# arboreal PDF'S?



## Stratusfaction (Mar 7, 2006)

Hi again,

I know with me it's question after question but I just acquired a 20H. I was wondering what PDF'S are arboreal/best for beginners? 

Thanks in advance,
David


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

While lecus belong to a terrestrial group (tincs), they are probably the most arboreal of that group, and they are great frogs to start with. Many of the thumbs are arboreal. People generally recommend vents if you are going to start with thumbnail frogs, but thumbnails are not usually considered as easy as the larger beginner frogs.


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## Stratusfaction (Mar 7, 2006)

I'm keep hearing vents and you'd think I would've figured out what "vents" are by now but I haven't, please clue me in. :lol: 


-David


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## biocmp (Mar 7, 2006)

They are areas that have been cut out of the floor or ceiling to allow air to flow in the house. They usually have a metal housing to cover the open space.  

Ohhh, you must mean D. Ventrimaculatus. They are what most consider to be one of the best beginner "thumbnail" frogs. They are smaller than the D. Tinctorius group, but are still very hardy and once set up they seem to be fairly easy to keep.


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## Frank H (Nov 3, 2005)

I just got some ventrimaculatus froglets last night, I would not recomend them for your first frog..
They are very small! Im talking under a half inch! Im sure they will grow, but even full size they are still as small as an Azureus froglet. Being so small, finding food for these will be hard.. unless you practice culturing springtails and wingless melanogasters right now!
I recomend the previously mentioned leucomelas. They are very bold and hardy frogs. 
I also recomend Azureus. I have a pair of azureus in a 20H tank and they use the every inch of the tank. They are at the very top of the background sometimes. I even see them with half of their bodies in the water pond picking off springtails from the water surface.. I dont think I can recomend these enough.
Good luck.
-Frank


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

Adult Vents are around 1/2". They tend to be very quick moving when you're in the tank, so excapes are a threat to some degree, and like Auratus, they like moving water from my experience. For a 20H, you really don't need to have an aboreal frog. A better choice would to be to get one of the beginner frogs (generally terrestial), and get the hang of things before going to thumbs (generally aboreal). A thumbs size leads to them being a bit more sensitive to the usual problems that beginners have, food shortages, viv variables, et al.


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## Stratusfaction (Mar 7, 2006)

I've got a 29 gallon? 30"X18" that I am going to do terrestrial so I was wanting to do something cool with my 20H. Maybe I'll hold off for a while.


-David


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

To be quite honest, their small size really doesn't mean jack. Sorry everyone lol, but it doesn't.

I honestly feel that if you have done some good reading and set the tank up properly with ample food available, D. ventrimaculatus would make an excellent starter. I've never had vents, but I have imitators. I obtained D. imitator after a few years of being "out of the loop" as my first frog. They are doing excellently.

Be fore warned though, you must do the reading/research and set the tank up properly and have good fruit fly cultures going. I find from past and current experience, my tincs are no easier than my imis. Actually, my imis are much easier. My tincs are picky little bastards.

Now the other thumbs like D. fantasticus or D. lamasi are not for beginners as they can be finicky and sensitive to the same things that D. ventrimaculatus and D. imitator aren't like outside noise or slight variations in humidity and temperature.

I see no reason why a properly educated beginner would have any more trouble with D. ventrimaculatus than D. leucomelas or D. azureus.


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

> I honestly feel that if you have done some good reading and set the tank up properly with ample food available,


I totally agree, but there is a huge assumption in there: IF all that stuff is done correctly, THEN there won't be problems. For a beginner, that usually isn't the case. Things happen, mistakes are made, and a smaller frog isn't going to fair as well as a larger frog in the wake of typical beginner mistakes. I'm not saying a beginner shouldn't get a thumb, but a beginner should spend more time getting everything right before frogs are introduced to the equation.


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

Mike,

I see what you're saying. But wouldn't you agree that most beginners tend to get babies of larger species anyways? So isn't it the same risk??


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

I thought of that after I made my post. Point taken. Maybe I'm just conditioned by the hobby to think of thumbs as being a step harder than the larger terrestial frogs. Having kept them, I know that they are sensitive to food shortages while even froglets of the larger frogs tend to not be as sensitive, but what's a few miligrams between frogs? Not much, and the destinction is really kinda moot when looked at that way.


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

David,

My apologies for using the abbreviation for Dendrobates ventrimaculatus. I should know better than to use nick names with newcomers.

In response to Mike and Frogtofall’s little debate; I can see even the toughest thumbs being a problem for the beginner if they are purchased too young. I would suggest that any beginner that wants to start out with ventrimaculatus either buy them at a show (where they can see them), or discuss their size with the vendor prior to ordering them. You don’t want to open your first frog package and find less than dime sized froglets. That would not be a recipe for success, and I would imagine that if a beginner fails on his first frogs, he is destined to leave the hobby early. 

As a rule of thumb I would suggest that fat nickel sized froglets are as small as the average beginner should go.


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

Chris, what species of thumbs have you worked with??

Kinda interesting that you mentioned dime sized froglets. If a vendor told me he/she was even offering frogs that size, I'd hang up the phone. There's no reason froglets of that size should be offered for sale. Now adult frogs that size (D. reticulatus) I can understand...


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## Stratusfaction (Mar 7, 2006)

Grassypeak said:


> David,
> 
> My apologies for using the abbreviation for Dendrobates ventrimaculatus. I should know better than to use nick names with newcomers.
> 
> ...


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## Grassypeak (Jun 14, 2005)

Frogtofall,

I’ve repeated this story over, and over again, but I can’t find a link to it. Last august I ordered 4 Epidobates tricolor ‘Santa Isabel’ (not exactly a thumbnail I know) from a large seller, who shall go nameless (please don’t ask). I had dealt with the seller on numerous occasions, and although I had been warned against purchasing frogs from them, I figured I was doing well enough with my Dendrobates leucomelas (which came from Aaron’s Frog Farm, not the seller in question) that I could handle whatever problems might come up. When I received my froglets, I was shocked to see four, less than dime sized, little tricolors. One was visibly skinny, and I should have called the seller to complain right then and there. I figured my skills were better than they actually were, so I just set the froglets up in quarantine containers. I began feeding flies dusted with Pancure once a week. The skinny one ate, but never put on any weight. I gave him pedialite baths, and continued feeding him. He lasted about a month or two. The other three were doing well but died while I was on vacation. Evidently my little vacation feeding cultures produced too much CO2. My leucs were in similarly sized containers with the same vacation feeding cultures and had no problems. The three little tricolors were doing well until the accident with the vacation feeders but I would not wish such tiny frogs on any beginner.


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

Chris,

That story sounds a bit familiar. Its sad to hear you lost your E. tricolor. I had a pair of them, they were some of the best frogs I've ever had.

But

I think we need to differentiate the small frogs from the baby frogs. Babies of any species have their issues with shipping and beginners, but not necessarily small frogs. I get the feeling that all too often a lot of people on this board unintentionally keep newbies away from the thumbs b/c they are indeed small but on the contrary some of them make excellent beginner species IMO (with the right research of course).

Still even, nothing beats P. terribilis as a beginner frog b/c of the ease of obtaining food for them. Even the froglets will take small crickets that you can obtain from the petstore. I find with a lot of beginners, one of the most common problems is food shortage. Be it a crashing fly culture, dwindling spring tails or a bad shipment of pinheads.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Grassypeak/Chris and I have talked about the tricolor in the past... I still rate Tricolor as my #1 beginner frog as even tho they are smaller in size than most of the beginner frogs, they eat the larger food items (even stuff azureus tend to think as too big) and are extremely forgiving on frog set ups. The problem is that these days there has been a trend in tadpole care and diets that is not condusive to healthy (large) tricolor tadpoles, and thus tend to morph undersized animals that are not as hardy and situations such as Chris ran into.

The trend, while not as obvious, has IMO occured over most of the trade, with a lot of smaller froglets in the hobby. Beginners need to buy as big as possible, subadults being better. The larger species are recomended due to size mainly for being more forgiving food wise - they can miss a meal with less consequences and the biggest obsticle the beginner will have is food. Start with a big species, and when you are very consistant with food, I highly recomend imi and vents as another species to start with.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

One other thing to consider - terrestrial frogs are ones that spend the majority of their life withing about a meter of the ground. While this can very per frog (my zaps never leave the leaf litter) while leucs are much more out and about the tanks (but are still terrestrial). In most of our tanks (who has tanks over a meter tall?) terrestrialness and arboreality doesn't matter much, except for maybe some slight food preferences (crix that stay in the leaf litter vs. FFs that crawl up the glass and stay near the top).


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