# Taking care of Ranitomeya frogs



## redrock2 (Sep 9, 2018)

I need some advice on taking care of froglet and sub adult ranitomeya frogs. Specifially I am having trouble with Southern veriabilis and benedicta. I had one healthy adult female southern in a 100 gallon tank full of plants. I added 4 sub adult southerns 6 weeks ago and 2 have died and one looks super skinny. I also got 3 baby southern froglets, super tiny ones too! and two of them have died and now I only have one baby alive in his grow out tank. I have two tadpoles about to leave water and I do not want to lose them! 

I was planning on putting them in a shoe box sixed plastic container with dirt that is already seeded with springtails and microwhite isopods. There is leaf litter and some moss to keep the frogs from getting too scared and keeping them off the dirt. I place springtails in there daily and when they are big enough I place melanogaster flies powdered with calcium and vitamin A. I will show a pic of the tank and the skinny guy. MY original southern is only getting bigger and doesn't seam to be affected by whatever is going on. My Benedicta's seam to be ok right now, I lost one baby not too long ago. It just stared at the springtails and followed them around but never lunged or tried to eat any until it died. So in total the last 6 weeks I have lost 1 benedicta froglet, 2 southern froglets and 2 sub adult southerns. I am assuming I will lose the skinny sub adult and I haven't seam the other sub adult I added for awhile now. It may also be dead somewhere in the tank. 

I have had great success with Tincs, Leucs and phylotattes but these ranitomeya's are a struggle.


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## redrock2 (Sep 9, 2018)

here are the pics


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

I will refer you to my comment in the other thread. I really don't like the look of the frog in that picture, either. This one and the one in the other pic look too skinny to me. Could be they are just young, but it could be a problem with raising the tads/young froglets, too. I would avoid buying frogs that are so small in the future. Let the breeder hold onto them until they are better started. 

I will say I am making a lot of assumptions here and I don't want to throw shade at another breeder if my assumptions are not correct. There is a lot I don't know about this situation. I would not buy frogs that look like that. I wish I could find the ad for the Southerns I bought a few years ago so that you coudl see the difference. 

Mark
Edit: Found the pic of the ones I bought: https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/a...uratus-pumilio-truncatus-more-southern-2-.jpg


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

redrock2 said:


> I was planning on putting them in a shoe box sixed plastic container with dirt that is already seeded with springtails and microwhite isopods. There is leaf litter and some moss to keep the frogs from getting too scared and keeping them off the dirt. I place springtails in there daily and when they are big enough I place melanogaster flies powdered with calcium and vitamin A.


What exactly is 'dirt'?

What 'calcium' and what 'vitamin A', exactly?

In the pics you provided, I can't quite tell what the ventilation situation is on the viv. Can you describe it? 

Also, what's the lighting? It looks like some sort of shop light right on the top, and so I'm concerned about temps.

Extra also: you had one thumbnail in a well-grown-in 100g viv? Awesome, but unusual. Were there other frogs in there? Is there a backstory with timeline?


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## redrock2 (Sep 9, 2018)

I got the tank from a guy who was moving, he bread southerns in the tank so I didn't want to change it up thinking that it would be good for my southern. So I put my southern in there and actually liked hunting for the little guy. 

Dirt = cork fiber
Calcium and Vitamin A are repashy brand

The temp and humidity in the tank are = 68 degrees F and 72%; the temperature does get a little colder at night as low as 65 degrees and never higher than 70. The humiditiy is pretty stable as well. I don't have any ventilation in this particular tank as I do in others; again because the guy was breading southern's in it before I got it so I assumed it was working great and after my female was doing well I added 4 others to see if I could eventually get them to breed. It may be that all my ranitomeya's were bad from the start since I got them from the same guy and they may all have been too small from the start.


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## redrock2 (Sep 9, 2018)

Yeah yours are definitely bigger than mine when I got them. I think I may have just gotten a bad bunch but it makes me so sad to see these little guys die. I do have two tads that I am taking great care of and they are already bigger than the froglets I got so hopefully I have some success with them because they are off to a better start. Do you ever add vitamin A to a tadpole container? I know I have seen others bathe frogs in water with Vitamin A and calcium to help them absorb it through their skin. I have been so paranoid recently about these tadpoles and froglets that I thought about maybe adding Vitamin A to the tadpole water to see if they absorb any but that might mess them up I think.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Yeah, I understand a little better about how you ended up with such small frogs. You will probably have better luck with the tads. No need to add separate Vitamin A to your little fellas. It's contained in Repashy Calcium Plus in the amounts needed for non-breeding frogs. Also no need to add supplements to the tadpole water. Just make sure you are storing your Repashy supplements in the fridge and discard and buy new ones every 6 months. 

Best of luck,

Mark


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

redrock2 said:


> It may be that all my ranitomeya's were bad from the start since I got them from the same guy and they may all have been too small from the start.


Sounds as if that may have been the case. That's too bad.

There's been quite a move to ventilate vivs more than in the past, mostly based on a better understanding of frog biology. May be worth experimenting with, depending on your situation and how much of of a 'ain't broke, don't fix' attitude you have.


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## redrock2 (Sep 9, 2018)

It has only been a week but he is starting to gain weight. I isolated him, gave him some Vitamin A baths and have been feeding him maggots. So far I am excited to see him rebounding for now!


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Glad he is doing better, but why are you doing Vitamin A baths? 

Mark


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

Vit a is so easely overdosed... Mayebe that's the problem?


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Tijl said:


> Vit a is so easely overdosed... Mayebe that's the problem?


That's certainly a possibility. Non-breeding frogs are not known to require any more Vitamin A than is contained in Calcium Plus. We had a user here recently who fatally overdosed a frog with Vitamin A.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

yeah, stop the vitamin A baths


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