# Weather, Climate, and Dart Frogs



## Rusty_Shackleford

Not only am I a Frog nut, I'm a weather nut. About two years ago I bought one of these.
Wireless Vantage Pro2™ with Standard Radiation Shield by Davis

I've been logging my weather data and broadcasting it on the net ever since. I'm really interested in climate and weather conditions and how they pertain to our beloved frogs. I've tried looking up climate data for the regions dart frogs come from. Information is few and far between, and usually for larger towns well away from populations of frogs. Does anyone have any good weather or climate data sites they know about? I've researched sunrise and sunset hours for tropical areas and found that to be very interesting and have applied the information learned in the frog room. I want to do the same with any climate information I can find. I know every book says 77 degrees is ideal but I want to go beyond that. Even though the tropics are a very stable environment things do change, seasons pass. I absolutely try to vary the temp and humidity in my vivs on a seasonal basis. Does anyone else vary the environmental conditions. Does anyone use a cycle like "Warm and dry then warm and moist then cool and dry then cool and moist" then start all over again. 
I kept fish for a long time before keeping frogs and it was an old breeders trick, nothing more than anecdotal, that if you were having a hard time getting a certain fish to spawn then the trick was to wait till a major storm system passed through then do a major water change. I can't help to wonder if there is a way to find out if the same is true with frogs. 
I have the ability on my weather station to set alarms for various weather conditions. One of the alarms is set for a change in barometric pressure. Currently it is set to go off if the pressure rises or drops more than 0.14in in 3 hours. I want to know the correlation between weather events like that and breeding cycles/activity in the frogs. I try and keep an irregular schedule of misting. Because when the barometric pressure alarm goes off, to me it signifies a significant enough drop that it might be a precipitation producing front. If the dart frogs were in their natural habitat they would get rained on. So at those times I grab the mister and give them some rain. Of course I notice more calling after I missed but you would probably get that if you misted them on a perfectly sunny, high pressure day. 
So I guess I just have to set up two groups of identical frogs and feed them the same number of flies and mist one on barometric pressure drop days and not mist the other group and see which one breeds more. 
Any thoughts anyone?

I'm putting out the big Batman signal spotlight...except this one says Ed.


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## Pumilo

Not a scientific study by any means, but I've noticed an increase in breeding during a rainy week. We've also noticed an increase in calling during a dreary, rainy week.


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## jacobi

Complete speculation on my part, but wouldn't rainfall equate to more tadpole deposition sites being created?

Jake


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## frogparty

I notice a DIRECT corolation between barometric pressure drops and an increase in breeding/egg laying. It makes TOTAL SENSE!!! I try to emulate the presure drops with "rainy periods" in my tanks. I mist the hell out of them every day it rains, which in SO Cal isnt that often. BUT we have been having a rainy day today, bet theres vanzo eggs when I get home. Maybe...dare I hope...Highland lamasi too. Still not warm enough at night for my leucs to even be calling, let alone breeding.


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## Rusty_Shackleford

Has anyone observed their frogs to be significantly more or less active during these pressure drops? I'm interested to see how my frogs respond to a Chicago spring, we get a lot of storm systems through here as the warm air fights with the cold air. I have a lot more breeding age frogs this year than last year, so I hope it triggers some breeding. 
So I wonder how much of a pressure drop can stimulate the frogs?


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## frogparty

I think your storms cause pretty significant pressure drops in the mid west. In Seattle it took a pretty good storm to trigger increased breeding frenzy. Normal drizzle didnt cut it


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## Pumilo

frogparty said:


> I notice a DIRECT corolation between barometric pressure drops and an increase in breeding/egg laying. It makes TOTAL SENSE!!! I try to emulate the presure drops with "rainy periods" in my tanks. I mist the hell out of them every day it rains, which in SO Cal isnt that often. BUT we have been having a rainy day today, bet theres vanzo eggs when I get home. Maybe...dare I hope...Highland lamasi too. Still not warm enough at night for my leucs to even be calling, let alone breeding.


Yes, I turn up the misting too, during a nice rainy week. If it's not too cool, I'll open the windows in the frog room. Not sure if if that really makes any difference or not but it feels more "rainforesty" to me!


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## Rusty_Shackleford

Pumilo said:


> Yes, I turn up the misting too, during a nice rainy week. If it's not too cool, I'll open the windows in the frog room. Not sure if if that really makes any difference or not but it feels more "rainforesty" to me!


I admit it......I play the rainforest sounds CD in my frog room!


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## Pumilo

Rusty_Shackleford said:


> I admit it......I play the rainforest sounds CD in my frog room!


The guy that taught me, Rick White, used to play rainforest sounds. He swore it got them calling. I find even some Metallica can entice a little calling if you aren't blasting it. (Where's the little headbanger icon?)


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## frogparty

\m/(><)\m/ 

There you go buddy


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## AlexD

I believe it about the sounds thing. The jungle is a loud place. Whenever it gets quiet, that usually means bad things are about to happen and it's time to hide. Replicating that in a captive environment makes sense.


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## jacobi

Pumilo said:


> The guy that taught me, Rick White, used to play rainforest sounds. He swore it got them calling. I find even some Metallica can entice a little calling if you aren't blasting it. (Where's the little headbanger icon?)


That would make an interesting scientific study... 

Jake


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## freaky_tah

Have you ever looked into getting a vivarium controller for your tanks? EcoZone makes a cool one that can control everything from temp, lunar phases, humidity etc...add in the dimmable lights and you'd have yourself a pretty sweet setup. If only I had enough money for all the cool toys out there...


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## Rusty_Shackleford

freaky_tah said:


> Have you ever looked into getting a vivarium controller for your tanks? EcoZone makes a cool one that can control everything from temp, lunar phases, humidity etc...add in the dimmable lights and you'd have yourself a pretty sweet setup. If only I had enough money for all the cool toys out there...


I agree I wish I had money for all the toys and gadgets. I had a zoo med temp/humidity controller on one of my vivs but it burned out. Cheap P.O.S. 
I like hand misting and being able to really check on the frogs when I'm doing that. My frog room has it's own heat and A/C so I can control the temp in a broad way. The lunar phases and sunrise/sunset thing would be really cool though. 
I recreate thunderstorms every once in a while. Usually when we are having a rain storm for real. Sometimes at night sometimes in the day if it's dark enough outside. I've got a couple of blue LED lights I turn on in the room, then I turn on 5 battery operated strobe lights. Play a thunderstorm CD and viola, mist your tanks. The strobes random patterns simulate lightning, and then you have all the thunder from the CD. I don't know if the frogs care at all but it's fun to do.


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## Rusty_Shackleford

I was watching the weather today and the barometric pressure was falling all day. It hit it's high at 6:30 pm and was 30.51 in, it has since fallen to 29.89 in at 10:42pm. I didn't mist today though, I wish I had now because it's raining outside. I heard the vittatus, bicolors and leucs calling today. I probably had other frogs calling but those are the loudest three for sure. I'm gonna do a check for eggs tomorrow.


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## jbherpin

Rusty_Shackleford said:


> I was watching the weather today and the barometric pressure was falling all day. It hit it's high at 6:30 pm and was 30.51 in, it has since fallen to 29.89 in at 10:42pm. I didn't mist today though, I wish I had now because it's raining outside. I heard the vittatus, bicolors and leucs calling today. I probably had other frogs calling but those are the loudest three for sure. I'm gonna do a check for eggs tomorrow.


I hope for the best my friend! I have a glass wall in my frog room, so the lightning and thunder are all heard and seen! Maybe I should start misting according to my seasonal varients as well. Thanks for the idea, it will be a fun experiment however it turns out.

JBear


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## suztor

Might be a silly question buuuut does snow have the same drop in pressure as rain?

sent from my incredible...mind


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## Rusty_Shackleford

It doesn't matter whether your precipitation is in the form of rain or snow, just as long as you have the corresponding pressure drop that accompanies the storm.


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## firefishbrain

Hi Rusty, I'm very interested in what research you are doing, you wouldn't happen to work with new rivers at all, would you? if not, could you possibly elaborate on any observations with any tincs you may have? I'm really trying to figure out the new river locale

Thanks, sounds like fun, Great thing about vivarium keeping, the mix of art (making a tank) and science (breeding, measuring and collecting data, etc) gotta love it!


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## Rusty_Shackleford

Hiya firefishbrain,
I've never kept new river tincs, but I do have 5 other kinds of tincs. I saw your thread about them not breeding. First are they old enough to breed? What supplements have you been using? lol I'm hijacking my own thread. Sometimes a good trick is to really cut back on the misting for a few weeks. Then when you have a good storm system come through mist them heavy for a few days.


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## firefishbrain

Thanks, I'll give it a try, I use herptivite and Rep-Cal, occasionally the Zoo med Calcium, sorry I'll stop hijacking lol, Is there anywhere online that you post your data, or that we can find the information that your examining?


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## Rusty_Shackleford

Try using some of the Repashy products. Calcium Plus is an all in one supplement, you should see better results as far as fertility rates. 
I'm currently working out some details on getting good data. It's gonna take me a couple of identical groups of frogs. To do it right. I am logging weather data 24/7 though.


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## firefishbrain

I'll pic some up this weekend, thanks. Good Luck on the research, if there is any help you need, let us know, I'd be happy to do some sleuthing in the little free time I have.


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## shockingelk

Maybe I'm not using the right search terms, but I haven't found a website that shows me barometric pressure for my zip.


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## frogfreak

shockingelk said:


> Maybe I'm not using the right search terms, but I haven't found a website that shows me barometric pressure for my zip.


Hourly Weather Forecast - Minneapolis, MN | Wunderground


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