# Oophaga ready? Opinions, criticism ready..



## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Was originally designing this tank for some RETF’s but, that fell through.. found this gorgeous brom.. had to cut leaves but.. that’s okay..

Anyway, I’m positive this enclosure would be pretty well suited for an Oophaga species or a Ranitomeya species.

Let me know what you think..











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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

That’s also not with full lighting, just have my LED aquarium light running now.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Fun lighting picture..











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## evilfrog92 (Mar 8, 2012)

I would say love the design but you should put 2inches of leaf litter in the bottom.qnd then measure temps and humidity (70-80f) and humidity around 70 to 95.how big is the footprint and how long has it been set up?your also gonna want get some springtails in their before you trying adding frogs so they have time to populate as either of the frogs you want can decimate the population pretty fast.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

I’m well aware of temp and humidity requirements, thank you though. My substrate is ABG with some mixed calcium bearing clay and then a layer of only calcium bearing clay beneath it.. springtails and isopods are already in.. and have been.. the only aspect I’m missing is leaf litter. That said I have some live oak mixed into the layer of soil for decomposition (for the microfauna) and am baking some magnolia leaves.


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## evilfrog92 (Mar 8, 2012)

All sounds good to me then.love the layout


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Temp stays average at 74 degrees F. Humidity average is 80%.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Thank you for your opinion.. keeping me in check.


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## Pepepepe (Aug 30, 2020)

Are these going to be your first dart frogs? If so I don’t know if I would go with oophagas or Ranitomeyas, they are less mistake tolerant, if you want to give it a go make sure everything is perfect and stable, the viv looks nice I don’t like the flower of the brom very much but thats just personal, definitely more leaf litter and maybe some film canisters.


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## JasonE (Feb 7, 2011)

You're going to need considerably more bromeliads for pumilio. Your background should basically be littered with them.


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## Chris S (Apr 12, 2016)

Looks fine for a pair of O.pumilio, or Ranitomeya. If looking to breed them, I would agree with adding more broms, but just as a display pair, this looks good to me!


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

Just a heads up, that Achmea is beautiful in there and you should enjoy it for now, but it's likely to be a fair bit bigger in the end. If you bought it in flower from some place that resells them (like a big box garden center or florist), most of those plants are gassed to trigger flowering at an immature size. Once it pups, you will find they are quite a bit larger than the original plant when mature. I don't know what selection you ended up with for it, but the one I have of this produces 18+ inch diameter individuals for me in my greenhouse.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Yeah, the Aechmea is quite large I haven’t measured it but visually it is about 18 inches in diameter or longer as I had to trim some of the leaves so the rosette wasn’t damaged or skewed once mounted and would still retain water appropriately. The enclosure itself is 36x36x18 for an idea of size. The clipped leaves in the front were as long as the long ones toward the center of the enclosure.

I am still wanting to get some more smaller Neo’s for the background and right side and maybe some tiny ones like Chiquita Linda or something for some of the branches on the right as well.

I’m not too concerned with mating/breeding. Would be cool if they did but, not necessarily a goal at this time.

Will probably be a while before I actually start making an effort to obtain frogs as I am pretty picky in terms of what I would like to put in and there are still some additions in terms of plants that I want to add (broms) and want to let the philo/pothos fill in more too.

Anyway, thanks for the input guys.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Added some broms and got a light upgrade.. also debating about removing the big brom and adding some more smaller ones no bigger than the pink one on the right to make some extra room for some orchids, vines/trailing plants and, maybe some moss.

At first I really liked the aesthetic that it brought in but, now it just kinda seems overbearing visually and creating wasted space. Also not sure if frogs would prefer to have multiple smaller broms or the single big one in that specific spot. Feel like it probably doesn’t matter too much given the sheer volume of water it holds.

The pothos also might get taken out as well. I knew it was a fast/aggressive grower and that it would eventually take over but I was not expecting this fast (never grown pothos before). It currently takes up a lot of background space that could be better occupied by broms and other smaller leafed vines that aren’t such fast growers. It would also allow me to have more floor space for more leaf litter (still haven’t added the stuff I baked due to being torn about the pothos and brom).

That said, probably more updates coming soon/ish.














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## justinc468 (Jun 27, 2020)

Id remove the pothos. 

Looks great with the revision. Id take out the Aechmea and put a nice vriesea in there along with a few more neo broms. My pums love vriesea when they are given the choice of 10 neos vs. 1 vriesea, i usually only see them in the vriesea. Might just be character of individual frogs but just a note.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Alright so ripped out the aechmea and the pothos. Repotted them and put them out on my patio. 

Opened up sooooo much space in the tank. Time for some plant shopping. .











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## eMCRay (Mar 24, 2020)

Lots of broms! Also since your bottom is quite flat, maybe adding a few cork tubes / interesting upward-sloing branches could spice that part up too? Have a few examples of that in my other posts.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Cork tubes.. or at least a branch or two that go from the bottom left up into the “canopy” might create a bit of a balanced look and is a good idea. That said.. we all know what these frogs are capable of in situ.

That said, I’m really wanting to leave the bottom left floor space as just exposed leaf litter since the philo on the right is covering the “ground”.

What I’m thinking is to add a few more ficus pumila quercifolia to the enclosure. At least 3 or 4 more cuttings or couple inch pots. I was looking at some other vines too, can’t remember genus.

Vriesea is hard to come by (obviously).. I would love some erythrodactylon... would literally replace every single brom in the tank with that species if I could.. or vriesea in general. I have a single flammea in it currently but am almost certain it’s axils are too small for the frogs to deposit.

To reiterate, breeding isn’t priority though. While it would be cool however, and, considering we are talking Oophaga.. it seems reproduction is the point. Simply so a person can witness, monitor and study the very trait that gives these frogs the name of their genus. That just seems obvious though.

Anyway, yeah, got some thinking, selecting, work and placement to ponder. Updates coming soon/ish.


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## eMCRay (Mar 24, 2020)

Eruantien said:


> Cork tubes.. or at least a branch or two that go from the bottom left up into the “canopy” might create a bit of a balanced look and is a good idea. That said.. we all know what these frogs are capable of in situ.
> 
> That said, I’m really wanting to leave the bottom left floor space as just exposed leaf litter since the philo on the right is covering the “ground”.
> 
> ...


Yep totally agree - just trying to maximize usable area for these guys. The bottom walls are also a bit bare, so if you want to keep the floor more open (although a bit flat), you can anchor stuff against the walls.

On the philo covering - I'm not sure how it would do in the very low light and what may end up being a quite wet part of the viv... and would that be at the expense of leaf litter (isos / springtails)?


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Agreed, and I’m in the same page. The Philo on the right has been in the tank for months and is booming once legs get up past the half way mark in terms of verticality of the tank. The upper/front most part of the vine puts out at least a new leaf once a week.

That said though, I know the importance of leaf litter and because of that knowledge I kind of want to leave the left floor as open floor.. with leaf litter.. but plant some ficus quercifolia to grow up the background/side to give some extra green. Maybe put in another set of ghost wood on the left that starts in the foreground and works into the background. Cork will disintegrate too soon IMO.

The new lights are INTENSE.. and need to be suspended above the enclosure by at least a couple inches.. based off of what I have monitored since they have been in. The broms and other mid level plants are doing fine or better (better than I can say with the previous light solution), and coloring extremely well but the philo is suffering in spots of direct light. The philo is nothing special and something I got locally.. something I saw and said I can give it a better home than the next person.

I needed that level of light for the tank though just for the 36 inch vertical.. LED, 4000K, 18000 lumens.. per light. Y’all are probably gonna have some opinions about that but the plants are loving it so long as they don’t get to the very top.

From back to forward: Lower lumens toward the back (T8 fluorescent) with a higher lumen LED light in the middle and, LED spot lights in the front might be the way to go with a tank this size.. instead I’m using 2x LED fixtures at 4000K,18000 lumens each.

Here is how it looks now..










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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Update..








Mid day lighting.. 4 hours from 12-4 pm.. temps gets up to 78-80 in the top 6 inches of the enclosure, depending on ambient temperature in the house.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Morning/evening lighting..








Mid 70’s for temp.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

Bromeliad galore, I know.


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## asteroids (Mar 20, 2021)

Great tank! What’s the lighting?


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

I’m using two fixtures. And Aqueon RGB led light for planted aquariums (can’t remember its ratings) and, a Lithuania LED shop light from Lowe’s that is 4000K at 18000 lumens.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

asteroids said:


> Great tank! What’s the lighting?


Thank you. I feel like it’s too many broms though. Not much room for other plants.


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## Eruantien (Dec 23, 2014)

If I count there are 17 broms in there and that’s the majority of what you see. At least half have pups forming. A couple mothers are pushing a couple pups each.


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