# Dart Frog Temperature



## Varno

Starting to get a little cool here in Colorado, I was told that my Darts (0.0.2 Azureus) could be kept at room temp all year. My thermometer shows a range between 63 and 72 degrees, frogs seem active and feeding well. I would welcome some opinons concerning added heating (i.e - would a small under-tank be appropiate?) or will they do fine within these ranges? Thanks in advance!! Dave


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## amphibianfreak

Mine do fine at room temp year round. Your's should be fine


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## Varno

*room temp*

Thanks for the reply, amphibian freak. What's the coolest your frogs ever got?


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## amphibianfreak

The coolest mine has got is 64 degrees, i imagine it is even a little cooler than that during the night when there are no lights on


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## EverettC

I live in WA state so it's cold here too, I use a daylamp and a florescent lamp during the day which brings it up to about 75-78deg F and at night time it gets down to about 62. Both my leucs and pumilio do fine in these temps as did my Azureus (when i had them).


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## Ryan

Did i read 62 degrees as room tempeture?! Now thats scary...

Ryan

PS For me not as much the frogs as their viv most likely warmer from things like the lights. Have you actually tested inside the viv for temp?


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## *GREASER*

My bedroom/frogroom gets down to the low 60's aswell


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## Guest

Yeah if your bedroom/house gets down to 62 or so whats the actual temperature in the tank though? My tanks stay around 5 degrees warmer than the room temp most of the time(with out any added heat). 


-Tad


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## EverettC

That is tank temp . The house is like 58...


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## ErickG

My tank stays at a constant 70-72 throughout the day... 68 the lowest early in the morning with no light. The glass top and centralized air set at 71 throughout the house helps this.


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## Rain_Frog

Guys, considering I might be using my DIY cage for treefrogs too (its a double cage, really two cages in one), what is the maximum temperature a tinc can have? If I have to move my tinc into the DIY cage, it will be elevated on my clothes drawer. As heat rises, I do notice it's cooler on the floor, but warmer above. It's not unlikely my room can reach 78-80 degrees in the summer, even with air conditioning. The tank always seems to be about 3-6 degrees warmer, so the tank may get up to 84-86 degrees on a summer day. Is this safe?!? I know many tree frogs will tolerate that, and do even better (I think) at that temp. But for darts?


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## DaFrogMan

I don't think you need to worry too much about it being too cold. I had two azureus shipped to me not too long ago. The guy didn't put any heat packs in them.... and it was about 40 degrees that day. I thought he was freakin' crazy. They looked dead when I put them in the terrarium and they were breathing real slow. I contacted the guy I ordered them from, and he said that they should perk up real soon, and that he liked to avoid heat packs at all costs because frogs deal with the cold better than they deal with heat. Although they perked up by the end of the day, does this seem wierd to anyone else?


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## Guest

yeah that's weird, the whole point of heat packs is to raise the ambient temperature of the box 10-20 degrees. it's not to bake the frogs. I personally wouldn't order from someone who wouldn't ship with heat packs in that temperature. I'm sure that if he used them, the frogs wouldn't be in the near death state they were at when you got them.


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## DaFrogMan

Yes, they were extremely cold. Right away, I opened the cups up and put the cups in the terrarium to let them warm up a little bit. 30 minutes later, I came back and they were still in the cups. I figured that they were warmed up by then, so I inverted the cups to put them in the terrarium. They both fell out and landed on their backs.... didn't even move. They were breathing real slow (thier throats were slowly going in and out at about once or twice per second!) Luckily, they perked up by the end of the day. One of them had an infection for a while though. I won't mention any names, but the guy I ordered them from had been shipping frogs for a long time and really knew what he was doing. They are beautiful healthy frogs now, but it was kind of wierd that someone with so much experience did that.


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## Ed Martin

Wow, down to 40 seems kind of extreme, but I have to agree with him that the frogs deal with cold better than heat. I also think that a lot of frogs fried because of the use (or misuse) of heat packs. I always err on the side of colder as opposed to warmer for the darts. I'll let the temps in my enclosures go into the 50's if I can, and the frogs especially the Epipedobates seem to really like it. 
I lost a bunch of frogs in 2000 to a freak spring heat spike, it got up into the low 90's so I figure it was 5 degrees warmer in the enclosures. Some of the frogs died outright, but others showed evidence of neurological damage (could not walk or even stand) before they died. Now I keep temp probes in all my enclosures and if it gets to 90 the air goes on. 

Here is a link to an article about the the beginnings og the NAIB line of azureus, not recommended to treat any frogs this way, but maybe this is why the breeder thought they would be OK. 
http://www.thebdg.org/library/frogspeci ... ureus1.htm

Ed


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