# Trivittatus...



## Guest (Oct 11, 2005)

Is there anything unique about their feeding habits? For instnace my aurotaenias and my bicolor will not eat springtails (scarcely pay any mind to them and they've bred out of control in their vivs). My leucs/tincs scarf down springtails. 

-Tad


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Where is Robb M when you need him? He'd be able to answer this question better than me, but I'll take a shot. 

Being larger frogs (as adults) and Epipeds, they'd probibly take larger foods than the "average", similar to the phyllobates which like larger food items (I've seen a bicolor eat a young parthogenic house gecko, crazy!). These guys are also suppose to be more "sit and wait" predators if you go by their attempted reclassification into "Phobobates" (never really accepted by the scientific community) in which those species were grouped together mainly by their feeding tactic (different from the more active hunters of the rest of the family).


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## Guest (Oct 12, 2005)

> I've seen a bicolor eat a young parthogenic house gecko, crazy!



This might sound crazy but I was thinking/wondering about food for frogs and what would be more nutritious and what can be gut loaded etc. Considering the over abundance of some smaller frogs (vents) has anyone ever considered feeding them to bigger frogs? The main downside I can see to this is passing pathogens (well that and your using a dart frog as food). But with how prolific they are.

-Tad


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## twisner (Jul 7, 2005)

> Considering the over abundance of some smaller frogs (vents) has anyone ever considered feeding them to bigger frogs?


Wow what the hell is wrong with you?
Thats just crazy, who here would feed a fricking 40 DOLLAR meal to a frog?
I doubt the nutritional benefit is worth it, everyone elses seem to be doing fine on dusted flies, but if you find some sick pleasure in feeding vents to trivs.... whatever.
Or is this just some big joke? :roll:
Seriously man, just send me the froglets if it gets to be too much :wink:


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Thank you Twisner.

I really didn't want to say it myself (but I'm with you 100% on that thought).

s


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## Guest (Oct 12, 2005)

> feed a fricking 40 DOLLAR meal to a frog?


Ok its hardly a 40 dollar meal if you're getting 20-30 eggs a week. If everyone who's breeding vents kept pulling all their eggs and raising the tads the value of vents will/would drop to probably 10 dollars. 



> I doubt the nutritional benefit is worth it, everyone elses seem to be doing fine on dusted flies, but if you find some sick pleasure in feeding vents to trivs


Sick pleasure? do you take a sick pleasure in feeding ff's to your frogs? I find such a moral judgement rather arbitrary. Do you take a sick pleasure in eating cow? I'm thinking that 1. you could gut load the frogs, 2. I'd think that a higher organism with a skeletal system would provide calcium w/o needing to be supplemented, 3. I wonder if finding an alternative use for froglets such as that wouldn't be better than flooding the market with cheap frogs. 4. Its Idle speculation.

I wouldn't do it, because I'd be to afraid of passing some sort of pathogen along.


-Tad


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## twisner (Jul 7, 2005)

OK, I thought you were seriously considering it. Im sorry if i offended you. What i meant by sick pleasure, is why would you want to feed off the animals that you have a passion for. We all culture and feed fruit flies because we have too, and yes, i actually do feel sorry for them, they have a horrible life. If i was raising fruit flies as a passion though, i wouldnt feed them off to larger fruit flies, if you get what im saying.
And no, i dont take sick pleasure in eating cow. I do take pleasure in it though, because it tastes hella good. But that is different than eating it just for the point of killing a cow or whatever. Sorry for accusing you of that, I just got fired up when i heard that you might feed vents to trivs. 
But basically, my point is, if you are at the point where you are ready to feed them, you should probably stop breeding vents.
Sorry if i offended you. No hard feelings, alright?


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## Guest (Oct 12, 2005)

Um no hard feelings. I'm a vegetarian, so I think eating meat period is sick, but *shrug* I don't really expect everyone else to hold to the same personal feelings. I don't feel bad for the ff's getting eaten, its the circle of life and all that. I do grow rather attached to my frogs and wouldn't want to feed them out like that , but still I think it might be a better use of the frog than selling it to someone who isn't going to care for it properly (or euthenizing them as what happens with stray cats/dogs). 

As to "stop breeding" thats easier said than done... I'm sure not pulling the eggs from the tank would slow breeding down greatly, but other than that you'd have to either individually house them or segregate them on sex (not always easy to sex them). 

-Tad


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

I remember somebody saying something about them having a large water feature in their tank, but lots of different species of frogs. Any eggs that the frogs laid were left in the tank. When the tads were put in the water feature, they were eaten by a fish in the feature. Kind of makes me sad, but I suppose it worked. Better than killing off tens of tads at a time cause of spindly leg, after they've developed to a degree. I dunno though.


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## twisner (Jul 7, 2005)

> As to "stop breeding" thats easier said than done...


Well, what i sorta meant was sell your breeders.


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## JoshKaptur (Feb 17, 2004)

Not to start a flame, as I'm aware of both sides... but I'd like some $10 vents from anyone with an overabundance. I'm surprised how expensive some frogs have stayed... despite an increase in supply.
Josh


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Ditto - I never set up a second pair (back in the day) as I was always convinced the price was going to drop.

s


JoshKaptur said:


> ... I'm surprised how expensive some frogs have stayed... despite an increase in supply.


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## Guest (Oct 12, 2005)

I wouldn't sell 10 dollar vents regardless of the supply vs demand. I'd mostly likely give them away (to people I knew/trusted) before selling that low. I have right now 4 tanks set up with vents. Two twenty highs, whcih have 5 & 6 frogs respectively that I'm going to put 2 and 1 one more in (so 7 each). Then I have a 10 gallon high at work, I'll probably add another vent or 2 to that. Then I have a 15 high that has the only frogs currently breeding. I'd expect the rest to start breeding in the next couple months. (and I have about 12 tads in water). After that everything is for sale/trade *shrug* but I have to wonder if I'm going to be stuck with an excess of vents.

-Tad


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Sounds like it.

I have a couple of tanks of them - but all different lines.

s


tad604 said:


> ... but I have to wonder if I'm going to be stuck with an excess of vents.


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## JoshKaptur (Feb 17, 2004)

I think the supply/demand effect on price in this hobby is interesting. Part of it may be like Tad's sentiment, that these beauties deserve a higher price, and should not be sold for a few bucks as that takes away from their true value. So they are sold for 50ish or given away. 

Another alternative explanation, and much more sad in my opinion, is that the price stays up despite the increase in demand because the majority of the froglets do not make it long in the care of someone else. Sure, most of the members on this board can take care of frogs and raise flies, etc... but given the number of offspring being produced, I have to think that the majority of frogs are being sold to the general public that has money and only maybe has any idea of how to care for them.

*figuring out a way to get to know tad*

Josh


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Josh,

I had come to the same conclusion myself.

s


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## dmatychuk (Apr 20, 2005)

I think that there is a great difference between "hobbyist" and a "Vendor". As a hobbyist(I am) the money issue is not my bread and butter at the end of the day, but I might choose to sell some frogs to strictly support my enjoyment of the hobby. As a vendor I need "money" to make my way of life continue. This I believe should have a dramatic effect on each very differently when faced with the too many tads issue. For the hobbyist we should devote our time still raising these frogs and dispersing these frogs into the hobby as cheaply as possible and yes even free because we love the hobby not the money and want to see the hobby grow and every species be represented as fully as possible. As a vendor I want to control supply and I would kill off or jerk around individuals based on my dollar per frog because ultimately I may love PDFs but I need the almighty dollar no matter what I say on the outside. The problem is when hobbyist think half ass that they want to become a vendor and start placing money a head of the love the species and the hobby. It will be sad some day when vents will be 300.00 or more and you will say OMG I used to flush these down the toilet. If you don't think this happens just read enough posts or stay in the hobby longer than a couple of years and you will see. This argument that the 10.00 frogs are bad for the hobby is BS, whats bad for the hobby is that your personal bad attitude that you cant make money because the frog has become so popular and that we have learned how to breed it successfully and we are very good at it. We should be happy that this frog has done so very well and move on the next.

If you have extra tads coming and you see someone on this board that has been helpful and you know they are a hobbyist, then send them an email and say.....hey I got some extra vents and I see you don't have any would you like some for the cost of shipping so I don't have to flush them. Maybe if they already have some they would still like a new bloodline. but be careful, doing this would make you a hobbyist.

Have you ever heard what goes around comes around. Just my opinion, you can flame me all you want because I am a dumb hobbyist.


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2005)

> This argument that the 10.00 frogs are bad for the hobby


I'm not sure anyone said it was bad for the hobby. I suggest its bad for the frogs (two subtely different things). Hell 10 dollar frogs could be really good to the vendor provided the lower price equals a larger quantity being sold (economies of scale etc). I just don't think people want the frogs ending up like the gold fish at the state fair, or the like the 5-10 dollar frogs/lizards at the mega-petmart, or like puppies coming out of puppy mills. Although if your flushing tads down the toilet I don't think that would be any better for the animal than sending it off to the mega-petmart (at least there is a chance for the animal at the pet store).

-Tad


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Wow,

Talk about a hijack! Back to the trivittatus. These are beautiful frogs. Rich at amazingdartfrogs.com has a few CB pairs from wild parents. They are the orange striped variety. I was thinking about purchasing a pair, but after talking to rich about their requirements I decided to go with E. tricolor instead. According to Rich, his trivittatus are very hardy. They can be kept on fruit flies but it takes a lot of them. They would rather eat 1/8 to ¼ sized crickets. They grow big, females are up to three inches long. They require at least a 30 long for breeding.

Hope this helps.


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## elmoisfive (Dec 31, 2004)

Ummmm....ummmm...back to addressing the original question about trivittatus eating habits, here are my observations based on personal experience. Triv froglets will eat springtails in addition to FFs but adults pretty ignore springtails in favor of larger food items (FFs, crickets).

Bill


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2005)

I've got a pair of WC trivs that I hope to breed. Normally I don't worry to much about getting frogs to breed, I have them b/c I enjoy them, but these being WC I feel obligated to put a little more work into getting them to breed. 
The male (I'm assuming b/c its thinner), seems to be getting a little thinner and doesn't pick off flies as easily as the other one. I don't know if the stress of being in a smaller viv or having been moved around a bit (I think I'm the third owner of these frogs) has had an effect or not. They're much larger home (a 45) is almost done Im just waiting on sphagnum moss from calwest and a new pump. I'm trying to fatten up the frogs some before moving them. I think today/tommorrow I'll go to the pet store and get some crickets/wax worms (most of my other frogs even the tincs won't eat crickets or waxworms from the pet store). 

I'm wondering if I should separate them until the thinner one puts on some more weight (though I'd kind of prefer to leave them be until their new home is ready).

-Tad


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Hmm, wild frog losing weight? Have you had a fecal done?


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2005)

They're pretty LTC (over a year I'm sure). I've not personally had a fecal done, but unfortunately I'm yet to find a vet locally that will do one. I'm going to try again b/c I'd like to have one done before moving them, but I also want to move them soon as I think the vivarium they are in now is just too small.

-Tad


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## Guest (Oct 16, 2005)

Well in the hopes of fattening up the skinny one I went to the store and bought some "small crickets"(about 5/8ths or 3/4 of an inche long hardly small as far as darts are concerned) for the trivs. I was thinking once I put them in the tank they'd be to big for the trivs. The plumper one grabbed one immediately, even grabbed a second one before it swallowed the first. Kind of commical it ended up spitting out the second one, but later ate 2 more. The skinny triv didn't show much interest. The skinny one takes occaisional lunges at ff's (hitting them about 1/5 th of the time). At least its still taking in interest in food, though it seems to have trouble seeing the food unless its moving (loses track of them while hunting if they stand still). I've taken it out and put it in its own quarantine tank (real simple set up, all natural brown paper towels, few pothos leaves, few dried almond leaves and a plastic flower pot w/ a door cut out). I also started feeding him the melagnoster as opposed to the hydei (they seem to move more). I don't know if separating them or the "cleaner" tank or the more active prey is working but it seems to be eating with more success. 

Anyone have any suggestions for what else to do? 



-Tad


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## Scott (Feb 17, 2004)

Tad,

You've done everything I'd do to this point.

Maybe some smaller crix (1/2 the size of the ones you got). One or two at a time at the absolute most.

s


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## aneides (Apr 12, 2005)

*frog eat frog world*

I doubt that a triv would take a vent but I may be worried that the triv would choke if it tried. There are frogs that specialize on other frogs. If anyone ever gets any hemiphractus, highly productive darts would seem to be a good option for food. I don't think it is unethical to feed one frog to another in captivity. It is after all a frog it frog world.


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## Guest (Oct 29, 2005)

I've seen one of my trivs eat a cricket larger than a small vent and then preceed to grab another cricket while its mouth was still full (it ended up spitting out the second cricket).

-Tad


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## Ed Martin (Mar 25, 2004)

Tad any updates? Have you tried feeding the skinny one house fly maggots? You can often get them in bait stores, especially if perch fishing is popular in your area, and they really put the weight on the frogs. They move more than waxworms and my trivs love them. I have a pair in a 40 breeder that is heavily planted with a waterfall and a stream. I have had them for over a year and they were LTC before that. The male is about ¾ the size of the female but a much more aggressive feeder. Like you said they eat food of all sizes, some quite large. I got a one fertile clutch out of my pair, but lost it to molding. I have a really big tank that I plan to put them into once I move my frogroom, and get at least one more pair, people seem to have more breeding success keeping them in groups.
Good luck, hope he turns around.
Ed


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2005)

He looks like he's put on some weight. I haven't seen him eating anything bigger than the ffs (the more active winged/flightless melagnoster) seem to interest him more. I think in another week or so I'm going to put the pair back together and into the 45 gallon. It's not super heavily planted (yet) but has a water fall/small pond. 

I was wondering if it would be ok to add any more to a 45 than 2? 

-Tad


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2005)

I'll look for the housefly maggots, though I'm not sure that there are any bait stores around here. 

On a different note, something I've thought odd that I noticed with the trivs. They *never* climb the glass, I think every other frog I've owned has at some point or another climed the glass to one degree or another. I have seen them sitting on top of leaves/plants right near the top, but just never doing the spiderman thing on the side of the glass. I'm curious if all trivs are that way?

-Tad


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