimes. 

The waterfalls and ponds we see from a human perspective and ornamentally scale down in vivariums arent comprising an actual reality for the frogs. There are streaming trickles and puddles in their habitat but these rainy aftermaths are not a permanent feature of obligatory proxy for the frogs. 

That being said I have had to apply a kind of commando zookeep in collection where i used shallow replaceable feature in vivs, because of the nature of the facility. These were 'hard schedule' maintainence - meaning they were utilitarian and well no fun.

If the moving water is a strong force in your build dream, you might consider a more rocky/mossy biome with other kinds of animals than darts.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

The FF and soil fauna drowning in the water, really cant be overstated.

Frogs often defecate during seat to hydrate. 

But putrification in water is the greater biological hazard in a closed system.


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## Pubfiction (Feb 3, 2013)

gonzalez said:


> A water feature like a waterfall or pond will take up too much space in a tank of your size. Waterfalls need somewhere to drain into, and that usually ends up being a pond. Ponds get gross really easily, tannins from the substrate/branches/leaves make it look like a pool of coke, flies die in them, frogs can potentially die in them, people almost never implement them with filters/sumps to keep them clean. Drip walls will saturate your substrate too much, and even if you do workarounds to keep that from happening your background will be too wet if your running it all the time.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I personally have never had any issue or care with ponds getting "gross" for the health of the frogs. They might not look the best but you do need to clean a vivarium often if you want it looking good. But I have never had them be a problem. I leave access to a drainage pond in every tank I build and have done so for years. Poison dart frogs are used to dirty water and their tadpoles are amazingly resiliant to it. Its part of their life style.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

Pubfiction said:


> I personally have never had any issue or care with ponds getting "gross" for the health of the frogs. They might not look the best but you do need to clean a vivarium often if you want it looking good. But I have never had them be a problem. I leave access to a drainage pond in every tank I build and have done so for years. Poison dart frogs are used to dirty water and their tadpoles are amazingly resiliant to it. Its part of their life style.


"Dirty" water in temporal pools isnt the same as fouled water in an enclosed format. 

It sounds like you have a great balance going where the water quality of your situ is not surpassed by its influx of biologicals.

You should further describe your vivarium to OP.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

(; Asking you to explain your system and your second-nature intuitives of outcomes hand would be impossible.

There is so much social media magnitude of persuasion, instagram, Pinterest probably others - with brand new set ups photos and no outcomes documentation. 

Its extraordinarily difficult to posit an authentic alternative and I commend any new persons willingness to look deeper and also, as mentioned earlier by Socrates, identify ones own goal, motive and attraction.


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## Pubfiction (Feb 3, 2013)

Kmc said:


> "Dirty" water in temporal pools isnt the same as fouled water in an enclosed format.
> 
> It sounds like you have a great balance going where the water quality of your situ is not surpassed by its influx of biologicals.
> 
> You should further describe your vivarium to OP.


Almost everyone in this hobby is running a typical "bioactive" vivarium. So plants are dropping roots into the drainage layer. There is often rocks or other materials that provide surfaces for microbial ecosystems. Almost everyone is using RODI or distilled water to water. IME these things mean there is very little worry of severely fouled water or extreme build up of salts or other contaiminants. I have found tadpoles alive and well in just a couple ml of water when they didnt make it to the pond. 

I have many many vivariums. With all sorts of drainage setups, I have some with drain holes, some with automated misting, some that are just crappy 10 gallon grow outs with no ventilation and only about 1.5 inches of drainage layer (0.75 inches of water). I have frogs breeding and producing tadpoles in all of them. In every new build I just drop some sort of pond strait down to the glass base of the vivarium and let it be exposed to the entire drainage layer. I put some sort of barrier to stop the tadpoles from getting out of the pond and under the false bottom or into the drainage rocks but always make sure that barrier is not water tight. This way the effective water volume is whatever is in the entire drainage layer. That might be a half gallon or 5 gallons depending on the vivarium. 
Another major benefit of this is that when ever I need to move the vivariums I can easily siphon the water strait from the exposed pond, no need to have an access pipe.

Also worth noting I went through a divorce and it created a ton of infrastructural problems on and off for years now on top of that many people know I have my kids do alot of the water and feeding care and that means variable quality. I have many times been caught and am right now caught in a time where I am simply too busy to care for my vivariums well. This has resulted in extreme neglect down to the basics of nessessity. AFAIK dirty water was not caused any problems on the flip side heat / cold has definitely jacked up my plants and frogs. I essentailly abandon the vivariums completely and only do 2 things for months at a time between moves. I feed the frogs and geckos, I water them with a sprayer when I can which might be a couple times a week to once per day. The glass looks horrible, some tanks have hardly any water in the basin. Frogs dont care, they are breeding, producing tadpoles, the tadpoles when I find them seem to be fine. I can sometimes find them in barely enough water for them to move and they are fat and healthy. 

Naturally speaking dart frogs and their tadpoles live in what I would call extreme water fluctions. you could be sitting in a tiny puddle, treehole, or bromeliad and not have rain for a week. All that time the nutrient levels are building up the water is becoming more concentrated with waste debris, bugs, muck. Then it rains, and in 20 minutes you go from that muck to very pure water. If they cant survive this they wouldnt survive in their lifestyle in the jungle. Similarly most tropical fish seem to have a higher tolerance for water fluctuations than coral reef fish. I think we often dont give credit to the frogs for having an intensely variable environment on many parameters such as humidity and water quality and even temperature. 

On top of that I also have tanks that are older or for various reasons did not have a pond and in those I have some sort of small container to create a pond on top of the substrate. These usually have maybe 2 cups of water. Again I dont clean them often, and in some only add water maybe once every week or 2 and tadpoles get deposited and do fine for weeks or even months till I remember to move them to my community tank.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

"I have many, many vivariums" I know PF. 

There is a bar of acceptance and 'multiplicity relax' with stewards; such as yourself, realizing (c'mon now, yknow you do) that there are some 'beliefs' we would not speciously promote to new people. 

Microbial life is the ultimate example of equality. Hours, days, mean billions of community. The normalcy of this does not, in a closed system, mean leaning on a belief system where the only solid data, across board, promotes its mitigation.

Nature situs in anuran breeding include the drying and contaminate of vernal ponds, and small spaces. 
These, in native situ, mean the feeding ecology of other species.


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## Broseph (Dec 5, 2011)

My main concern with water features is the saturation of the entire tank. Soil can become anaerobic, plants can die, and frog feet can rot right off their legs. It’s not a guarantee, but it’s definitely a risk. And it’s much more possible to oversaturate with running water vs a little pond in the corner of a viv.

I’m not too worried about water quality, like @Pubfiction mentioned. 

You’re always welcome to play around with water BEFORE getting frogs and learn your lessons. There are lots of set ups on the board with drip walls- just search. If it empties into a gravel-well you eliminate the dead bug risk (which is 100% reality) and the drowning frog risk (which is a more... debated topic). 

Use less soil and more calcined clay substrate, and provide lots of ventilation. 

Maybe you find you have a beautiful drip wall brimming with ferns and orchids and moss. Maybe you end up with a cyanobacterial slime box. If the latter, ditch the water and redo the tank BEFORE getting frogs. No harm done (besides your wallet).


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

I feel like its appropriate to "confess" that I always include a clear and controllable shallow feature for osmotic seat hydration in every amphibian vivaria I make. 

I have had professionally aknowledged outcomes with this, but do not suggest it flagrantly, as so swiftly an enrichment can 'switch heads' when partially followed or understood.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

Water transmission cant be scientifically dismissed.


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## Pubfiction (Feb 3, 2013)

Besides dong a good job controlling the water and keeping it in any water feature another thing that I think really helps is if you over build a little to have some flexibility to adjust. This might mean paying for for adjustable pumps or integrating some smart plugs and so on. it might mean drilling holes and running the pump mechanisms outside the tank so you can swap out parts if something is not working well. This way you can tune the water features if you need to. I built a drip wall for my brother and because we used alexa to automate a peristalic pump for it we could just run it at any cycle we wanted. if it gets to wet have it run less often, too dry run more often. Worked really well. 
We also put a cansister filter into a pond so he could do fish but we built it all by drilling the glass and making ports. Recently during a move he just disconnected it so it wouldnt be a hassle. 
Doing some contingency planning for extreme scenarios can go a long way.


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## dwllama (Aug 29, 2020)

Thanks guys for all the helpful replies and discussion about the topic, sorry I didn't get back to it sooner, been a bit busy. 

I realize I've probably been overestimating the number of frogs that are likely to be happy in an enclosure this size. There's at least one thing I don't (and can't really) have as a newbie to dart frogs - an experiential understanding of how they actually use space and how different spaces (and quantities of space) make them behave. So until I set something up and get some in there it's at best a guessing game. I am trying to do well by whatever babies I end up with and minimize avoidable mistakes, but obviously nothing is guaranteed :/ 

Sounds like with auratus a tank this size would be more like a pair or possibly three on the outside. Are they actually social enough to see any benefit from getting three frogs? If not I probably won't worry about it and just leave it to chance whether I get a pair. 

As regards the water feature, there are defies definitely some good points made. I have done tropical planted aquaria before (although it has been a while) so somewhat familiar with the needs of a tank. It's clear to me at this point that making enough water to include fish in a tank this size would be utterly impractical. Am still debating a slow moving waterfall / drip slope of some kind. I have some ideas about segregating it from the main substrate body. I think the only sensible way to do it would be to have the tank drilled and output overflow into a sump and get ran through a filter media before being pumped back into the tank. It also makes sense to minimize the footprint as much as possible (and to provide more layers of horizontal space for the frogs to utilize in compensation, ie, flat branches, etc) as mentioned with the external pump, it should be easy to adjust as necessary and if circulating constantly leaves it too wet I could always put it on a timer or adjust it in some other way. 

I would, definitely, experiment and run the tank for a while before frogs. Even if I decide not to do a water feature beyond a corner puddle, I will run the tank and let it settle in for at least a month before I put any babies in it.

I am not a total biology nerd over them but I do think darts are completely adorable and want to find the optimal compromise between a tank that I enjoy and actively want to keep up on (fun landscaping and all) and one that will be satisfactory and healthy for them. I definitely don't want to just build a tank for looks and shove some basically wild animals in there and expect them to just adjust. I'm somewhere in the middle of the two extemes mentioned by Socratic Monologue. They're beautiful and I want to keep a few but I also want them to be happy (to the extent this applies to a frog) and healthy. 

I don't plan to have more than the one tank any time soon, though, for various reasons, so I would like to approach my ideal as closely as I can while satisfying the above condition. We'll see. 

Am planning fan driven air circulation but I know I have more research to go on that before I even know what questions to ask.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

The more I think about it, the more I think a group of Ranitomeya might give your the experience that you're looking for. 

I'm thinking about Ranitomeya sirensis, they're the species I have the most experience with. When set up well, they will be visible, they're very social. Their arboreal nature means that floorspace isn't QUITE as important as it would be for auratus. They happily frolic from bromeliad to bromeliad, only really going to ground level to hunt for food, in my experience.

I'm actually redoing my sirensis tank this week/next. I'll share pictures of how I'm setting mine up (there won't be any water features in my tank).


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

My group of sirensis tolerate the group dynamics well, too. Mine aren't as bold as FG's, but I do see them, and they're getting more bold as they settle in and make a family. Really cool frogs.

I had a water area in my sirensis viv -- a little depression in the front so it 'would be easier to siphon the water out' (in fact, it is not easier, since whatever is in the water -- leaves, gravel -- clogs the tube). The frogs -- contrary to expectations of sirensis behavior (never underestimate what a bored caged animal will try) -- deposited tads in it, at least two of which (more? I don't know) made their way under the drainage layer in a way I still have not figured out. One I managed to get out with a lot of work; the other died under there. 

Many cases of folks who claim not to have losses due to water features (and overpopulation, another path novices sometimes go down after reading a couple successful accounts) may well be cases where such losses simply went unnoticed, or unreported.


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## dwllama (Aug 29, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> The more I think about it, the more I think a group of Ranitomeya might give your the experience that you're looking for.


They also look gorgeous and appealing, largely I wasn't considering Ranitomeya due to not being on the 'beginner frog' lists, but if they'd actually be happier in the kind of tank I'm planning than the auratus it might be worth considering. Does their smaller size mean that a group might do better for me compared to the group of auratus which would be overpopulation in that tank, or would I still want to keep it down to 2-3 individuals? 

In ranitomeya, I really like the look of the frog in Socratic Monologue's profile pic, but I'm not sure which one it is and don't know if it fits in the same personality profile you're suggesting. 



fishingguy12345 said:


> I'm actually redoing my sirensis tank this week/next. I'll share pictures of how I'm setting mine up (there won't be any water features in my tank).


I look forward to seeing it!

Anna


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

dwllama said:


> They also look gorgeous and appealing, largely I wasn't considering Ranitomeya due to not being on the 'beginner frog' lists, but if they'd actually be happier in the kind of tank I'm planning than the auratus it might be worth considering. Does their smaller size mean that a group might do better for me compared to the group of auratus which would be overpopulation in that tank, or would I still want to keep it down to 2-3 individuals?
> 
> In ranitomeya, I really like the look of the frog in Socratic Monologue's profile pic, but I'm not sure which one it is and don't know if it fits in the same personality profile you're suggesting.
> 
> ...


The one in SM's Avatar is a Ranitomeya imitator (I think). They don't do well in groups. 

Here's how my sirensis rebuild looks so far. I'm still adding bromeliads and more leaf litter.


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## dwllama (Aug 29, 2020)

Nice! Are you planning on more plantings besides bromeliads, or do the frogs prefer it a bit more sparse like that? What size is that tank, by the way? I see there are lots of shaded and secluded areas for them to hide throughout that background if they choose.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

dwllama said:


> Nice! Are you planning on more plantings besides bromeliads, or do the frogs prefer it a bit more sparse like that? What size is that tank, by the way? I see there are lots of shaded and secluded areas for them to hide throughout that background if they choose.


These particular frogs love bromeliads. 
The tank is 36x18x24" 

I'm not adding many other plants, the ones I have in there will grow in to more space. 

The rear right corner is Begonia glabra, it'll grow like a vine, and provide a lot of cover, and has nice sturdy leaves the frogs can sit on. 

The front left plant is a philodendron, it should grow in and provide more cover in that area. Again, sturdy leaves for perching. 

My experience with Ranitomeya sirensis is that they'll spend the vast majority of their time in the broms and up on the wood pieces.


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## dwllama (Aug 29, 2020)

Interesting! I'll definitely have to look into them more. Just what I need, more decisions to make


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