# UE Peru Trip



## gary1218 (Dec 31, 2005)

For those of you that were lucky enough to go on the Peru trip, first of all THANKS for all the GREAT pics  Now that you're back I'm curious based on what you observed in the frogs natural habitat how are you planning on modifying your vivs.


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## stemcellular (Jun 26, 2008)

One word: CLAY. Sadly, only brought enough back on my gear to start a few new vivs...


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## gary1218 (Dec 31, 2005)

stemcellular said:


> One word: CLAY. Sadly, only brought enough back on my gear to start a few new vivs...


Maybe we need Mark to start shipping that back to the states along with the frogs


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Yes, lots of Peruvian Chytrid to seed our tanks .....yummmy 

Here are my thoughts Gary from an email I sent around




> I think that our experience most certainly has changed how we view the environment in which PDF thrive.
> 
> The idea of having 100g + tanks is much more appealing now, albeit impractical.
> 
> ...












Notice what this pepperi was sitting on.

Of course we were often in areas like this, so having many species cohabitate in a 30 gal tank is silly to say the least.


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## SmackoftheGods (Jan 28, 2009)

sports_doc said:


> What impressed me the most was the:
> 1. vast spacing between frogs. It often took us an hour or more to catch 2-3 animals.
> 2. the 'lack' of true soil, and the abundance of sticky red/orange clay!
> 3. the 'wetness' of the terrain in most but not all areas.
> ...


How do you think the best way to start incorporating some of this into our vivariums would be? Throw some wood in there likely to decay, load with leaf litter... what about the wetness factor, might it be a good idea to drench our substrates a bit more?


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

> Throw some wood in there likely to decay, load with leaf litter


This is why I like grapewood. It molds, gets soft, decays, but, it's full of springtails and isopods. In tanks with both grapewood and umm mariopi (can't remember how to spell it), the grapewood is where the frogs hang out snacking.


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

well obviously we need larger tanks, lots of leaf litter with a clay based substrate


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

Julio said:


> well obviously we need larger tanks, lots of leaf litter with a clay based substrate


Looks like so far I been on the right track


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

From the picture thread 


markbudde said:


> It depended on the location, but it was mostly clay on the bottom, a hearty layer of decayed leaves, with a nice layer of leaf litter on top. As far as bugs... there were plenty of bugs in the leaf litter, more than we could ever get in our vivs. Tiny beetles, springtails were plentiful. But man, the amount of spiders and cockroaches and ants was insane. I think a biologist could make a career cataloging the number of cockroaches at any single place we stopped.
> 
> Its also worth noting that there was fungus and mushrooms everywhere, I had no idea that there would be so many mushrooms.


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

About a clay substrate: 

I have clay substrate in my leuc tank. It was mixed, dried out, and, crumbled. Of course, in their habitat, the clay isn't crumbled, it's hard packed. Water runs off to lower areas (I presume. That's they way the clay in my yard works  ). 

I'm thinking about redoing my auratus tank with clay. Rather than crumbled clay, I would make a packed clay bottom (with a false bottom or drainage layer), and have it slope down to a pond area for drainage. 

Is this what you guys invision, looking at them in their natural surroundings?


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## stemcellular (Jun 26, 2008)

yes, exactly. a thick layer of clay topped with 6 inches of leaf litter and other organics.


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## iljjlm (Mar 5, 2006)

gary1218 said:


> For those of you that were lucky enough to go on the Peru trip, first of all THANKS for all the GREAT pics  Now that you're back I'm curious based on what you observed in the frogs natural habitat how are you planning on modifying your vivs.


Gary, I'm not sure I would change anything in my vivs. I tend to use larger tanks (40 breeder minimum), but I also do not keep many frogs. This works for me, but would be impractical for someone like Shawn. 

I have older tanks that still have an ABG mix in them. All my newer tanks(starting when you posted your ultimate clay based thread) use a clay substrate. Both work well.

I do use lots of leaf litter in my tanks, but the ground does not have to be all leaf litter. There were areas on our trip(rocks, logs/branches, even leaves on the ground) that had moss growing on them. So it doesn't have to be an all or nothing tank, mix it up a little. I think you can keep more microfauna in your tanks if you do have more leaf litter though.

What it all comes down to is that our frogs, for the most part, have no idea what it is really supposed to be like out in the wild. They have been living in tanks their entire lives. As long as they have the proper space, food, humidity, temps they will be fine. It does also not hurt to fluctuate some of these variables every now and then.

Dave


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

I agree with Dave, if your tanks are alaready established and the frogs are doing well in them, leave them alone, just use the info for future vivs and frogs.


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Julio said:


> I agree with Dave, if your tanks are alaready established and the frogs are doing well in them, leave them alone, just use the info for future vivs and frogs.


I agree. My auratus tank was getting a do-over anyway. So it will be the first with the new packed clay substrate. I'm not going to be tearing down any vivs just to add the clay.


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## frogmanroth (May 23, 2006)

frogface said:


> I agree. My auratus tank was getting a do-over anyway. So it will be the first with the new packed clay substrate. I'm not going to be tearing down any vivs just to add the clay.


You dont have to tear down tanks to add clay. I sprinkle it dry in all my vivs in layers between leaf litter and on the back ground, this has worked great for the past 3-4 years. You could use a heavy wet mixture and spread it with a turkey baster. I would recommend put it more towards the top and let it migrate to the bottom by itself.


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

A quick note: clay actually is "true" soil. For something to be soil, it needs to be non-organic...so things like peat, coir, coco-husk, etc. can't technically be considered soil. But I think most people use the term soil simply to refer to a growing medium/substrate.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Welcome to the dirty side folks.. 

An item to keep in mind is that the frogs should also be able to access bare clay as they have an ability to uptake ions (including calcium) selectively through thier skin and particularly thier drinking patch. 

The reason you may have seen the populations higher closer to the streams is likely linked to increased resouces location... there is at least on paper on pumilio discussing that sort of population. 

Ed


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## jfehr232 (Apr 13, 2009)

Ed said:


> Welcome to the dirty side folks..
> 
> An item to keep in mind is that the frogs should also be able to access bare clay as they have an ability to uptake ions (including calcium) selectively through thier skin and particularly thier drinking patch.
> 
> ...


Is there a thread on here explaining how we can incorporate the making of clay(with calcium and such) into our vivs? More on the calcium and ions part..


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

jfehr232 said:


> Is there a thread on here explaining how we can incorporate the making of clay(with calcium and such) into our vivs? More on the calcium and ions part..


Hi John, do a search for "The Ultimate Clay-Based Substrate Thread" on here and it should provide quite a bit of info. Also, we had quite a few discussions about the more 'technical' aspects on Frognet, and searching through the archives there (from a few years ago) should provide some good info as well.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/ge...substrate-thread.html?highlight=ultimate+clay


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## jfehr232 (Apr 13, 2009)

ChrisK said:


> http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/ge...substrate-thread.html?highlight=ultimate+clay


HA yea I just realized it after I posted it. Thanks. I love this hobby.


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

I would like to point out that the clay recipes in the Ultimate Clay thread were all about making granular clay soils, whereas what we saw was more like packed clay/ thick mud. Also, all the clay we saw was very orange, suggesting a fair amount of iron.
-Mark


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## stemcellular (Jun 26, 2008)

Well said, it looked a lot like pottery clay, to be honest, same consistency as well.


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## ChrisK (Oct 28, 2008)

I made plenty of Matt's recipe (it has iron oxides as ingredients) after being moistened in a tank through misting etc, it definitely coagulates and becomes more packed/mudlike, but some pockets remain as long as it doesn't collapse too much, which are good for microfauna populations


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

I created my first batch (using Brent's recipe) not having access to Redart clay...and not knowing that it came in powder form. So I went to a local art supply store and purchased a 15 lb. block of terra cotta clay and kneaded in in the various ingredients by hand. After several months most of the particles were gone and the substrate and mostly congealed into a solid mass of clay, but still with lots of variation of pockets on the surface, in addition to burrows throughout from the worms, etc. The microfauna life was amazing, and I was constantly feeding the substrate leaf litter and organic debris/compost.

I have set up another tank using a local clay/silt substrate (no particles...just a mostly compact substrate) and it is working great as well.

The hope for the substrates mentioned above is that some of the introduced innoculations of fungi, etc. would eventually aid in the actual creating and binding of the soil into particulates...but I haven't seen that happen as of yet. Regardless, I think the soil substrates are definitely beneficial, regardless of particle or lack thereof--I don't have a single tank with an organic-based substrate.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

markbudde said:


> I would like to point out that the clay recipes in the Ultimate Clay thread were all about making granular clay soils, whereas what we saw was more like packed clay/ thick mud. Also, all the clay we saw was very orange, suggesting a fair amount of iron.
> -Mark


Hi Mark,

The idea is that the clay would eventually form into a more granular soils but so far this has not been the case.. As noted above, the clays seems to pack down more once it has been wet and set into the tanks but has enough particulate that the microfauna can get into it. 

While you were in Peru, did anyone dig away the deep leaf litter and then into the clay away from the exposed areas and look for particulates?


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

stemcellular said:


> Well said, it looked a lot like pottery clay, to be honest, same consistency as well.


 
Red art is one of the standard pottery clays... 

Ed


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## markbudde (Jan 4, 2008)

Ed said:


> Hi Mark,
> 
> The idea is that the clay would eventually form into a more granular soils but so far this has not been the case.. As noted above, the clays seems to pack down more once it has been wet and set into the tanks but has enough particulate that the microfauna can get into it.
> 
> While you were in Peru, did anyone dig away the deep leaf litter and then into the clay away from the exposed areas and look for particulates?


I only dug into the soil at one spot (but there were plenty of eroded places with a nice cross-section). It seemed like it was just solid clay with about 4-6 inches of decaying organic matter, with intact dead leaves on top. I didn't inspect the interface with the clay too much, but there was SO many bugs in the decaying matter and under the leaves.


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## stemcellular (Jun 26, 2008)

Just to echo Mark, I sifted through a lot of leaf litter (looking for A. bassleri froglets) and man, the sheer amount of microfauna and larger arthropods was incredible, esp. roaches. Damn things were EVERYWHERE!


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## stemcellular (Jun 26, 2008)

You can see bassleri biotope here, notice the clay:


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## phender (Jan 9, 2009)

Some of the close-up pics seem to show clay that has different sized small clay "clods" and even gravel mixed in. Would that keep the clay from getting so compacted in our tanks? I have found a source for powdered laterite clay, bentonite, and calcium carbonate. I am going to give it a try in a pumilio grow out tank.


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## skylsdale (Sep 16, 2007)

phender said:


> Some of the close-up pics seem to show clay that has different sized small clay "clods" and even gravel mixed in. Would that keep the clay from getting so compacted in our tanks?


Not really. I mixed in some sand and bits of gravel, etc. into my original batch and it didn't do much...that I could notice, anyway. Also, although the clay tended to congeal...it still didn't congeal into one solid mass. In some areas (more protected from water by leaf litter, etc.) there were still particles and a large variety in gaps and spaces within the clay layer.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Here are a couple of pictures. In the first one, I was able to pull the leaves off and show some of the gaps where there was breakdown of some of the larger organics but the clay is pretty porus and lets water right through it. 
In the second picture I messed up the structure trying to clear some more of the leaf litter away from the top of the clay.


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