# Rethinking my approach to misting



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

I've been giving a lot of thought to how I mist lately.

Right now, I mist for 1 minute at the start of the day and then three 30 second blasts throughout the rest of the day. 

With my new tank, I've been running the mister for long sessions throughout the day to saturate the background and continue to get those new plants to fill in. 

What I've noticed is after those 7-10 minute rains, the frogs are incredibly active for several hours after that. My frogs have lots of room and are always active anyway, so this is saying a lot. 

I'm really thinking of ending the 30 second blasts and instead have two long sessions, one mid-day and one evening.

Any thoughts? Any similar experiences?


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

I like the idea. It sure seems a more natural rain cycle for them.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

I like it but I'd be hesitant to implement it on some of my larger terribilis tanks because I'd worry that the thick layer of leaf litter wouldn't dry out enough -- I use passive ventilation rather than fans, and a very thick layer of leaves. Although my custom Exo lids were further modified last year with a perforated poly window to augment the screen vent in front, the whole design never had that level of misting in mind.

I also feel like it would result in them going berserk breeding, which I really don't need. 

I could see trying something like that with my imitators. They're _much_ more active after heavy misting, although I don't want them breeding all the time either...


----------



## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

I do something similar already - heavy mist in the morning, and then one light one in the evening. The duration changes throughout the season.

Not sure if I love my method right now, but the frogs seem to like it.


----------



## solidsnake (Jun 3, 2014)

Regarding the mist session in the evening: I’m by no means questioning your methods…just trying to learn a bit myself.

Maybe it’s just me, but in my experiments, it seems that some of my plants don’t like water sitting on their leaves overnight. They seemed to do better having their foliage dry during the hours of darkness. Does anyone else find this to be true?

I was just thinking that if you committed to evening missing that some of your plants could take a hit. Not that it really matters. If evening misting more closely mimics the natural environmental conditions in which your frogs would encounter in the wild…I’d do the same thing. Currently, I have no frogs to worry any; just plants, snails, fish and shrimp. They don’t care when I mist. 😉


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Fahad said:


> I like it but I'd be hesitant to implement it on some of my larger terribilis tanks because I'd worry that the thick layer of leaf litter wouldn't dry out enough -- I use passive ventilation rather than fans, and a very thick layer of leaves. Although my custom Exo lids were further modified last year with a perforated poly window to augment the screen vent in front, the whole design never had that level of misting in mind.
> 
> I also feel like it would result in them going berserk breeding, which I really don't need.
> 
> I could see trying something like that with my imitators. They're _much_ more active after heavy misting, although I don't want them breeding all the time either...


Yeah. If someone were to go this route with terribilis I'd have to recommend internal fans. I'd be hesitant to do it with them. I only misted my terribilis tanks in the morning. I really wonder with their elevation if their natural climate is as humid as it is with most darts.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Chris S said:


> I do something similar already - heavy mist in the morning, and then one light one in the evening. The duration changes throughout the season.
> 
> Not sure if I love my method right now, but the frogs seem to like it.


I was thinking an early afternoon and then a late afternoon/evening. I know in the Caribbean and Costa Rica most of the storms come in the afternoon. I'm sure it's similar for Peru, Colombia, Panama, etc etc.


----------



## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

JasonE said:


> I was thinking an early afternoon and then a late afternoon/evening. I know in the Caribbean and Costa Rica most of the storms come in the afternoon. I'm sure it's similar for Peru, Colombia, Panama, etc etc.


I just find they are more active after a misting, and that is the time I can view them the most these days!


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

solidsnake said:


> Regarding the mist session in the evening: I’m by no means questioning your methods…just trying to learn a bit myself.
> 
> Maybe it’s just me, but in my experiments, it seems that some of my plants don’t like water sitting on their leaves overnight. They seemed to do better having their foliage during the hours of darkness. Does anyone else find this to be true?
> 
> Not that it really matters. If evening misting more closely mimics the natural environmental conditions in which your frogs would encounter in the wild…I’d do the same thing. Currently, I have no frogs; just plants, snails, fish and shrimp.


Even after these heavy rains, most of my plants' leaves are dry in 2 hours. Or close enough to dry. If a majority of someone's plants are still wet after a couple of hours then they need to evaluate their ventilation and consider adding a fan if necessary. Also, any plant that is sensitive to water droplets on their leaves should either be placed high near the ventilation or replaced with a better plant more suited to the dampness of a vivarium.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Chris S said:


> I just find they are more active after a misting, and that is the time I can view them the most these days!


I work from 1pm - 11:30. I adjusted their lights by an hour so they don't go dark until 10pm (8am start). So I'm essentially doing it for the same reason.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

If anyone else decides to try this for a day or two, let me know what kind of results you see.


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

JasonE said:


> If anyone else decides to try this for a day or two, let me know what kind of results you see.


If I remember I'll give it a try tomorrow and let you know how it goes.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Yeah I'd like to get some other people's feedback/results before I change my timer and make this permanent.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

JasonE said:


> Yeah. If someone were to go this route with terribilis I'd have to recommend internal fans. I'd be hesitant to do it with them. I only misted my terribilis tanks in the morning. I really wonder with their elevation if their natural climate is as humid as it is with most darts.


I think they're listed as 200m asl on the IUCN Redlist ... wait -- from their entry:

_"*Range Description*
This species is endemic to Colombia. This species was previously only known from tiny areas on the Pacific coast of Colombia on the Río Saija drainage, in Cauca Department, occurring up to 200 m asl. However it is now also known from Río Naya and Boca Yurumanguí in southern Valle del Cauca Department, which has extended the known range 60 km northward (Marquez et al. 2012). It altitudinal range is between 50–400 m asl (D. Mejía pers. comm. August 2016). It occurs in fewer than five threat-defined locations and its EOO is 1,473 km2."_

As an aside my house is 190m asl. Does that explain why my terribilis are total lunatics? Maybe. Anyway ... 

... high altitude can mean high humidity, no? Thinking of misty cloud forests. Wet surfaces, as we know, are another story and we don't have the benefits of wind circulation and vast tracts of different surfaces to traverse, rendering our tanks fundamentally different problems to solve vs. actual nature. Likely due to difficulties studying them in situ -- the area remains dangerous even now -- there's not much information on them regarding range or microhabitats.

Photos of them in reserves (see: Pro Aves) show typical leaf litter and damp forest, but time of year is indeterminate in what footage I've seen. I generally ignore footage from nature programs as so much of it staged.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

High altitude can definitely mean high humidity. Cloud forests are quite wet and found at the highest elevations. I don't know. I kept my terriblis at a lower humidity than my other frogs and they were as active and healthy as any others. Colombia is humid regardless of where you go really. I'm curious about what kind of humidity they deal with and how wet the areas are where they habitate. Most of the frogs we keep are found in river basins so their preference for higher humidity with them makes sense. I wonder what it is about these guys that makes their care so unique.

I miss my terribilis.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

They're definitely more active in relatively drier situations, but show a marked preference for rocking out in the rain. As @connorology has pointed out, we have only anecdotal accounts for pododermatitis; out of hundreds of terribilis and over a few years, I've only encountered it once, but this was on an individual that seemed pre-disposed to injury, infection and systemic issues.

In the past (before I left the hobby for a while) I was definitely keeping them too wet by contemporary standards and had no issues then ... just got lucky maybe -- it happens, which is one way questionable husbandry is perpetuated. It remains a mystery although I have seen posts here about other species getting infections of various kinds, so it's not _just_ terribilis. 

That link to the Ranita Terribilis reserve provides some broad climate data but again, no hard data on micro-habitats. I bet the info is out there somewhere but my lack of Spanish is an issue. I have a friend in Bogota who may be able to draft/translate some questions and help me get them to someone in the field. I may need to do that because the last year or so I feel like I've been chasing my tail looking for info.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Sounds like a good idea. Make sure you share anything you find. I had one case of foot rot with my terribilis. I caught it immediately. She couldn't have had the infection for more than a day. I quarantined and treated and it was gone in about 3 days. After that I started adding new leaf litter every 2 weeks for them. And only sea grape leaves since they were flat and water couldn't pool.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

JasonE said:


> Sounds like a good idea. Make sure you share anything you find.


100% 



JasonE said:


> I had one case of foot rot with my terribilis. I caught it immediately. She couldn't have had the infection for more than a day. I quarantined and treated and it was gone in about 3 days.
> After that I started adding new leaf litter every 2 weeks for them. And only sea grape leaves since they were flat and water couldn't pool.


I was able to clear it in about 9 days? It looked pretty bad at first but she didn't lose any digits. Other frogs in her tank had no issues. I don't know if she injured it first. I already add significant amounts of leaf litter regularly, but one change I made afterwards was inserting a thin buffer layer of pea gravel between the leaf litter and engineered filter foam:

As I've said elsewhere, the foam is totally porous but the cells are small enough to hold tiny amounts of water via surface tension. Multiply all those cells sitting against the leaf litter and the bottom layer is wetter than I'd like. 

Similarly, I abandoned the 'pond soil' I was using -- basically Turface by another name -- to switch to the superior drainage of pea gravel. (Bottom layer of false bottom is coarse Matala, no issues there).

I'd have to check the duration but as I move out of the dry season tanks are misted 3 times a day now, with a longer burst in the morning and 2 short bursts after lunch and about 2-3 hours before lights out. It keeps the atmosphere humid but the leaf litter is generally dry enough that the frogs haven't show breeding activity ... yet ... I'm hoping to discourage that this year to give them a rest, without resorting to pulling males.

I work the odd Saturday but given I'm often home on weekends, I sometimes turn the misting system off for a day or two, and conversely, soak down specific areas or even the whole tank with a pump mister from time to time. It's very difficult to convey to beginning froggers that I provide this 'weather' by 'feel' -- so I always default to the 'surfaces dry in about 3 hours' guideline.

So far as I can tell the combination of caloric restriction and reduced misting 'turned them off' by September of last year, but I bet the cooler temperatures and barometric pressure changes helped.

Related to that, I think keeping wet clay baths accessible to the frogs during a dry spell ensures hydration without encouraging breeding.

2-year old frogs were most prolific, followed by moderately prolific for 5-year olds and infrequent for 6-year olds.

So far that tracks but I also only raised the youngest group from froglet, so while the other groups were raised up right I can't speak for variables in their upbringing before I got them.

Keeping terribilis brings moderate challenges with it but they're simply incredible animals when provided space and attention. 

Anyway, sorry for a bit of thread derailment -- vivarium weather is a dark art that touches on many aspects of husbandry.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Here's a study that aimed to track population density in a location at less than 25m altitude (you'll have to download it and then run it through Google Translate). 

They found no density differences that corresponded to habitat disturbance, and noted a few times that both in this case and in general understandings of population density the suitability of habitat corresponds largely to microclimate suitability. Just confirming what's already been mentioned here.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

Socratic Monologue said:


> (you'll have to download it and then run it through Google Translate).


Just in case there was any doubt that we live in the future.

_looks for jet pack_

Thanks for this, reading now.


----------



## connorology (Oct 6, 2018)

I think longer misting sessions less frequently could be fine. You could also just set a crazy schedule if you have a mist king - with my chameleon I have it mist him for two minutes in the morning and two before the lights shut off (to let him drink) but then I also have additional "storms" set to occur throughout the week ranging from like 2-10 minutes so he's regularly getting longer misting sessions but I am also not flooding him. Some days he gets a ten minute storm, some days he doesn't. I have them go longer during the summer when my house is warmer and I decrease in the winter (he has a lot more ventilation than my frogs).


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Fahad said:


> 100%
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Don't apologize. It's not a derailment. We're talking about misting. Someone new to terriblis might come across this one day.

When I found her with foot rot was a tiny spot on the back of her heal. She had no injury that I could see. Just a very small infected area. Although the infection looked significant even with how small it was. I treated her three times a day and moved her to a new bin every day. She was back with her tankmates the morning of day four.

They really are wonderful frogs. If their call wasn't so loud my 36x36 would be housing a group of 4-6.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

JasonE said:


> They really are wonderful frogs. If their call wasn't so loud my 36x36 would be housing a group of 4-6.


I currently have 3 adult groups with another 3 groups of teenagers behind them. Total of 7 adult males at the moment, it can get raucous. Mints are the loudest by far, Yellows are the quietest. There was one day when the terribilis, leucomelas and imitators all went off at once. That was a jam.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Fahad said:


> I currently have 3 adult groups with another 3 groups of teenagers behind them. Total of 7 adult males at the moment, it can get raucous. Mints are the loudest by far, Yellows are the quietest. There was one day when the terribilis, leucomelas and imitators all went off at once. That was a jam.


Haha. I miss having a room of 20 frogs calling at once. 

If I got terribilis again it would be orange. I had a group of 4 with two males. They were so loud. You could hear them no matter where in the house you were.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

I think I'm going to change my schedule and do two long rain showers during the day. I'll still keep the 1 minute blast in the morning to get the day started.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Spider-man. Spider-man. Does whatever a dart frog can.










It's been almost 2 hours since the long rain and they're still out doing crazy things.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

"Guys. If we all push together, we may be able to escape."


----------



## IShouldGetSomeSleep (Sep 23, 2021)

JasonE said:


> "Guys. If we all push together, we may be able to escape."
> 
> View attachment 305508


That's some impressive climbing!, do they have sticky toepads like treefrogs? like can the hang on they undersides of leaves? I'm just wondering if they are like diurnal treefrogs.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

IShouldGetSomeSleep said:


> do they have sticky toepads like treefrogs? like can the hang on they undersides of leaves?


No. They are quite adept at climbing up glass, or using the stalks of plants like a climbing pole. But they do not have toe pads like a tree frog or gecko. Typically they can be upside down like that for a second before they fall. I think this was just a case of the perfect amount of water being on the glass to keep him stuck up there.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

I've seen imitators engaged in territorial combat high above the vivarium floor on sheer glass verticals -- low mass, surface tension -- and maybe sorcerous powers, not sure. Hollywood action heroes have nothing on them.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

My little guy (6 weeks) mostly stays low but the other three pretty much live up high in the broms. They don't seem to have any interest in hanging around the floor. Unlike my variablis who are always walking around the leaf litter.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Fahad said:


> sorcerous powers


That explains the teleportation. 'Apparition', I think the kids call it nowadays. No idea what Ranitomeya call it; they keep their secrets close.


----------



## Apoplast (Mar 17, 2020)

This has been a very interesting read. Thanks for posting it, @JasonE ! 


solidsnake said:


> Maybe it’s just me, but in my experiments, it seems that some of my plants don’t like water sitting on their leaves overnight. They seemed to do better having their foliage dry during the hours of darkness.


I would in no way be surprised if this were true. Wet leaves can inhibit gas exchange across the stomata and thus reduce leaf and plant health. It is for this reason that most plants, even most mosses, prefer to dry out somewhat during the day. Typically day time drying is a natural phenomenon because the increased solubility of water vapor in air as the air temperature rises. Most organisms are fairly well adapted to this diurnal shift in temperature and humidity. Some depend on it. 


Fahad said:


> ... high altitude can mean high humidity, no? Thinking of misty cloud forests.





JasonE said:


> High altitude can definitely mean high humidity.


So this can be true, but it is not invariably the case. Without pointlessly going into things like wet and dry adiabatic lapse rates; as temperature decreases the ability of air to hold water decreases, meaning with the same amount of water vapor in the air it is closer to saturated, i.e. 100% RH for that temperature. This is why cloud forests form, and why the Sierra Nevada range gets so much snow. However, other air currents and elevation issues can change the conditions rapidly. I recall once while hiking in and Andes of northern Ecuador rounding a side of a mountain when quite suddenly the saturating, thick fog I was in evaporated and the vegetation shifted from mossy ericoid thicket to agave and cacti scrub. This was within a few meters, and suggested this difference is fair;ly stable at that site. Added to these air current issues, air also "dries" faster going down a mountain than it gets "wet" going up. 

I'm not sure this is at all relevant, but there you have it.


----------



## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

Appreciate the feedback. Then perhaps terriblis do indeed live in a less humid environment.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

Thanks for the account, @Apoplast . Do you recall what elevations you were hiking in?


----------



## Apoplast (Mar 17, 2020)

JasonE said:


> Then perhaps terriblis do indeed live in a less humid environment.


Perhaps, though the elevations listed here for them, and the geographic range as I am aware of it (which is by no means authoritative!) lead me to believe that the smaller scale variation is more important to their existence, as has been stated in this thread. I'm inclined to agree with that view point. 



Fahad said:


> Do you recall what elevations you were hiking in?


I believe I was somewhere around 2,800-3,000 meters when I rounded that particular corner. The higher reaches of the Andes can have very dramatic shifts in climate across surprisingly small distances. It leads to some very cool patterns of habitat and has been suggested to be a significant driver in the biodiversity of the area.


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

I ran my mister for an extra 3-4 minutes this afternoon. No appreciable increase in activity amongst my frogs. I'll try it again tomorrow, perhaps a bit longer and see what happens.


----------

