# HOW!!! did you get started on Darts ?



## froglet (May 18, 2005)

*While i was getting dressed for work today, i noticed that every morning while i drink my coffee while i stare at my frogs. I ask myself how in the world did i get into a hobby that requires you to have frogs in tanks...... As i topic i would like to know from each and every one of you, how you all got started with Darts. 
I got into darts a few years back when i passes by a reptile store in the VIllage NYC. I was looking for a cool pet to buy and when i came accross a tricolor baby i was amazed at the small size. I decided to pay $45 dollars for something i knew very little about. After a few weeks i realized that my froggy needed more friends and then came the addiction of frog raising..........................

NEXT PLEASE*


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## littlefrog (Sep 13, 2005)

For me, the Littlefrog Farm business name came before any frogs... I needed a name for my little orchid business. The night before my daughter was born I found a little tree frog on the kitchen counter. Never seen one before or since (in the house, anyway). So, that seemed like a proper omen, and Littlefrog came to be. We've been collecting frog related items ever since.

Anyway, after that, i needed live frogs... Took a while, but after pondering and procrastinating for a long time, I decided I needed dart frogs. It is all over now... *grin*

Rob


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## froglet (May 18, 2005)

*Thats an awsome story.....i love stuff like that. KEEP THEM COMING*


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## _Enix_ (Jul 31, 2005)

ive always been an animal person. ive always had pets of various kinds. i got into tropical fish keeping originaly because of all the beautiful colors. now i look at beahavior. 

about 5 years ago i stumbled across an article about PDFs while searching for terrarium setups. i didnt know people were keeping PDFs as a hobby. i didnt even know it was a possibility. i wanted them then but didnt feel that i was ready for them. i assumed they were difficult and expensive to keep. i put those thoughts to rest. 5 years later, my interest was peaked again after finding DB and other sites. ive read everything on the net about them (so it seems, always looking for more). now i have my babies and couldnt be happier.

i love to sit and watch them. they receive my full attention. i cant wait until they grow and i can put them into their permanent home so i can see them better. i tell everyone i know about them. my roomate has heard quite enough! =P

not the most exciting story, but there it is.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2005)

froglet said:


> *
> I got into darts a few years back when i passes by a reptile store in the VIllage NYC. I was looking for a cool pet to buy and when i came accross a tricolor baby i was amazed at the small size. I decided to pay $45 dollars for something i knew very little about.
> 
> NEXT PLEASE*


Where is this store?? Is it still there?

Anyway, I had been keeping fish since 1995 and had always thought that fish tanks would make excellent homes for plants. Then around 2000 I brought home a frog egg from developmental lab class in college, and put it in a spare 10 gallon tank. I raised it for a few months, mean while I started looking up stuff on frogs as pets. Next thing I know I see people are keeping Poison Dart frogs. Up till then I though they were just zoo animals like Lions and tigers and bears. After my first frog died from a series of mistakes on my part, I learned more about everything and got some more frogs, and just this year I found dendroboard, and I havent yet gotten the courage to get a poison dart, but im getting there. I now own two firebellies (had them for 4 years now) and own three pampas toads which are about 1 inch big. So I figure they are good poison dart training for me. I dont know guys, do you think Im ready for poison darts?


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

When I was a kid, I used to build terrariums and keep local frogs, turtles, salamanders, etc...I remember seeing pics of the PDF's in books at school, and thinking, man it would be so cool to keep one of them...
A decade or so later, I was in a bookshop, and started browsing through Reptiles magazine, when I saw ads for Vanishing Jewels, and Black Jungle, and couldn't belive I could finally aquire those (well...most of them) animals.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I saw a Nasco "Frog Hatchery Kit" and wanted it for Xmas, but I have always loved frogs, but science/ biology in general. I kept Xenopus for 6 and a half years (still my no. 1 anuran!). Then, I bought some firebellied toads a couple years later, and asked Devin Edmonds some help questions. There, I saw his website about dart frogs, and from reading how easy they are, decided to buy some myself.

Up until then, I didnt' even know dart frogs were even available to the public. Heard they were really difficult, but that is very untrue except I have always had trouble keeping any frog cool/ cold enough.


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## rattler_mt (Apr 15, 2005)

my wife is nuts about the color purple. i was laying in bed flipping through a Reptiles mag(i have always been a "snake guy") and she saw a purplish azureus in an ad. she said she wanted one. i said i would look into it. never really thought it would go anywhere till i saw an ad from a breeder about 3 hours from me, in my neck of the woods thats practically next door. he had some azureus for sale so i purchased 2 of them for my wife and two suri cobalts for myself. ive always had a green thumb and love mini orchids and odd ball plants so setting up the tanks was fun for me. that was earlier this summer and now i have quite a few more. ive become more interested in Mantellas than darts but i still love my Suri tincs.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2005)

well lets see, the first itch was when i was about 5 yrs old. like mitch hedberg (someonelse quoted him here) putting fgogs in jars with twigs and a leaf to recreate their living enviornment. three or four frogs later i learned about, air.

had fish tanks ever since. 5gal, 20, 36oct, 45 bow, all the way up to my current 100gal.

done community
oscar
arrowana
betta
guppy
african cichlids
parahna
brackish

(never owned a goldfish longer than a few minutes though, feeding time at the zoo.....aka gambling night)

moved onto salt

did the whole reef thang in 1/2 the 100gal the other 1/2 was big boys. a fun balance to keep. if you werent big you better be fast or smart.

relocated to chico, had to give up tank life for a while.

lease only allows 40 gallons, got tired of looking at big benji, waterspotted and empty.

went to local shop, saw pug guys huge arse set up, hooked.

three months of on and off building, i got bout a 30 gal waterfeature with a small sump just b4 the waterfall, open front/back viv. deviding the kitchen from the living room. esentially two ends growing together with a water feature between em. im almost happy enough to start puttin fish and frogs in.

seems like youre never gonna be done though


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I'm also one of those people who spent their childhood mucking around marshes and ponds in the mud... and just never grew out of it. I'd raise up as many different types of tadpoles as I could find over the summer. My first love was amphibians.

Over the years I've kept a huge variety of critters, mostly herp or fish related. Dabble in reptile breeding (designer leos and hognose snakes) to see if it was what I wanted to do but didn't really make me happy (I hated the eggs, I wanted to be involved in that part of their life like tadpoles!). Meanwhile I took up freshwater fish keeping (mostly latin american ecosystems, pride and joy was setting up a community discus 75 gallon with a friend). I still love my fish, but kinda knew herpetology was going to be my thing. Or art. Glad I stuck with the herpetology tho lol.

Having been around NAIB a good chunk of my life and reading about PDFs in old books from the library, I'd seen a good number of PDFs and knew they were kept as pets. I just didn't have any interest in them. Ok, I thought the SI tricolor on the cover of the book was cool, but that was about it.

I got into PDFs by volunteering at NAIB as a teenager... I swore I couldn't keep them as pets. Ok, well, I still don't keep tincs (which was the species I was looking at when I uttered "those words") but a clutch of tricolor later I was hooked. I was told if I wanted to keep atelopus (my true love) then PDFs would be a good stepping stone. A year or two after I started working with tricolor, I met Mike Shrom and Justin Yeager (back when he was just under 6 foot) at the Mid-Atlantic Reptile show, and they got me into the hobby part.

Crazy to see how much its changed and grown!


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Great thread!

Ok here is mine:

I had started to get back into photography a few years ago, and had started with many trips to the local Zoos. I then came across a traveling frog exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo. I believe Justin even had something to do with this... After that it has not stopped. I spent almost a year reading and talking to people before getting my first frogs. Now years later I am hooked and still find them to be some of the most interesting animals around.


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## vet_boy77 (Feb 10, 2005)

I'm pretty well versed in animals, biology, etc. So the interest has always been there. But I saw my first PDFs outside a zoo in a pitiful pet store setup. They included green/black auratus and some leucs, and were probably neglected on some level for being in a pet store. However, my first impression was- " I didn't know you could get those!"
Thankfully I followed up with some internet research, and a few months later I was builiding tanks and tracking down breeders. Five years later, my tanks have improved, and I'm always thinking about what to take on next. What an addicition. 
John


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## froglet (May 18, 2005)

*Well i think its safe to say that most, if not all froggers have always had a passion for animals. Like most of you i also am nuts about pets...... 






Khamul1of9, to answer your question. The pet store in the village has not been around for a long long time........... Closed down a long time ago...So did the store in Main Stree that used to have D Pumilio Blue Jeans for like 30 bucks hehe, i wish i may i wish i might :lol: *


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## rmelancon (Apr 5, 2004)

I like snakes, the bigger the better. I used to have different boas and pythons and always had boa constrictors, my first, a male at age 11. Bred them a couple times, anyway I had a huge female and one day whilst murdering a large rabbit, had a bit of a mishap. Long story short my bathroom looked like a crime scene and I had rabbit blood everywhere. The damn thing was screaming and it sounded exactly like a child. I've never quite been the same and after that day I decided I couldn't do snakes anymore and soon after got into darts.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2005)

Well it all started when I was two my dad would do this majic trick with a little toy frog thats what got me hooked on frogs. I would always catch frogs and what not. I got my first pet frog which was a african clawed frog in grade 6 after those died a few years later I got into reptiles and soon got some house geckos and a leopard gecko and a few FBT's. At this time I didnt even know you could keep dart frogs until I was searching around on the internet and I found some sites about dart frogs and I got really into them. I always thought that they were to hard to take care of so I stayed away from them so a couple months ago I really really wanted to geta dart frog so I started reading up on them and realized that there not hard at all to take care of I read up on a bucnh of different frogs and decided to get D. pumilios so a couple weeks ago I got my first dart frogs some they are so awesome and I really wanna get some more darts really really soon.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Well like many here i was the kinda kid who had to turn over every rock i found to see if there was something alive under it. Pre teens and teens i occasionally temporary kept things i caught, or had anoles, a couple iquanas, newts, fish, ect....most of the stuff i bought didnt last long. My first real success was a green anole that lived for over 4 years i got at our state fair. 

Always loved the viv displays at the zoos, but didnt realize that something like that was possible to have in your house. Anyways about a year and a half ago i just all of a sudden HAD TO HAVE something like you see at the zoo, dont know why the urge suddenly hit me like it did. Anyways stumbled onto some the info on the internet and started building, aquired alot of different animals, then found darts. (which i to had seen but didnt know they were kept as pets)

Went to my first local reptile show and they had some so i got the 2 blue azureus and 2 green auratus there (those 4 frogs were the only darts there) well i was hooked found this place and the other major viv/frog sites and spent a crap load of money i didnt have over the next year building various vivs, and began switching my focus from lizards to darts.

Its the perfect hobby for me, it compliments and/or combines almost all my other hobbies and intrests...even ZEN


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## frogman824 (Aug 10, 2005)

Mine started last year, my senior year in highschool. For my environmental science class we could bring in an animal and keep it in there and get extra credit for taking care of it. I bought 2 auratus's and a tinc froglet and realized that I didnt want to keep them at school anymore, so I brought them home. I then bought 4 firebelly toads that I brought into class and realized that I wasn't as interested in those as I was dart frogs. I'm now in college and have 2 vivs (1 in the process of making). My RA found out and were not supposed to have animals except for fish, so now its in my friends room with his frog viv too. 

Mike


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2005)

whats an RA?


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## ErickG (Nov 28, 2004)

I've always been an animal lover, but amphibians specifically have always fascinated me. I can remember catching tadpoles when I was little and trying to understand why I was never able to keep them alive. Maybe it was because I had the attention span of a goldfish and left them in a jar basking in the sun while my mom called me in the house. I never really figured that out until my parents explained it to me. :? 
As I got older, my track record obviously got better. I've kept salamanders, leopard frogs, a host of tree frogs, bullfrogs (that eventually ate some of my tree frogs), an alligator snapper, sliders, mudpuppies,... and the list goes on over the years.... 
It wasnt until I went camping in PA and decided collect several red efts that darts got my attention. I was on my bi-weekly trip to PetCo to pick up crickets for my bearded dragon when I got into a conversation with a worker and he had mentioned going to a reptile show. Just my luck, it was that coming weekend. I decided to attend the metro reptile show in White Plains in the hopes of buying some hydei to feed to my red efts. They were being fed small crickets up to this point, but it just became more expensive since those guys have a pretty hefty appetite. I figure the mass quantities of flies was probably a better investment in the long run, supplemented with the "occasional" installment of small crickets.
Anyway, I was immediately attracted to Black Jungle as their set-up at the show was impressive. Plus they had the fruit flies in stock. I saw the pre-made set-ups and decided to make plans to emulate the same environment for my efts, and RETF. I spoke to the guys at BJ, and got more tips from other vendors, incl. Aaron from Aaron's frog farm. I bought my supplies and set up my first 10 gallon... 
then my second... third. 
Lastly, I decided to look up those interesting dart frogs online and realized the possibilities. How easy of a task it was to maintain these tanks and at the same time rewarding to display these beauties. I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated with the price of these guys considering how tiny they are, but soon enough that didnt matter... 
After some time and plenty of research, I now have over 30 PDFs...
My name is Erick and I'm a PDF addict... Thank you.


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## ErickG (Nov 28, 2004)

RA = Resident Advisor


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2005)

great stories, glad to hear im not the only geek out there :lol:

lots of memories brought back by the similarities.

oh the discus, did a tank with my bro. got a smokin deal on 45 record sized ones, 5 for 125.00. talk about finicky fish though. i sold my 1/2 of the fish to start the 100 gal reef.

the loss of loved ones. the rabbit/snake story. amazing how attatched to our critters we get. how i got out of oscars, raised from pingpong ball sized to small football to hole in the head. he was a fighter all along till his temper got way too bad and attacked the return line of the filter and i came home to 30 of the 90 gal tank on the living room floor. his time was up (its a trip that animals seem to know it too) and in true to his size, had to spike him like a football. quick and im sure it hurt me longer than it hurt him. as i to this day love oscars but cant bring myself to own another.

enough of the sob story, weve all moved on to better PDF'S. i cant wait to get my tank done


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2005)

oops double post


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## dmatychuk (Apr 20, 2005)

I was guilty like most, of the usual tromping swamps, ponds and woods to find my next best friend but what caught me specifically into PDFs was two events.
First was a National Geographic show about 12 years ago on amphibians and it mainly covered Red Eye Tree frogs but there was a very brief glimpse into the world on the PDF. The glimpse made it even more intriguing to me because I like to travel the road less trod.
Secondly, about eight years ago I just happened to do a search on the internet on frogs and I happened to find a guy only 45 minutes away that had a collection. After emails and phone calls he agreed to let me see his private collection. I took 2 of my kids with me and made the journey that was nothing short of stepping into another world. Aw and Amazement is all I can use to describe the first encounter. He had 13 tanks that contained Tinc morphs, Azureus, and Auratus(no thumbs) The clincher was he sold me on the spot my first Colbalt and Auratus pairs the rest has been a living passion. He about two years later got out of the hobby and sold the rest of his collection to me. If you are still out there Greg....THANKS. 

Great post, I liked reading the rest of yours.


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2005)

the passing of the torch..... too cool.


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## mnchartier (May 9, 2005)

My story was in high school I loved reptiles and had an emerald that got out one day and my mom freaked, even though it did not get out of my room, so that ended my snake days and talked her into letting me keep frogs. I was keeping red-eyes, whites, and goliath. Then later I started with some luecs and auratus. I went into the army selling all my frogs, finished my tour got married and now I just got back into the hobby last year, now I have PB Tincs and Spotted Auratus. Will be encreasing my collection once the house is done.


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## josh_r (Feb 4, 2005)

ive been fascinated with animals since i was 3 or 4 yrs old. it started with my grandma taking me into the backyard with a spoon and bucket, lifting up the ivy and scooping up rolly pollies (sowbugs) from that moment on, i was hooked....and, unfortunately, all spoons that once existed in the house..were no longer...lol the backyard was a graveyard of spoons. i got my first real pet (a tarantula) when i was around 8 or 9. my dad had found it crossing the road and brought it home for me. that started my tarantula craze. i moved to washington state and started collecting tarantulas. i had hundreds of them (many different species) one year while on vacation in california for christmas, the heater failed in my room and i lost almost my whole collection. tropical species that, at the time, were very rare. i even lost my prized scolopendra gigantea gigantea that is very rare in collections now and are worth 200 to 300 bux. i stopped collecting after taht and told myself i will not collect untill i move out on my own. so, i moved to arizona.... first week couple weeks there, i had new tarantulas, 3 sidewinder rattlesnakes and a few other things. i lived right next to a great pet store called pets inc and was a frequent visitor there. they had darts and i wasnt too interrested at the time (tarantulas) and didnt pay much attention to them despite the fact that i wanted darts since i was very young. i was just too into tarantulas at the time. i even discovered a few new species of dwarf tarantulas that are in the process of being named. well, i ran into some people that were collectors of darts and good friends with greg and amanda. they had bred leucs and sold me 4 for like 25 bux. i was amazed at how nice they were for doing that! and very appreciative. so, i got into building vivs for them (i had already built many naturalistic vivs for tarantulas, so it came easy) they had told me that once im done with this first viv, it will take over my life and no other animals will matter. i thought, no, ill always have my spiders and other critters...... well, today, i have virtually no tarantulas and have gone broke buying frogs....lol. when someone tells you this hobby will take over, they arnt kidding! this hobby is incredible! so, i focus on darts, exotic and native newts and salamanders, and lots of plants. i still have a few other odd-ball critters, but none come close to my darts and caudates (newts, salamanders)


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## froglet (May 18, 2005)

*I think we all agree with you on that josh, this is a very expensive hobby and can become very addicting. I myself will never be into something as much as my frogs, not sure if its their size, or tanks , or what not but i love the hobby =). There are alot more people still need to share their stories so keep posting..... *


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2005)

I think its the fact that it combines more than one hobby. I for one love that I get to grow plants and take care of frogs at the same time. Also I am into small animals (except dogs, those I like big). I always preffered small fish, and small frogs. So to me it satisfies on so many levels. Maybe thats why its addicting.


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## scooter (Jul 13, 2004)

my story starts with a love of animals like everyone elses. (i'm sensing a theme here). when i got ready to go to college for the third time, (an even longer story), the only place that i could find to live was going to charge me $10 per pet. this made my studio appartment about the same as a four bedroom. the only thing they didn't care about was frogs. so all the geckos, lizards, snakes, chameleons, and my favorite rescue frilled dragon (that i now have back) had to go. i've always been really good with plants and these little guys don't destroy plants the way some animals do. besides, chicks dig frogs


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## Jordan B (Oct 8, 2004)

scooter said:


> besides, chicks dig frogs


I wish!!! lol.


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## scooter (Jul 13, 2004)

my last ex thought they were cute. wait... "my last ex".... hmmmm


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## felicitedanes (May 2, 2005)

Jordan B said:


> scooter said:
> 
> 
> > besides, chicks dig frogs
> ...


Hey, some of us do  On the contrary, most of the guys I meet think it's pretty weird. My last ex recently told me "Enough with the frogs already." 
Felicite


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## scooter (Jul 13, 2004)

"enough with the frogs" !?!?!! what kinda of thing to say is that? there is never enough frogs


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

> besides, chicks dig frogs


I think I mentioned this, long, LONG ago in a reply to christian (my Frog hate me) topic. 
http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =frog+hate

Its ridiculous how so many girls are fond of amphibians, and how I could talk about it much more at work to them then most guys. Recently though, some biology loving guys at work talk more about it to me. 

Even when I went to a reptile show and bought my first tinc, the only other customer than me was a girl, and everybody else crowding around were women.


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2005)

i gotta find one of these girls as frogs are becoming more and more a part of my lifestyle.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Lol, there are girls around... some think its cute... some are into them more than you are 

I've literally had a relationship problem in the past with them... an ex got jealous of me "disapearing off the face of the earth for a weekend to be with the frogs" aka IAD. Frogs originally made me interesting, frogs ended up stealing too much time away from jealous boyfriend. Eek. He didn't last obviously.

Now I'm told I must start an application process for boyfriends, only frog guys and they must be able to bring something to the table (of the frog community). He was joking... mostly. :roll:


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## ErickG (Nov 28, 2004)

Jordan B said:


> scooter said:
> 
> 
> > besides, chicks dig frogs
> ...


hahaha... some might think it's cool... But they hate the flies!


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## Guest (Nov 7, 2005)

KeroKero said:


> Now I'm told I must start an application process for boyfriends, only frog guys and they must be able to bring something to the table (of the frog community). He was joking... mostly. :roll:



There might be something to that. It would make things easier. 

"Searching for 23-26 year old,D&D free, non smoker a plus, Frog lovers a plus!" lol

Do frog lovers smoke?? Hope not, I wouldnt want to give the froggies lung cancer.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

problem is, most frog luvers (our actual herp collecting type, not the green collectible type, which many "frog girls" are) are far and few between.

And, its amazing how diverse our interests really are other than frogs.


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## scooter (Jul 13, 2004)

tell me about it. they claim to love frogs, but have a bunch of real ones in your house and they freak out


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

I smoke....i dont think its to much of an issue, since the tanks are mostly sealed, and smoke rises to hover near the ceiling, i've had a couple of my frogs for 2 years and no problem yet.

As far as girls and frogs go i've noticed that their do seem to be alot of em who like em. Like that damn girl who snagged the last 3 red mantellas from me at a show ;( Alot of guys seem to out grow the whole animal thing or they go more the snake/herp route or aquarium route. Me...i like it all, but am now focused mainly on Darts. At work i've also noticed they are way more intrested in hearing about the frogs too then guys....which is fine with me 

28 yo male smoker, fisherman, dart frog fanatic, Zen Buddhist, artist and generally odd guy(But cute) seeks Female equivelent for a strange and wonderful life together.....no long walks on the beach, but we can do it in the frog room if ya want


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## Guest (Dec 7, 2005)

I saw some Mantellas when i was about 8 years old in a shop on the coast. Id never seen anything like them before, and really wanted to keep them. My mum wouldn't let me have them becasue of the fly's, so i kept fish for 10 years, now ive moved out, im kinda thinking about getting back into it. But one thing i do know about creating habitats, you only get one chance.

So im here to do it right the first time round.

lurk lurk lurk, im watching you, he he he


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## Guest (Dec 7, 2005)

There is a stream that runs right through the middle of town, and empties into a river that skirts one side of town. As a kid, a family friend who's backyard ran along a section of the stream used to babysit me, and her daughter and I would spend every single day mucking around in shin-deep water, catching garter snakes, frogs, tadpoles, minnows...whatever we could catch. I would receive herp field guides for Christmas and birthdays, and spend hours pouring through them, reminding myself which ones I would someday collect. Once I hit jr. high, while most friends were playing a pickup game of football or baseball, I was down in the creek or ditch collecting minnows, snakes, and lampreys for a science teacher's tanks. My friends watched the Superbowl--I watched Sharkweek on the discovery channel. 

Once I hit high school, my interest in herps started to fade a bit and I veered more into fish, more specifically marine biology. I had a 30 gal aquarium (which I still have and use) that became the "be all-end all" community tank, until I bought a juvenile oscar and as it grew, the community shrank.

I went to a university initially to go into marine biology, but somehow lost track of that once I got there. For the next few years I just focused on class, friends, life in general. I got married the summer before my junior year of college, and when moving one of my wife's boxes into our apartment, I noticed she had a little 2 gal hex aquarium. I asked why she had it, and she said that at the time, planned on setting it up with a little fish in her dorm room...but never did. Within a week I had it set up and we went out and picked out a goldfish for it. Within a few months we got a bigger tank for it...and I was right back where I used to be. I fell headfirst into freshwater aquariums and found an incredible little 'hole in the wall' fish store that specialized in dwarf cichlids, rare anabantids, etc. It was my niche. And so were biotopes. I poured over articles about natural habitats in South America, West Africa, peat swamps in Kalimantan and Sumatra, hiding them behind notebooks in my lecture classes. I collected my own materials for tanks: rocks, gravel, wood, etc. People said that my tanks looked "dirty." I took it as a compliment.

About a year after diving into this, a friend of mine at college got a job in the computer tech area, complete with his own office. I think it was actually just an empty storage room, but evidently big enough for a desk, 3 computers, and a 125 gal reef tank. Like everything else had this, triggered how much I missed the marine aspect of things. I had kept aquariums at home during the late 80's and early 90's, and things had REALLY progressed in reefkeeping since then. I had a lot to catch up on! At this point, nano reefs were just beginning to emerge (I can remember about 3 websites regarding them, and that was about it). Most people would tell you that trying to keep a saltwater tank smaller than 40-50 gallons would only end in disaster. This is when my friend told me about online forums for reefkeeping. And it was on one of these, about 3 years ago now, that I checked out the website of a reefkeeper to see his tank more in depth. I think it was actually a member on here, DanConnor. 

He had this big terrestrial setup with some blue frogs that he called Dendrobates Azureus. I googled them, which led me to webpage after webpage, from leucomelas to tricolor to pumilio to imitator. These were the same frogs I had read about when I was a kid that could kill a man, and here they were in peoples' living rooms! So, I started setting up some vivs with locally collected plants and materials, just to see how well things would grow. And for the last couple years they've grown well, and I am on the verge of finally getting my first official frogs. 

So, the circle hasn't fully come back around yet, but when it does...you're all going to know about it.  Wow, this was a long post.


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## Guest (Dec 9, 2005)

My husband, the aquarist of the family, vowed he'd crack open upon our initiation into Familyhood the dozen or so large moving boxes labed "fish supplies" that have been stored in our garage for the past 8 years .

Our daughter was born 4 years ago yet the boxes remained sealed, until finally they reminded us of their presence during a move from Minneapolis, MN to Austin, TX a year ago. 

With double the living space we were determined to locate the perfect spot for a 72x24x24. After much consideration, we decided the only place sufficient was a bare wall in the family room that backs to the garage. Excellent spot for building the tank into the wall, having access from the garage, but oh wait...we'd have to cool the garage that gets to be 105 degrees in the summer. Ok, build a wall to create a room 20'x4', but it would have a 12 foot ceiling...add a/c vents, a drain, door. Cost = $10k! I wanted a tank but didn't plan on a major remodeling project or selling a vital organ to pay for it.

Last summer we were exploring the San Antonio Zoo for the first time and were delighted to find a special treat - dart frogs. In our travels we always hit the local zoo or aquarium and the dart frogs have always been our favorites. One year at the Minnesota Zoo one year we had a traveling exhibit come for a couple of months and we went back multiple times just to see the frogs. 

Seeing them again this summer gave me an idea - instead of an aquarium full of exotic breeding fish and beautiful lush plants, what about a vivarium full of exotic breeding dart frogs and beautiful lush plants? My husband said "Sure! Let's get a couple of books to read to learn more about them". I imagined an afternoon that included a relaxing stroll through Borders with a latte in hand, instead he headed to his office and proceeded to pull books off the shelves with titles such as "Breeding and Keeping Frogs & Toads" and "Keeping Poison Frogs". I asked him how long he'd had books on dart frogs and he replied "oh, about ten years or so". 

Turns out that after 15 years as an aquarist he had become bored and was looking for something new. He had already done quite a bit of research and developed a comprehensive plan on hatching eggs, rearing tadpoles and morphing froglets. Life gets busy, ideas come and go, so along with many other ingenious plans, this one was filed away at the back corners of his mind...until one simple inquiry redirected our focus to these delicate creatures.

So here we are a couple of months later with two pairs of adult leucs and our first clutch of eggs... 

Happy froggin'!

Jill


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## Frank H (Nov 3, 2005)

Great story Jill  

I started with Mantellas 2 years ago or so. I had a nice viv with live plants.. Mantellas were on sale at the local pet store for $40. so I put 2 in my viv. The pet stores never say the species or morph.. just said Mantellas here.. and Dart Frogs there... 

Well the mantellas were cheaper so Iwent with them.. A pair of green mantellas. I heard calling sounds like a cricket almost, for about 2 months.. they might have both been males.. Well one day they were both missing.. they must have excaped from a small opening in the top.. I had no Idea they would climb the glass.. I was a DEFINATE NOOB!

Well I couldnt get over the itch.. I wanted more frogs.. And for my second time around I went with D. tinctorius- and a very tight fitting top.  

Darts are the way to go! here in california.. as they can take the higher temps.. but the pet store failed to inform me- they said I could keep the Dendrobates and Mantellas together. :roll:


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## Dunner97074 (Sep 19, 2004)

My story is simple, I'm a bio geek. I love animals and grew up dragging every cool little creature I could find home with me. I got in to PDFs in college (a few years ago now :roll: ) when I had a class where we had to do a scientific experiment. I mimicked an experiment titled "The territoriality and tenacity of the male Dendrobates pumilio". I had 6 Blue Jean males (on loan) and would perform tests using sight, sound and both to ellicit a response. It was awesome! I actually found myself getting waaaay deeper into my experiment than I needed to. The sad day came when I had to return the pums. I vowed I would keep them again in the future. Years past and I still had the desire to get back into it but lacked the last kicker until my trip to Costa Rica, shortly after I returned the affliction started. Now I kick myself for not saying yes to buying the Blue Jeans (for $20ea) when I had the chance! 
Mike


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

I started with Fire Bellied Toads and with some more reading fell in love with darts. I've been at is for about four years now and somehow the hobby never ceases to facinate me. I'm always thinking of new ways of doing things and for someone who loves to tinker and frogs, it's a perfect match. Now I'm starting to breed my frogs again and so the topic opens up even more with that.



*Never pay again for live sex! | Hot girls doing naughty stuff for free! | Chat for free!*


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## froglet (May 18, 2005)

This is a good discussion, i was drunk when i started it while thinking to myself why the heck do i have frogs :wink: . Keep them coming fellas, keep them coming.


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## Guest (Dec 16, 2005)

Hey all

I am new here, so this is the perfect start, how did you get into this hobby.

Well started out with keeping fishes, after that I made from my aquarium something suitable for reptiles (anolis, gecko's,...).

After that I saw some dart frogs on a local show, I was sold at that instand. After some reading, I visited a breeder. Well it didn't take long before I had some. Initially leuco's, auratus and tincs in 1 big vivarium. After some time you want to start breeding, you notice that those species can inbreed. So put them all in seperate tanks... Well once you get the disease of keeping frogs :wink:


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## Paul E. Wog (Jan 2, 2005)

Wow it's been a long time since I've posted. Way to busy wrapping up my B.A. I'll try to post more often.

Anyhoo, did the whole drag every snake, lizzard, spider etc. home as a child. Than I started keeping bettas and african cichlids and from there moved up to reef tanks for the past 11 years. funny that I have never owned a regular fW community tank, or anything else particularly normal for that matter, with the acception of my dog and cat.

Anyway, I got into DFs in a very weird way. a little over a year ago I had a dream of all things about PDFs, it was kind of a flashback to when I was 12 and saw some at a reptile shop while on vacation in CA. When I woke up I kept thinking about it and somehow recalled that the guy at the shop told me that they were not poisonous when bred in captivity. So I immidiately hit the net and started doing some reseearch, and sure enough I was right. weird huh? At least I can use destiny as an excuse for my frog adiction, because it came to me in a dream LOL :lol: 

3 months later I had 3 leucs and to commemorate my 1 year anniversary in DFs comming up jan 10 I bought myself a trio of young adult azureus. now as soon as I can afford it I need to get myself some thumbs.

Merry *Christ*mas everybody.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2005)

Thats a grreat way to get into DF's. I know that when I have some sort of memory that I had forgotten from my childhood I become obsessive about it. Like if I suddenly remember a song long forgotten, I HAVE TO know what the song is. 

Adding to the strangeness, your mention of Jan 10 is the 20th time I've heard that date mentioned this week. Maybe its becuase Im more likely to remember that date since thats my b-day.


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## Paul E. Wog (Jan 2, 2005)

Khamul1of9 said:


> Adding to the strangeness, your mention of Jan 10 is the 20th time I've heard that date mentioned this week. Maybe its becuase Im more likely to remember that date since thats my b-day.


Happy birthday, hope you get some nice frogs.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2005)

Well, its a bit early for my birthday, but oK, THANKS!!!!

I decided this year to turn 26 two months early, so that I will be 26 for 14 months rather than 12. My own little way of not aging.


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## Nuggular (Apr 8, 2005)

I went to a small reptile show in Madison and met Devin Edmonds. After talking to devin about darts for like and hour and getting more comfortable with the idea of keeping them, I bought 2 powder blue tincs from him and 1 fly culture and I was off. I already have alot of other species of reptiles and amphibians, so darts was just the next choice after I saw how cool fully planted vivs look. So thx to Devin, I had a great start and he was always there to help, like when my cultures just werent producing, he always was willing to spare a few cultures for me. Thx Devin!


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## Chano (Oct 29, 2007)

For me I have ever since i can remember been fascinated by the rainforest. When i was a kid the first time i saw a PDF i thought it was the coolest creature i had ever seen. My mom found a place where you could buy little (actually bigger than the real thing) plastic darts. (i will never forget all of my G.I. Joes riding into battle on what i now know as leucs, and the battle that ensued when they met the Cobra army mounted on their trusty G&B auratus.) She bought me a couple and i liked them so much every time she was out and near there she would pick me up one or two. I litterally had at least 150 of them. I actually never even knew that they could be kept in captivity until recently when someone on a saltwater fish forum i frequent started a thread about them. I asked them a question about keeping them as a pet and they directed me here. I registered on the forum and couldn't get my confirmation email so i could hardly see anything lol. They talked to one of the mods who confirmed me manually ( i guess thats what happened anyhow lol) and i got in. As soon as i opened the gallery and saw a viv (got so excited and amazed i forget who's it was) I was hooked. I read and research constantly and i am totally stoked about getting my first frogs. Everyone i know is actually amazed it has taken me so long to build my viv as i am usually very impulsive. (I have saltwater fish hobby and my genuine love and concern for animals to thank for the patience i have been able to keep) I really want to provide the best tiny little chunk of the rainforest i can for my frogs.

I would also like to thank Mike22cha and porkchop48 for introducing me to the idea and directing me here. (I dunno if your names are the same here but you know who you are)


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## Otis (Apr 16, 2006)

i was like 11 years old and i was watching jeff corwin and he was doing some exploring in costa rica and there was this little tadpole in a brom, and then i was hooked.


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## thetattooedone (Mar 26, 2007)

My mom was a grade school teacher and used to bring home various "classroom" pets from her school every summer. By the time I was 8 or 9 I had Anoles, Fire Belly toads, and many indigenous species in tanks all over the house. I had the bug from day one I guess. But as far as dart frogs, I had always been fascinated with anything bright and flashy that nature produced. About 5 years ago, I was searching the net and came across some PDF info sites and eventually found some breeders, placed an order and well..the rest is history! I never would've guessed that you could own PDF's, so when I saw an opportunity, I jumped on it.


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## housevibe7 (Sep 24, 2006)

My husband was over in Iraq, so I frequented an army wives website... one of the gals on there has a group of Blue Sip and she started posting progress pictures when she got her first eggs (she is Kiari93 or something like that on here) well she told me about this site, and that she would give me some of her froglets when they morphed out. Well, I started researching things, and then most of her froglets came down with SLS... but by then I was hooked so I got my first 3 imitator from Phil Tan, I then added 4 more to the group from various sources a couple months later. THe rest as they say.....


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

I read a National Geographic article in the mid 90's about dart frogs and I wanted nothing more than a huge tank with dart frogs in it! I was only 12 or so at the time, so nothing came of it. Then a few years ago a friend who keeps multiple reptiles took me to a place so she could get something, and they had darts! So I started reading and reading, and six months later finally built a tank. It took more reading and reading and then I finally got a pair of Tincs. I took me awhile after that to actually start reading on DB, and that has only increased my love. It is the perfect hobby to compliment my orchid collecting.

Now my friends are starting to ask for tanks and frogs!


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

well, my love for darts started when i was about 15 years old and saw a pic of some of them in a magazine, from there i went on to purchase some from a local store and they were cobalts, don't even remember how much i paid, but i remember breeding crikets and ordering termites all the time to feed them, them the array of colors just got me hooked just like chameleons and day geckos.


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## thedude (Nov 28, 2007)

i live on 10 acres of woods and wetlands so of course i have ponds! by the time i was 2 my mom had to take me down to the pond everyday and catch and find pacific tree frogs and there tadpoles and mudpuppies(i would later find out that they were long toed salamander larvae). when i got older we would go to the woodland park zoo in seattle and they had some darts there and i would think how cool it would be to own some.

well last march i went to a small show looking for turtles and what did i see? DART FROGS. i saw how much they were and didnt have quite enough and no experiance so i decided against getting them. but i knew there was a big show comin up in october and there would be some there. so after that i crammed all the info i could into brain since then and got 6 darts at that show! took 15 years after the "mudpuppies" and treefrog tads but i got what i wanted


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## reggorf (Oct 24, 2006)

I always loved going to pet stores and looking at all the fish when I was a kid. I had a few tanks with goldfish or neon tetras in elementary school. I set up a couple tanks when I was 22 or so with angel fish, plecos, catfish, a betta, and african dwarf frogs(not all in the same tank). My husband was looking something up on the internet about my dwarf frogs and stumbled across a site for PDF's. He did months of reading on here and other sites. We got our first frogs, surinam cobalts, in Feb. of 2006. I did not know anything about them. So, I started reading the boards on here as well. I am as much into the frogs as he is now. As you can see by my signature, we have a lot more frogs now. I can't even fit all of our frogs into the signature(I think we need to be allowed more space for our signatures :wink: ) It is something that we can do together, which makes me love it even more.


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## barbar0 (Dec 3, 2007)

My boyfriend loves all animals, and if i wouldnt intervene, we had a real zoo by now. We already have 3 cats, rabbits, ferrets, chicken, turkeys, 2 ravens... and he would love having more, like a lama or a potbellied pig or whatever, but i intervene there. But when he started doing some research on making a big tropical viv with some darts in, he had me immediately. I loved amphibeans since i was a kid. I spent hours observing frogs in a nearby nature reserve and brought home every frog or newt i could find for our pond in the garden. We planned the viv together, set it up together, and since last week, we got our first PDFs (some azureus) - and we love it! And already we started talking about the second viv we wanna set up, with some leucs in it... Suppose its the beginning of an addiction... :wink:


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## GSXR_MURRHEE (Sep 16, 2006)

I still remember when I was little, probably about 7 or 8 yrs old, watching nature shows at my dad's house. One night they had a show about rainforest animals and showed a few dart frogs. I couldn't get over the colors of the frogs and how much cooler looking they were than frogs from around here. Growing up I would catch a show or magazine that had them in it. I think I was in high school when I started thinking about trying to get some, but they were still pretty rare in the US and someone told me that the only places that had them were zoos and such, and that in captivity they were prone to flipping over and having seizures which resulted in death. With that my dream of owning some faded away. Then shortly after getting out of the marines, I went to the breeder's expo in Daytona thinking about getting a snake. Imagine my surprise when I saw darts for the first time in person! After talking to the breeders there, I found out what was needed for them and how to care for them. I managed to restrain myself from buying right then and went home to do some quick research on the net. the next day I was back, got my frogs and everything needed. I've been hooked ever since.


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## porkchop48 (May 16, 2006)

First off Chano - you are very welcome. This is an awesome site with awesome people

Mine started bout 5 years ago when my sister got a pair of Azureus from a breeder aroound here who has since moved. Unfortunatel they died due to her inablility to keep FF alive. 
SO i started looking in darts and thoughT i should be able to keep them. I had always thought for years upon years that they were so hard to keep that i wouldnt even consider it. 
I ended up with a killer deal on a 40gal breeder ( 15 $ with lid and lights) andy ways I set it up for about a year and started reseaching. Eventually got my frogs for a repitle show in butler from a guy named dave ( pair of citronellas ( and had to get a leuc cause hubby liked him) which meant setting up another tank.. oh darn and now 3 years later i am still hooked have my own frog room in my house and spend way too much time here every day.


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## Abbathx (Aug 15, 2007)

i have been working with amphibians almost my whole life.. mostly salamanders & newts but i noticed some darts at the zoo. did some reading and research . i got my first darts about 3 years ago. i might get involved with some conservation programs for salamaders & newts dissapearing.. on my spare time fun projects  my goal is captive breeding hellbenders and reintroducing them back where they are almost completely gone.

~doug.


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## Kentanner11 (Sep 30, 2007)

I think I have the most random:
I have had tortoises for along time! I added green anoles to my collection about 2 years ago and went to my first reptile show ever. While I was there I was looking at this weird mister thing (for darts) which is by AZDR, I went to their site to see hat other things they had for reptiles, didn't have anything I needed but a lot of stuff for "darts" (had no clue what that meant) so I googled it and found many forums. Here I am today, hopefully going to start my first dart tank in the next two weeks.


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## the Dregs (Dec 16, 2007)

You know what? I have no idea. I wandered here to Dendroboard for some reason about a year ago, just messing around on the internet as I tend to do while my family watches TV in the same room. I got really into planning a setup before I realized it was a little out of my price range and impracticable as I would be moving in a few months anyway. The more established folks around here kind of scared me away as well.

A few months ago my brother, out of the blue, mentioned that he would love to make a frog terrarium. I helped him decide what he wanted as I had done so much research previously. He backed out and I kept going.

So now I have 200 odd dollars worth of stuff coming for my new tank, plus a 200 dollar gift certificate to Black Jungle waiting for me (for the actual frogs) when I get the paludarium set up.


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## Greg (Dec 25, 2007)

*It was not my idea.*

I would not have guessed that this would have turned out this way, and if somebody had told me that I would be getting involved in Dendrobates I would have told them they were nuts. A week ago I did not even know what a Dendrobate was. But on Christmas morning I got a terrarium and inside it were two bright blue frogs (D. azureus to be specific). These two frogs were so impressive and pretty you just have to love them, so in the last couple days I have talked with my friend Dean (also a member on Dendroboard, this was mostly his idea) and joined Dendroboard and I expect for this to be a fun new hobby- one that I didn't see coming and never would have expected.


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## Conman3880 (Jul 8, 2007)

A few years ago I was flipping through my Things You Never Knew Existed catalogue, and I came across a carnivorous plant terrarium kit by DuneCraft. I thought it might be fun to try out, so I ordered one. Unfortunately I didnt know what "stratification" meant, and not one seed germinated. Still, this sparked an interest in plants. I was flipping through a different issue of the same catalogue a few months later and found a banana plant growing kit from DuneCraft. I gave this a shot and managed to germinate 2 seeds, one of which was severely burned by my ignorance of fertilizer at the time, and it later died. The other one lived for a year or so, but never exceeded 8". Anyway, in that time I had gotten many, many different species of bananas from online vendors & and interest in tropical plants ensued. My basement was soon more dense than the Amazon. Then one day I had an ingenious idea; why not fuse my loves for plants and animals together? So I started researching and narrowed down the animal choices to either day geckos or poison dart frogs. I decided on a day gecko, and I set up a simple terrarium (ironically enough, a love for reptiles outcompeted the love for plants, and very few live plants were added to this terrarium), and the gecko is very much alive and well today. Well I was now immensely interested in micro-habitats, and thought it would be fun to actually introduce live plants to an animals environment, so I decided to set up a dart frog vivarium. And that's when it started =P

Interestingly enough, I never tore apart that carnivorous plant terrarium, and some liverworts stared growing in it recently. I added those to my latest vivarium. =P


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## MonopolyBag (Jun 3, 2007)

In 1989 the family business SeaWorld Pet Center was made, the year I was born.

I went there with my dad all the time, stared at the frogs, and other exotic pets.

I would be playing outside, my dad mowing the lawn, and he would shot "FROG!" and I would be there standing next to him within milliseconds. I would already have the frog in my hands, and showing him before he finished the word "frog"

I always tried to catch the impossible "spring peeper" in my woods, I heard them though. never did.

I then went to SeaWorld Pet Center (SWPC) and saw a tank full of little dart frogs. I remember reading of them in my amphibian alphabet book, jungle books, and on puzzles I had.

I wanted some, but never got them. I didn't have the concept of money at the time.

We moved when I was 10, and moved from Salem NH to Salem NH, only across from a swamp, vernal pool to be exact. And me and my brothers were over there during that spring before our house was done being built.

(Side story, some species of carnivorous sundew plant grew in our yard before the house was built on this lot, and with my little knowledge at that age, i recognized it, and was pissed when my parents gave the ok to plant GRASS over there. To this day never saw any and now more into CP I am pissed, wicked pissed. Land development sux.)

So, we were over there, at dusk, and found Green Frogs, Pickerel frogs (or maybe leopard, don't know how to tell difference yet) and Spring Peepers. We would catch bull frogs at the pond, and gray tree frogs also. many wood frogs as well.

So, I wanted my room to be painted like a Jungle in this new house, but as I grew, this idea became more "childish" I would draw plans and everything.

So i grew out of that, and stopped catching frogs, and began observing it. As my neighbors, years younger than me, stopped going into the swamp for fun, and my bothers took up other hobbies. I still go into the woods, by the pond, and in the spring the marsh, and sit there, observe things, (winter too) and watch hawks in the wild for hours just do nothing. And stuff like that. very relaxing.

So this was about 1.5 years ago.

Recently have decided to become an environmentalist for college, and was planning on that for a long time, but, My last semester of High School, I took a pet and green house management class. And after working at a greenhouse, I liked it, but was laid off due to money loss, I loved this class. It inspired my past interests, and they have come back 9for the good? To haunt me and my family? I am happy though!) and when my teacher offered free baby veiled chameleons! My mother said no, so I asked about dart frogs, the RETFs then I got some, and more and more and plants, and got her old grow lights in the basement, then into my room, then more tanks and frogs, then a salt water aquarium. Met a good friend (Sokretys) freshman year in bio class in the bathroom, and he loved Salt Water Aquariums, and he got me more interested. got a job at PetCo, and continued.

Now my plan is to go to school and focus on ecology and zoology, and botany, and business.

Start my own business with Sokretys and continue and share my hobby with people. We are thinking a service to set up and maintain aquariums and vivs.

my room now is better than I imagined at age 11, and instead of pictures of frogs (I got pictures of master chief and ski maps) I have REAL RETFs and Dart Frogs! And REAL Carnivorous pants!

With my love for plants (I always am in the garden) ART and miniature things, and animals, and natural environments and ecosystems, this hobby is PERFECT!

So, I like this hobby, and am loving it. I can't wait until spring again, and just sit outside at night in the swamp! OOO YEAH!!!!

Well that is my story, hope you enjoyed it (if you could read it all) and I hope many others enjoy the hobby as much as I do.

O yeah, I forgot, I found DendroBoards to do my research on PDFs before I got some. LOL!


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## MonopolyBag (Jun 3, 2007)

Khamul1of9 said:


> There might be something to that. It would make things easier.
> 
> "Searching for 23-26 year old,D&D free, non smoker a plus, Frog lovers a plus!" lol
> 
> Do frog lovers smoke?? Hope not, I wouldnt want to give the froggies lung cancer.


http://www.dendroboard.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=270241#270241


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## JJuchems (Feb 16, 2004)

May 1995 National Geographic, I saw them, read about them, and then wanted them. I guess that is what every 6th grader does. When I graduated high school I decided to take a dive and drop some graduation cash on some frogs. Now I have 5th grade students in my classroom who want them. The cycle of the hobby.


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## slipperheads (Oct 17, 2007)

2005 - Richomnd Reptile Expo. A nice couple(who owns Under the Canopy)were there and got me hooked ever since. The moment I got home, I flew onto the computer and came here(before I joined) to get information. It's been a great source ever since!


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## MonopolyBag (Jun 3, 2007)

§lipperhead said:


> 2005 - Richomnd Reptile Expo. A nice couple(who owns Under the Canopy)were there and got me hooked ever since. The moment I got home, I flew onto the computer and came here(before I joined) to get information. It's been a great source ever since!


More than just a great source, it is part of my life! Like another family... :?


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## mallende (Jan 12, 2008)

My family had a large collection of encyclopedias. Ever since i can remember, i used to try to read them. I remember being about 5 when my parents began to let me sit and read them alone feeling secure i wasn't going to crayon the living daylights out of the pages....then one day my dad found a little masterpiece right next to the reptiles section....i had drawn my own PDF in the encyclopedia. My dad ended up ripping the page out and having framed, it was quite impressive for that age.

After that i began to have all sorts of pets until finally was able to find PDF in one of the local reptile shows. Then in an instant began a life-long passion for PDFs. 

About 12 years later i went to art school and all my 3D art projects where based on replicating natural forms or scenes to such a degree that ive made all sorts of terrariums, and still going. 

Now im an airline pilot in panama, and a day doesn't go by that i don't look down on takeoff for new areas to go look for PDFs. It's a vicious cycle for me now, when im on the ground i go out to look for PDFs and wish i can also be flying, then when im flying it's like i absolutely love what i do, but also want to be on the ground looking for froggies. hehehe.


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

I was supposed to get darts for a contest on a different site. Then the guy who offered them as the prize took off and never came back. After a year of waiting and reading about them constantly, I went to a meet and bought 5 cobalt tadpoles(thanx again rob  )

I'm so glad I got burned on this contest. It got me reading about darts. Now they are my all time favorite animal. I'm hooked


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## grendel88 (Oct 19, 2006)

I, like many others began my herpophilia with tropical fish. The heavy maintenance load on my 6 fish tanks and obscene amount of weight on my floors led me to look for something a little simpler when I relocated. That was when I bought my first quartet of red walking frogs (_Phrynomerus bifisciatus_). Shortly after that, I was at Sea World and saw a dart frog exhibit and was entranced by he inherent beauty and complexity of the vivarium. My girlfriend (later my wife) and I planned my first viv, that was quasi-disasterous in design and purchased a quartet of Cobalt blue tincs from Chris Dietz. After that, I was off and running.


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## got frogs? (Sep 7, 2008)

For me, it all started when I was about 10 yrs old. My mom took me to the zoo and we were going through the reptile exihibits and as I was getting bored I turned around and saw this little viverium with 2 dart frogs in it, and for some reason it caught my eye. And I told my mom that day that someday I will have some of those. And she said yeah, uh huh, ok. Then about a year ago, we moved into an apartment, my landlord said no pets except for in a small aqarium, and what do you know a trip to an exotic pet store, and look kaboom, DART FROG EXPLOSION! Now my front room is full of dart tanks. That is how it happened for me.


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## ggazonas (May 11, 2008)

froglet said:


> *While i was getting dressed for work today, i noticed that every morning while i drink my coffee while i stare at my frogs. I ask myself how in the world did i get into a hobby that requires you to have frogs in tanks...... As i topic i would like to know from each and every one of you, how you all got started with Darts.
> I got into darts a few years back when i passes by a reptile store in the VIllage NYC. I was looking for a cool pet to buy and when i came accross a tricolor baby i was amazed at the small size. I decided to pay $45 dollars for something i knew very little about. After a few weeks i realized that my froggy needed more friends and then came the addiction of frog raising..........................
> 
> NEXT PLEASE*


I was pondering the same thing and was about to post a thread about this topic

Anyways I have always been interested in fish and herps and while I was in school at Rutgers getting a degree in Landscape Architecture I found out from some students in the class above me that their was someone who kept/bred various chameleon species ( which at the time was a big interest of mine and I still do keep a male veiled today.) Anyways I went to his house and saw his setups for his darts as well as the chameleons. Being one that always loved nature I found that the living enviroments were how I wanted to keep all my herps. I wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible. So I tried it will some of the herps I was keeping. It didn't work out so well. I then decided to check out the BJ website ( always saw them at the shows, but thought paying 45 for a frog was insane however now I occasionlly buy a frog for 125, so that notion has been erased from my mind) and began reading about darts. I read info and researched on darts for over 2 months before I finally purchased my first frogs over a year ago at Frog Day. I now have nearly a hundred frogs.


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## sounddrive (Jan 4, 2007)

i was very heavy into saltwater. i had a 250 gal reef tank and about six more smaller tanks. i was starting to grow tired of all the salt creep and shear maintenance of the tanks. so i started thinking about finding a new hobby. i started to vear in the direction of chameleons. i new i wanted something to do with live plants and vivaria. i went to a local pet shop to pick up an octopus that i ordered for a small 30gal octagon i had. i noticed that they had a really cool 150 gal Viv set up with a group of 6 leucs, i was instantly drawn to them. i saw they also had 3 blue and black auratus in a tiny 5gal. i felt so bad that the leucs had this huge tank and these guys were stuck in a crappy 5Gal tank. so i paid a crazy $60 each for them. i had them for about a year before i got a clutch of eggs. this immediately prompted my to start research where i came across this site. my knowledge has grown a great deal in the past 6 years and i look forward to it getting even better.


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## antoniolugo (Apr 8, 2011)

Since I can remember I was obsessed with reptiles. I first started with lizards and house geckos I found near my house. Next I got a tortoise from a friend as a birthday present, it was the best birthday present I just couldn't believe it!
Then I saw a Chameleon and I became obsessed with them so I went to San Diego and got a beautiful veiled cham, in that store I saw my first darts I was like WOW! I was amazed by all the bright and beautiful colors they have but they were to expensive for me and I had no idea on how to keep them.

Finally I went to collage and I gave all my pets because I was going to live out of my city and couldn't move with them. I found a reptile store where they had all the reptiles I always wanted. I got a Colombian Boa I kept it for a year and my mom hated it, so I told her I will trade it for something else, so I went to the reptile store and he accepted to trade it for some leucs. To make the story short I got all the supplies and the tank. Now Im addicted to them, I started with a pair I now have 16 frogs and counting! I just cant get enough of them I just love their behavior and they are an easy pet to take care of.


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## ZookeeperDoug (Jun 5, 2011)

I love when super old threads get resurected!

For me it was about 2003, a local guy named Ray was helping me and a few other guys with a startup aquarium design company in Houston Texas. Ray had terribilis of some kind I think, and we set up a dart frog display in our shop and a few for clients.

I aquired first some citronella and then patricia's from Patricia herself at Vanishing jewels and kept them for a few years, but after moving I gave them to a client. 

I got back into the hobby full force recently after the zoo I work for aquired 40 Auratus and Azureus. That rikindled my intrest full force.


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

I also like resurrected threads. I have been obsessed with darts since I was in third grade and saw them at the OKC zoo. I remember later that school year, the whole class worked together to make a huge paper totem pole. I made my section a tinc (a classic cobalt, but I didn't know it). Later when I was in my early teens, and very much into herps in general, I checked out a book from the library about frog husbandry. That was the point I realized that people actually kept these treasures. I wanted them so bad for so long. I never saw them for sale until about 10 years ago. About 3 years later I bought my first leucs and, well, here I am.


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## ravengritz (Mar 2, 2009)

A few years ago I was looking for a couple small frogs to put in a desktop terrarium. I went to a local reptile show planning to pick up a pair of mantellas. A breeder and I got to talking and decided that a pair of thumbs would be a better fit (due to them being diurnal and my previous animal husbandry experience). I had always wanted darts but for some reason didn't think it would be feasible. Needless to say after a few months watching my lamasi I was hooked and slowly added more darts to my home. Every six months to a year I added a new group of frogs and am now thrilled to say that I have happy/healthy groups of lamasi, vents, orange (green footed) leucs, auratus and my latest (and most fun to watch) mint terribilis. I adore my darts and am so very appreciative of the information and guidance provided by that first breeder.
Melissa


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## crittercurt (Jul 8, 2009)

I started off with a pair of chams that my brother got bored of so I got them, then I got a snake and a couple anoles, then while I was looking at another lizard to get(I had two anoles in a 190 gallon viv) on one of the lizard websites they were selling frogs so I looked at them and found darts and I was hooked instantly.


Curtis


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## brinkerh420 (Oct 2, 2011)

This past summer, I kept a few green frogs from Base Line Lake in Dexter, Michigan. I fed them bees and flies, and once I had to let them go, I started on the frog adventure.
I got a green tree frog and a fire bellied toad, and then I went to NARBC and got one leuc. Getting more soon.


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## leuc11 (Nov 1, 2010)

Well a while back I was at my local reptile shop and they had some imitators and when I saw them I was like that's so fricken cool so I went home and built a tank and 1year whe by and I discovered joshs frogs and I got some vitiates from Josh and I've been hooked since and now I'm getting some auratus on Tuesday


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## Brian317 (Feb 11, 2011)

i've always been a nature lover since I was little, going through creeks and lakes, finding frogs, lizards, turtles you name it. In elementary school got my first lizard(leopard gecko, which I still have about 14 years later) and never really grew out of it. I was more into reptiles in middle school, aquiring a baby bearded dragon (which I still have as well 8 years down the road). I had one frowler toad that I had for 9 years though...he was a great little guy and kept me interested in amphipians. I went to a local show in late middle school and saw they kept dart frogs as pets, but my parents at the time said no, I had enough pets for now.....so I moved on....

Anywho, I kept my two lizards and only them through high school and college, but kept my focus on school and other.....activities. I was still a nature lover, but not as into it as when I was younger.

After college, I got married and got my own house. After I moved my two lizards in my spare bedroom, I was looking online for something(forget now) and stumbled over a photo of a PDF, which got me thinking about when I was younger always wanting to keep one as a pet. I think that moment re-kindled my spark. I did alot......and I mean ALOT of research and set up my first viv and purchased my first frogs(auratus) and a local reptile show last December. I've been addicted ever since.....


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## xsputnikx (May 11, 2010)

I got into reptiles when I was about 19. I had about 16 different snakes on a rack I built in my house and I also had spiders and gecko's and a pair of sandfire red bearded dragons. I raised all of these with the help of my X. I def was addicted and loved reptiles. Then we broke up and it was impossible for me to tend to these myself and have a full time job. So I got rid of most of them and I would always see the darts at the reptile show but dealing mainly with snakes. I never gave them a second thought. 

Fast foward about 8 years and my Girl now would not go for me having a snake but I had to have some kind of pet so i said to heck with it got to looking online for dart frogs and here I am now 8 frogs later and I still want more


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## davidadelp (Sep 29, 2010)

I like most people on the fourm was heavy into Saltwater aquariums. I was at a local fish clubs annual swap and meet and a fellow DB member Allen Hunter was there as well. Only he had his frogs and was selling froglets and had everything u would need there up for viewing etc. Needless to say I did not buy any frogs then, but I had kept the thought in the back of my mind that I would love to get into the hobby. It was well over a year after I had seen Allens frogs till I actually started buying things up to start my first viv and get my first frogs which was O. lamasi.

Ever since then I have been hooked and only continue to aquire more and more frogs! Will it ever end? Doubt it!!


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## lapidsilver (Sep 23, 2009)

The generally Herp interested started when I was a kid at my grandparents house. I found box turtles, snapping turtles, frogs, and garter snakes frequently. When I was 14 or so I found a book at the library about dart frogs that was about 2" thick and full of pictures (can't remember the title). I discovered a vendor in Reptile Hobbyist that sold dart frogs and had them fax me a price list at Kinkos. Back then Leucs were $75 and Azureus were $300, and there was no way I could afford something like that. I've always had reptiles/amphibians growing up, but dart frogs were always too out of reach. It wasn't until 2009 after college and a "real" job that I finally obtained my first leucs, and the collection/addictions has been growing since.


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