# ideas for new feeders



## Gavin9713 (Apr 6, 2014)

does anybody know of any new feeders that are good for not just regular dart frogs, but thumbnails as well, got springtails, isopods and melangaster FF's going currently

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## PhylloBro (Sep 21, 2018)

The only thing else i feed is pinhead crickets but that is a very rare snack and only for my adults. besides that i stick with the ones you mentioned. I couldnt tell you if a thumbnail could take them though zero experience there.


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## raycentral (Oct 25, 2019)

You could also try bean beetles.


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## Woodswalker (Dec 26, 2014)

Newly hatched hornworms, that is, 1-3 days post hatching, make a good alternative feeder.


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## DPfarr (Nov 24, 2017)

Is this an anthropomorphic desire? I don’t have any problem with inflecting my desire for variety on my frogs. If you’re searching for something based on a nutritional component, using dusted Drosophila is very adequate.


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

The insects I culture are : aphids, wich I feed at least weekly, all frogs eat them. Same goes for greenbugs (Schizaphis graminum). These are probably the thumbnails favorites.

Also 3 types of ff's : Hydei, Melanogaster and Melanogaster "Vestigial". 
And 2 kinds of Isopods : Trichorhina tomentosa and porecllionides pruinosus (juveniles for all and terribilis also gets adults). I have more types of isopods in the tanks, but I do not culture them.

Thermobia domestica is also a very wanted insect for all of my frogs! Unfortunatly I don't have allot of acces to these,I mostly get these from Johanovic. I think I will setup up a culture in the near future so I also can feed these on a weekly base.

Hope this helps in your search for more feeders to culture yourself.


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## Captain Awesome (Jan 13, 2018)

Are green bugs hard to culture?


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## amgini (Jun 10, 2011)

Tijl said:


> The insects I culture are : aphids, wich I feed at least weekly, all frogs eat them. Same goes for greenbugs (Schizaphis graminum). These are probably the thumbnails favorites.


Can you share some info on Schizaphis graminum? How are they differ from pea aphids? How are they cultured? Where did you get them from? Thanks.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

DPfarr said:


> Is this an anthropomorphic desire? I don’t have any problem with inflecting my desire for variety on my frogs. If you’re searching for something based on a nutritional component, using dusted Drosophila is very adequate.


This, this, this. 

Hobby's complicated enough without making it more so.


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## macg (Apr 19, 2018)

I'm actually interested in this topic because I'm curious if there is a more efficient feeder insect to culture. I don't think the probability of finding one is high, but that's not a reason to cease exploration and experimentation. I've seen some extremely small crickets in my area that I've always wanted to attempt culturing, but I haven't had time unfortunately. With all the insect species out there, i suspect someone will stumble on something at some point.

Is love to hear about anything else that has been tried.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

There is nothing to replace the 'gold standard' of Fruit flies for dart frog keeping.

nothing.

and I've been doing this for over 15 years.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Philsuma said:


> There is nothing to replace the 'gold standard' of Fruit flies for dart frog keeping.
> 
> nothing.
> 
> and I've been doing this for over 15 years.


C'mon...

It takes, what, 10 minutes a week to set up cxs for a whole room full of frogs. Ten whole minutes! Don't you think it is worth tens of hours of research, and investigation into culturing equipment, and purchase of that equipment, and new media mixes, and identification of potential feeder species, and research into their breeding cycles, and studies of nutritional profiles*, and testing these prey on a range of captive Dendrobatids to cut that down to eight or even seven minutes? Imagine the possibilities!!




Ahem...

*https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...s=1&q=nutritional+content+of+drosophila&btnG= 

Holy cow, do we humans have a handle on Drosophila.


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

Captain Awesome said:


> Are green bugs hard to culture?


No, but they are not so easy to collect and transfer from an older to new culture. I use the same method that I use for the aphids : https://youtu.be/rV_nfzYgrIE



amgini said:


> Can you share some info on Schizaphis graminum? How are they differ from pea aphids? How are they cultured? Where did you get them from? Thanks.


I think these pictures show the differenc. Again, I use the same method as I use to get the peas to sprout. Only difference is that I let the peas soak for 12hours and the wheat only soaks for an hour. I got them from a fellow frog enthousiast who has been way longer in the hobby than me. 

This is what a greenbug culture looks like after 4 days of enting. They yet have to explode. :


Same age aphid culture : 


The wheat I use for the greenbugs :

The peas for the aphids : 


Cheers.


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

These pictures show a culture I used to start new cultures from. I hope hese shows the size of full grown greenbugs better :


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## Captain Awesome (Jan 13, 2018)

Saying there is no better alternative than fruit flies seems silly. That means no improvements could ever be made. It is a great feeder but all options will have plus and minus. The only reason we use fruit flies is because that was chosen a century ago for genetics research so husbandry was nailed down. If someone chose a different small insect we would have all those years of research to support that instead. Someone has to try new things or we will never advance. 
A lot of developmental biology is done in zebrafish. This is because there is a ton of existing literature in developmental biology in zebrafish. Why was the zebrafish chosen? It was the cheapest fish at the pet store on the first day they planned the first study. Is it the best model animal? No. But no one wants to do the leg work to get a better one set up.
The fruit fly has tons of advantages but is not the best. An ideal feeder would not climb glass. (We all work hard to fruit fly proof our tops). An ideal feeder would be more nutritious or could be guttloaded so it would not always need dusting. 
Yes 10 minutes a week is not much work, but that husbandry has been refined a lot over time. We have premade media etc that didn’t exist at the start of FF culturing. I remember using AGAR. So if a feeder is better in one way (like no escapees) but husbandry isn’t refined, it shouldn’t be discouraged.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Captain Awesome said:


> Saying there is no better alternative than fruit flies seems silly.


You're totally right. Seems silly.

Can you name one? 'Cause I sure can't.


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## amgini (Jun 10, 2011)

Thanks for the info Tijl. What are the advantages of culturing greenbugs vs pea aphids? Are they easier? More nutritious? I would love to give them a try if I could find a source for a starter culture here in the US.


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

The biggest advantage imo is the cultures last a lot longer than aphid cultures. Aphids or the peaplant die faster. Also the greenbugs are allot smaller, for feeding juveniles this is also a big advantage. I find them hunting in the weath plants all the time. They are able to eat adult and joung greenbugs. 

I hope you are able to get your hands on them. I wish I could help,butI think this will be expensive and not very easy to ship overseas...

Don't forget the other insect I mentioned are also very good. I am always searching for as many insects possible to feed my frogs. Variaty is important imo. 

I hope to get to know some other interesting insects I havn't heard of before in this topic.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Captain Awesome said:


> Saying there is no better alternative than fruit flies seems silly. That means no improvements could ever be made. It is a great feeder but all options will have plus and minus. The only reason we use fruit flies is because that was chosen a century ago for genetics research so husbandry was nailed down. If someone chose a different small insect we would have all those years of research to support that instead. Someone has to try new things or we will never advance.
> A lot of developmental biology is done in zebrafish. This is because there is a ton of existing literature in developmental biology in zebrafish. Why was the zebrafish chosen? It was the cheapest fish at the pet store on the first day they planned the first study. Is it the best model animal? No. But no one wants to do the leg work to get a better one set up.
> The fruit fly has tons of advantages but is not the best. An ideal feeder would not climb glass. (We all work hard to fruit fly proof our tops). An ideal feeder would be more nutritious or could be guttloaded so it would not always need dusting.
> Yes 10 minutes a week is not much work, but that husbandry has been refined a lot over time. We have premade media etc that didn’t exist at the start of FF culturing. I remember using AGAR. So if a feeder is better in one way (like no escapees) but husbandry isn’t refined, it shouldn’t be discouraged.


Check my post count...I've been helping people here a long time...

There is nothing better.

Right now, I have yellow and red Oophaga lehmanni, Oophaga histrionica - 2 species. Oophaga sylvatica, 10 different species of pumilio and...Ameerega silverstonei. ALL breeding and only due to the staple of fruit flies and an excellent superfine supplement rotation. So as you can see, I have a LITTLE bit invested in keeping dart frogs healthy and breeding for a long time.

You CAN use other feeder insects to SUPPLEMENT but never as a staple.

If someone is unable or unwilling to culture fruit flies on a regular and responsible basis, then this hobby and animal choice is not for them. It's just that simple. There is no re-inventing the wheel. There is no 'easier' way.

There is a large amount of bad info going around re 'bioactive' and people thinking a vivarium is going to 'self produce' enough food and nutrients to sustain a living vertebrate and that info has probably led to more failure and dead animals than anyone knows.


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## Captain Awesome (Jan 13, 2018)

No other insect could ever be a staple?! I’m not saying ff are a bad staple but to blanket claim that out of millions of species of insect only this will work is ludacris. Yes we all use or should use ff, but we shouldn’t discourage anyone from trying to culture other insects. It may start out as a lot of work but new refined techniques and methods come from trying new things. I remember when standard advice for darts was to only give them fresh air when you pop the Tupperware to feed. I mean there are what 40-50 species of regularly cultured insects in this hobby? That’s hardly a fraction of a fraction of a percent that people have even looked at. Do you really hope no one ever tries anything new?


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

Captain Awesome said:


> No other insect could ever be a staple?! I’m not saying ff are a bad staple but to blanket claim that out of millions of species of insect only this will work is ludacris. Yes we all use or should use ff, but we shouldn’t discourage anyone from trying to culture other insects. It may start out as a lot of work but new refined techniques and methods come from trying new things. I remember when standard advice for darts was to only give them fresh air when you pop the Tupperware to feed. I mean there are what 40-50 species of regularly cultured insects in this hobby? That’s hardly a fraction of a fraction of a percent that people have even looked at. Do you really hope no one ever tries anything new?


Nobody is preventing anyone from trying anything new. 

When someone comes up with a better alternative to Fruit Flies - it'll get posted here and FB immediately.

In the meantime, the blanket statement from me is "If you are unwilling or unable to responsibly and regularly culture Fruit flies, then this hobby and animal is not for you"

There is no shame in owning a goldfish...


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Cap'n, you're kinda listing to port on this one.

No one ever said there is no insect in the world that fits into this discussion. We're talking about insects that currently exist in the hobby, or even are currently produced in captivity. And of every single one of those, FFs come out on top.

Also: the question was asked by someone who was a little into darts in the (not so recent) past, and who now is really just getting their bearings again. (Gavin, you're asking some good questions! Thank you!). Philsuma's advice is the best advice to give in such a situation. That's what we're here for: good advice.

I do hope you prove him (and me -- because I agree -- and most hobbyists, I think) wrong by coming up with some practical alternative. Until then, I hope people who are looking for feeding advice accept that there is no more reliable, healthy, safe, easy, proven food source for adult dart frogs than dusted fruit flies.


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## macg (Apr 19, 2018)

Folks, I'm not going to respond to individual posts in this thread because it's moved to the realm of pointlessness. 

I'll make one post (because I'm not interested in hi-jacking this thread) to ask everyone to look at ourselves. We just pushed a thread asking the community about new feeder insects into a flame war full of posts with incredulity and snark. 

Maybe this is why people lurk here for years and never join or post anything.


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## amgini (Jun 10, 2011)

Thanks Tijl. I would be willing to pay to have them shipped from overseas but I don't think they would survive such a long journey. I'm always interested in trying new source of food and I haven't heard much about greenbugs here in the US.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

macg said:


> Folks, I'm not going to respond to individual posts in this thread because it's moved to the realm of pointlessness.
> 
> I'll make one post (because I'm not interested in hi-jacking this thread) to ask everyone to look at ourselves. We just pushed a thread asking the community about new feeder insects into a flame war full of posts with incredulity and snark.
> 
> Maybe this is why people lurk here for years and never join or post anything.


Flame war full of incredulity and snark? Really? If so, you have the skin of a grape sir.

You are your own worst reason if you decide not to join or post.


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## macg (Apr 19, 2018)

Philsuma said:


> Flame war full of incredulity and snark? Really? If so, you have the skin of a grape sir.
> 
> You are your own worst reason if you decide not to join or post.


Thanks for making my point for me. I couldn't have asked for better support of my position.


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## DPfarr (Nov 24, 2017)

I am going to look into growing a crop of those pea aphids. Full anthropomorphism. That’s fun to me. Imagining little new Dendrobatidae neural connections cause they see something that isn’t a melanogaster. Fun.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

I actually regularly ponder the potentiality of feeders somewhere the galaxy of insects on the planet. 

Yes I am grateful to our founding fruitfly fathers and the productivity and reliability of drosophila. 

But I wouldnt mind the extra work, if thats what it took, if another equitable subject was discovered and its husbandry developed, where the culture media used wasnt so microbially fecund. I admit it.

I realize that methylparaben is heavily data'd but if I had a choice to not have it in every fly my guys eat, I admit I would like that too.


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## Gavin9713 (Apr 6, 2014)

i guess i really opened up a debate here, I'm not asking simply to satisfy some anthropomorphic desire to complicate their diet, I realize that fruit flies will likely be the standard staple for years to come. I only ask because i think darts might benefit from a more varied diet and that there could be something better out there. We should all look to improve and diversify the hobby. I think more feeders makes the whole process more fun. thanks for the pea aphids, I hadn't heard of that before.

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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

I find it weird that there is only a hand full of people that actualy gaves examples of insects. I hope to get to know some more insects beeing cultured for our frogs and hopefully try to culture some for myself. 
I would be shokked if most of the frogs in captivity only got flies and springtails and supplments? Or is this me wishfull thinking?

Johanovic told me a month or 2 aggo that he was culturing something "new to me" and if he had a few culutures going I could start one for myself. But I can't rember the name correct, so I also can't translate...  When I find out, I will post the name here aswell.


In 2-3 weeks I am also going to start just a few cultures of Beanbeetles, Thermobia domestica and also Tribolium castaneum(only for their larvae). 

I can try and make a topic of "how to culture"... If this would be usefull?


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## DPfarr (Nov 24, 2017)

The only thing I’ve used outside of Drosophila is Musca domestica larvae. Even then only the biggest tinctorius eat them. Having anything bigger than house fly maggots is inhibitory to them actually eating them.


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## amgini (Jun 10, 2011)

Tijl do you feed Thermobia domestica to your pumilios, especially escudo? They seem too big for small frogs.


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

amgini said:


> Tijl do you feed Thermobia domestica to your pumilios, especially escudo? They seem too big for small frogs.


You need to filter out the smaller ones, but yes.


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## Ravage (Feb 5, 2016)

I'll have a go at suggesting an actual prey insect: subterranean termites. My first culture went bonkers- the frogs loved them and then it crashed. I'm working on a second go. They are fatty and not appropriate for general feeding. But they do engendered a comical feeding response from the terribs, and seem to be useful for bringing that tinct that lost the war of sexual maturity back to fighting weight. 
I also have a dubia roach colony (a remnant of the tarantula days and a backup for my daughters growing Therasophid mania- I wonder where she got that from?). The nymphs are good for tree frogs and I spend a good amount of time on feeders for my larger frogs. I'm always looking for some new species that are in the housefly to cricket size range. My cricket production is nearly as involved as my FF dept. But they are feeders with some very problematic issues. I wish there was something of that size that was as easy to raise as fruit flies.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

Ravage said:


> ... But they do engendered a comical feeding response from the terribs, ...


One of my sub-adult blackfoots attacked mist today.

Picture a frog looking up and aggressively snapping repeatedly at a fine mist while moving in circles reminiscent of a dog chasing its tail. 

One of my top herpetocultural moments of all time. 

(He was pretty embarrassed afterwards and pretended nothing happened)


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

Tijl said:


> I find it weird that there is only a hand full of people that actualy gaves examples of insects. I hope to get to know some more insects beeing cultured for our frogs and hopefully try to culture some for myself.
> I would be shokked if most of the frogs in captivity only got flies and springtails and supplments? Or is this me wishfull thinking?
> 
> Johanovic told me a month or 2 aggo that he was culturing something "new to me" and if he had a few culutures going I could start one for myself. But I can't rember the name correct, so I also can't translate...  When I find out, I will post the name here aswell.
> ...


The things I currently cultivate for my frogs:

-3 species of springtails (tropical white, a very small temperate silver and a temperate green species)
-2 species of fruit flies (2 Drosphila melanogaster variaties, being vestigious and flightles and Drosphila hydei)
-3 species of isopods (Trichorhina tomentosa, orange porcellionides pruinosus and tropical brown)
-Firebrats
-Pea Aphids
-A wax moth species that is related to Achroia grisella
-Bean beetles, although I will likely abandon this in the future as my frogs are not too fond of them so far and they tend to escape easily.
-Temperate terrestrial amphipods (this is what Tijl is reffering to I believe). The culture has recently crashed due to me still figuring out their preferred food source, but I think almost have them figured out and will retry soon enough.

I have cultivated grain weevils, buffalo worms and Alphitobius diaperinus in the past, but gave them up for several reasons.

I also feed large amounts of meadow plankton in summer, and I'm looking to try and cultivate a common globular springtail that is always present in my sweepings (which I believe is Sminthurus viridis) in the future. Given that the diet of this springtail is vastly different from detritivorous springtails I expect the nutritional value to be different as well.

Edit: should also mention that I intend to look into termites, not as a main feeder but more as a side hobby that occasionally can provide a good snack for the frogs.


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

DPfarr said:


> I am going to look into growing a crop of those pea aphids. Full anthropomorphism. That’s fun to me. Imagining little new Dendrobatidae neural connections cause they see something that isn’t a melanogaster. Fun.


Easiest way of trying to obtain them cheaply is growing some pea plants outside, decent chance they'll get colonized during spring or summer.


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

Temperate terrestrial amphipods is exaclty what I ment to say  haha

When you figure them out, I would love to start culturing them myself.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

I can't believe how emotionally invested some people are in fruit flies as the best feeder. Some great alternative micro feeders I don't see mentioned here are.

*Compsodes schwarzi* and the "*little kenyan burrowing roach*", these micro roaches about the same size as dwarf isopods but much faster moving and so can trigger a stronger feeding response, they _can_ fly but tend not to and are easy to produce in large numbers although still quite hard to find for sale depending on where you're based. The kenyan burrowing roach is a bit larger and closer to grey isopods in adult size but easier to obtain, it's exact species has not yet been identified and is the subject of ongoing debate.
both can be cultured the same way you would isopods and in some cases even alongside isopods in the same culture.

*Pogonognathellus flavescens / longicornis* These "giant" temperate springtails are larger than micro crickets when fully grown and can also be easily cultured in very large numbers. They used to be more readily available
but for some reason I rarely see cultures for sale anymore, I think this might be because they have a slightly longer life cycle and people struggled attempting to culture them under the same conditions as tropical whites while in my experience these do best when kept much drier. They look and behave exactly like micro crickets but don't feed on plants and are a great addition to the cleanup crew. I culture mine on a few cm of shredded oak, beech, alder and willow leaf litter and feed them oyster mushrooms. I can't emphasize enough that keeping them much, much drier than the standard tropical springs is the key to a thriving culture, I don't really understand why and similarly I have never had much luck culturing them on anything other than leaf litter
I will actually try and get some videos of mine and make a thread about these in the next few weeks.

*Dalotia coriaria* is a tiny elongated predatory rove beetle about 4-5mm long that is sometimes used as a biological control for gungus gnats in greenhouses and is therefore fairly easily to obtain. Development time from egg to adult has been documented to be 11 to 12 days at 86º F (30º C). They can and will reproduce in tropical vivariums and may be useful predators of tiny slugs and nematodes. Be aware that they will also prey on other members of your cleanup crew, especially springtails. You can culture them as you would isopods but feed protein rich dry foods like dog buiscits or chicken feed which must be kept dry to avoid mould.


I like the fact that all of these can pretty much be set up in a large plastic container and maintained as a long term culture without having to constantly start new cultures. They can also be gutloaded, in _my opinion _ are easier to harvest and feed than fruit flies without escapes and do not have as much potential to become a nuisance in the house.
I'm not questioning fruit flies utility as a feeder at all but I would bet every single penny I have that somewhere out there among the approximately *1 MILLION identified species of insects* and estimated 2 - 30 MILLION undescribed species, there is a better feeder than fruit flies waiting to be discovered.
I think that the hunt for new viable feeders for the hobby is extremely worthwhile and hope there are some more contributions to this thread.


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

You have it all wrong. No one is emotionally connected to fruit flies.

Everyone applauds efforts to find new feeders.

Here is the issue / problem:

Dendroboard is a starting point for many new and inexperienced hobbyists. Probably 85-90% of postings are geared to new hobbyists - submitting and/or reading.

The staple feeder insect that they need to allow them success is the fruit fly. It's not bean beetles, wax worms, soldier fly larvae, flour beetles or springtails.

The staple that allows the new hobbyist to use essential superfine powdered supplements and keep frogs alive is solely the fruit fly.

New hobbyist that are ignorant to the required husbandry come here in desperate hopes of finding crickets or even flake food( I've seen it more than a few times) to make it easier on themselves - to not have to culture flies themselves.

It's just confusing sometimes, to see the counter posts that we all know have some merit but will more likely than not, confuse or lead the new hobbyist astray.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

I understand the importance of defining Standard of care, especially today where the promise of snazzy convenience is an attractant factor that is a strong draw, gravitating to a promise of Convenience of a method over other more biocentric values. 

I think what may have happened in some parts of this thread is identifying motive.

For me, I would be interested in a future cultivating of species that's reproductively opulent, but deposits eggs/fry separate from the adult food source. My motive would be greater control and management of food and colony hygiene. 

But I totally get the precautionary principle, and knowing mainstream human nature for what it is. 

There are plenty of hobbies that are all fun and no tedium. Keeping animals isnt one of them.


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## amgini (Jun 10, 2011)

Compsodes schwarzi seems like a great additional feeder . However I am concerned about uric acid. Does anyone know if all species of roaches store uric acid? Or maybe this particular specie does not?


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

I assume that they do. You can compensate to some degree by feeding the roaches a low protein diet.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

A new type of giant springtail would help. Mantella baroni, cowani, and nigricans only do marginally well on drosophila, no breeding success or sporadically. 

While they require more attention for sure, I have found that pinhead crickets from G. sigillatus are great for larger dart frogs. I get as much or more production from my colony of crickets than I do my fruit flies.


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## Organics (Jan 17, 2020)

Philsuma said:


> You have it all wrong. No one is emotionally connected to fruit flies.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Op clearly stated that they were already using fruit flies, among other feeders. You clearly intended to start conflict with your first post. I have no doubt you could’ve stated your point effectively while actually pertaining to this post, but alas that isn’t the case.



Gavin9713 said:


> does anybody know of any new feeders that are good for not just regular dart frogs, but thumbnails as well, got springtails, isopods and melangaster FF's going currently
> 
> Sent from my SM-G973U using Tapatalk



Also no one in this thread made the claim of trying to raise a frog on a different staple feeder. They did ask if anyone has some suggestion they could culture and see how the culture results. Most are clearly looking to add oddballs in as supplementation. 

As for feeders I believe someone mention red runners and they do breed like crazy, I found myself with far more than I needed very quickly. A couple species(which I have not cultured) came to mind. Little Kenyan roach adult size 8-10mm and are supposedly easy to culture. The small yellow cockroach which max out at 7-8mm with nymphs being 2mm(slightly bigger than melanogaster)but they are suppose to be a more difficult species to culture. Wingless female roach adult size 14-15mm. Lastly fulvous wood roach adult size being 18mm. You can find these at roach crossing, and the owner is extremely patience at helping you find a good fit, especially if you have a curious mind. 

Also a note as this still seems to be common advice. High protein diets will increase production of roaches but will lead to a far less nutritional feeder. 



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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Organics said:


> Op clearly stated that they were already using fruit flies, among other feeders. You clearly intended to start conflict with your first post. I have no doubt you could’ve stated your point effectively while actually pertaining to this post, but alas that isn’t the case.


Maybe, but there's no need to stir up that conflict again three months after it petered out...


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## Organics (Jan 17, 2020)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Maybe, but there's no need to stir up that conflict again three months after it petered out...




Honestly had not realized it had been so long between those post, eh well eventually we all make ourselves look stupid at some point. Ya live ya learn. 


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

I might get a new species of aphid to culture in a few weeks.
If they are worth posting, I will..


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

pea aphids or something different? I once had an infestation of some kind of black aphid that remained on one single large fern in an enclosure. It caused the fern to grow mutated fronds but the aphid colony lasted for about 6 months and baby lygodactylus conraui geckos in the tank ate them readily although the adults ignored them.


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

An aphid that can be grown on aphids. Unfortunately that is alsof all the information Ive tot so far.. :'D


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

Here's a video of the large temperate springtails I culture with a tape measure for scale. I previously thought they were Pogenognathellus favescens but I think they're actually either Tomocerus vulgaris or Tomocerus minor.
I feed these to Sphaerodactylus and Lygodactylus geckos and they trigger a really strong feeding response, great for hatchlings. 
In terms of behaviour, size and appearance they are very much like micro crickets but won't harm any of your plants and can't grow large enough to threaten your animals. they are very mobile and in vivariums I've intoruduced these too I see them crawling around everywhere and out in the open when the lights are on.
Slow to reproduce initially but then tend to have quite explosive population booms. After starting a new culture I usually see tiny young after about a month and then the population begins to increase dramatically. 
They reproduce fine in tropical conditions but when I'm culturing them in isolation I keep them a lot drier than my tropical whites as too much moisture seems to suppress population growth. I mostly feed them fresh mushrooms and culture them on shredded oak and beech leaves mixed with broken up dead branches from the same trees. If using this medium I don't usually add any additional food until I see babies. 
If you look closely in the video there are a couple of dwarf isopods in there too. The largest of these springtails are around 5mm not including antennae.
For some reason wild collected specimens are much, much more variable in colour and range from mottled silver to jet black whilst all produced in captivity are uniformly silver. I don't know what causes this.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

Thought it's worth adding that larger springtails from the Tomoceridae family, especially Tomocerus longicornis, used to be more available in the hobby but many people had problems with cultures crashing for no apparent reason. I don't have this issue and I suspect the problem people encountered was that under certain conditions their life cycle shifts into producing resting diapause eggs that in the northern hemisphere delay hatching until spring.
Photoperiod, temperatures, availability of food and colour of light can all effect this but if I don't keep cultures in the dark, and don't wait too long once a culture is really booming before splitting it you there's never a problem.
I've always thought it would be potentially useful if it could be triggered intentionally to produce 'just add water and light instant springtails' with a long shelf life and that can be shipped easily worldwide as has been done for daphnia, moina, triops etc.


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

Johanovich said:


> The things I currently cultivate for my frogs:
> 
> -Temperate terrestrial amphipods (this is what Tijl is reffering to I believe). The culture has recently crashed due to me still figuring out their preferred food source, but I think almost have them figured out and will retry soon enough.


Coming back to this, I'm pretty sure I've now figured out how to keep and breed these guys. My latest attempt is rapidly increasing in numbers and I'm getting animals in all ages and sizes. I'm fully expecting to be able to split this culture up into small starting cultures for a few other people over the next month.

Here are a few videos of these amphipods:


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## madagascarmama (Sep 9, 2019)

I raise silkworms and hornworms for my
chams. I thought very small silkworms could be an option for the mantellas I hope to soon aquire. A small piece of chow will attract (and keep) a fair amount of tiny silkworms, making it easy to transfer them. I think hornworms can be wrangled in a similar fashion but they tend to wander far more than silkworms do.

Are newly hatched mantids too large? Prob for thumbnails. I feed them to my Boehme’s chams which are pretty small.


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## Bredtobreed (Jul 9, 2020)

I feed silkworms on a regular basis, they can be pretty big and my frogs still eat them the bigger auratus are very keen on them ive had em eating silkworms from well over a cm but al of them love it. Also Very nutritious and you only need a few of them to fill up a frogg. Good for egg production as well.

The drawback is if you dont have a mullberry tree its expensive compared to ff.

Also way more labour intensive

But i use the moths for mantises so the whole cycle is wel worth it for me.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

I mixed up some oatmeal and honey, and let 100 waxworms pupate and become moths so I could get tiny waxworms to give my bumblebee toads for a happy lipid rich good time. I was thinking along the lines of Fake Termite.

They are tiny but visible now, difficult to extricate due to their fragility and defensive strategy of quickly sphering up when touched. Which the larvae do not do when theyve gotten larger. They are also very fast when newly hatched. This was all only possible to see wearing loupe glasses. They also seem to have an extremely delicate cuticle, and are easily killed accidentally no matter how light the hand with metal tool. I dont have a virgin paintbrush. I sliced a sliver of rubber off of an O ring grabbed out of my junk drawer and pressed it on the end of a pointy dental tool and was able to get a couple about 2 mm and drop them in front of a black and yellow toad snout in the shadows of a wee hollow. Zip Zip. It was approved.

My sequence of management wasnt worked out and I have too many adult moths. 

I also need to work on my tiny waxworm retrieval strategy. Perhaps it will be easier once they grow a couple more mms.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

What's worked for me to isolate clean fruit fly larvae is to lure them into some food or substrate that will dissolve in water and that's held within a plankton seive, for you in this case I imagine honey would work, and then I just rinse it carefully until all im left with is larvae. You can pick up plastic plankton seives fairly cheap and it could be worthwhile if you wanted to do this often.


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## madagascarmama (Sep 9, 2019)

Someone had mentioned small, burrowing roaches in a previous post. There are a few very small species... one that I have is surinam roaches. They are parthenogenic, which terrifies me! But the nymphs are very small, and they are very easy to setup and breed. Adults get to be about an inch long. 

I have a colony that I have never fed out of, because the fact that they are fast and burrow, coupled with parthenogenic reproduction, makes them a non starter for me. My chameleons are finicky and I forsee them becoming tank mates. Dart frogs, on the other hand, are at eye level with them and could make short work of them.

I also raise grasshoppers (I hate crickets) for the chameleons, and baby grasshoppers are the size of maybe 2-3 week old crickets. Some species are even smaller.

I'd imagine snails are probably terrifying to dart frog keepers. I raise them for the chams, and baby snails are definitely dart-frog sized. If placed in the tank with food, they're unlikely to wander off for a bit.

I totally agree that setting up multiple bug colonies is a lot of work... but I kind of enjoy caring for the bugs...and I am pleased to be able to offer my chameleons a wide variety of prey. If I only had one chameleon, or a dart frog tank, I would be less inclined to do so... but if you are keeping multiple insectivore species, then its not so bad.


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

madagascarmama said:


> Someone had mentioned small, burrowing roaches in a previous post. There are a few very small species... one that I have is surinam roaches. They are parthenogenic, which terrifies me! But the nymphs are very small, and they are very easy to setup and breed. Adults get to be about an inch long.
> 
> I have a colony that I have never fed out of, because the fact that they are fast and burrow, coupled with parthenogenic reproduction, makes them a non starter for me. My chameleons are finicky and I forsee them becoming tank mates. Dart frogs, on the other hand, are at eye level with them and could make short work of them.
> 
> ...


I've started keeping banana roaches (_Panchlora nivea_) for my vietnamese mossy frogs and the nymphs from those are also pretty small in the early stages. The nymphs can't fly or climb glass and plastic so feeding them out of a small bowl might be a possibility for darts. They'd probably be a pain to filter out of the soil though.


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## madagascarmama (Sep 9, 2019)

Johanovich said:


> I've started keeping banana roaches (_Panchlora nivea_) for my vietnamese mossy frogs and the nymphs from those are also pretty small in the early stages. The nymphs can't fly or climb glass and plastic so feeding them out of a small bowl might be a possibility for darts. They'd probably be a pain to filter out of the soil though.



I have green bananas, too; and you are right they are quite small (adults are smaller than the surinam i mentioned). Personally, I hate feeding roaches to the chameleons... and there are ALWAYS escapees. Not necessarily an infestation risk, bur you’ll still come across those ”free rangers” at some point!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Xue (Mar 2, 2020)

Try mosquito larvae. I "culture" them in 5 gallon buckets in the back yard and use them to feed my fish. They culture themselves with virtually no work from you. 

Scoop them up with something with a fine mesh of your choice and put them in a shallow dish, with or without a little water, in the frog tank. They love it.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Xue said:


> Try mosquito larvae. I "culture" them in 5 gallon buckets in the back yard and use them to feed my fish. They culture themselves with virtually no work from you.
> 
> Scoop them up with something with a fine mesh of your choice and put them in a shallow dish, with or without a little water, in the frog tank. They love it.


It should be noted that if a person lives anywhere with wild frogs (here, the grey tree frogs visit every location in my yard, every night, at least as far as I can tell from fecal evidence) this is a serious disease vector risk.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

The menagerie of protozoan life is so fecund in company as to nope it without question.


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## Xue (Mar 2, 2020)

Socratic Monologue said:


> It should be noted that if a person lives anywhere with wild frogs (here, the grey tree frogs visit every location in my yard, every night, at least as far as I can tell from fecal evidence) this is a serious disease vector risk.


Yes that could be a possibility. I live in California so I don't seem to have any issues with introducing wild feeders to any of my animals. Not that I've seen anyways.

I catch pretty much everything from the yard/garden to feed all the animals I keep. Every creepy crawly I catch is food for something. 

I also intentionally introduce natural flora to my animals and haven't seen any negative effects, from leaves and bark to dirt and all that stuff. I feel it builds their immunity.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

I knew a guy who fed his water dragon gastropods from the yard, the animal became ill but lingered. We delivered a tank and one of his oscars had some problem so he tossed it in with his red eared sliders where it lilted in the water with no tail and chunks out of it. He said he always throws his dead or sick pets in there. It was kind of a nightmare house.


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## Johanovich (Jan 23, 2017)

madagascarmama said:


> I have green bananas, too; and you are right they are quite small (adults are smaller than the surinam i mentioned). Personally, I hate feeding roaches to the chameleons... and there are ALWAYS escapees. Not necessarily an infestation risk, bur you’ll still come across those ”free rangers” at some point!
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Don't have chameleons, like I said I feed them to my mossy frogs. I made sure their tank is escape proof (it's pretty much fruit fly escape proof as well) and haven't seen any "free rangers" yet.

But I can imagine that chameleon enclosures do not lend themelves to being that closed and thus lead to more escapes.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

There is a feeding site/station design & method to get chameleons to take thawed roaches (forceps free, tho forceps are fun but with large guys having them eat a bunch independently is sometimes a plus) but I dont know the etiquette of going on about an off topic animal etc so if anyone is curious feel free pm.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

Just a note - a horrifying thought that above could be read and confused with the "vibrating bowl" made by a reptile co. 

Nah - its completely sight & behavior oriented, a site habituation technique that doesnt interfere with free range foraging.


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## madagascarmama (Sep 9, 2019)

On the chameleon note - no vibrating bowls or dead bugs for them. 

You are right in that PDF enclosures are sealed up tight compared to cham enclosures. Half the escapes are probably due to the cham, half were probably me dropping a few!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

It actually can be quite useful case by case to have chams accept thawed Dubia, and crickets.

There are advantages to it. They will never, if healthy, lose cue to live ones, but if offered thawed too infrequently need to be re habituated.

I did a 5 year 'recognition and cue' study, with several taxa of lizards, including chams Parsonii, calyptratus and melleri.

The results were indeed surprising to most people.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

What I learned was that the statement that only moving prey is recognized by herps is not altogether true, that there is a flexible trigger to discern non moving familiar prey shapes. Especially when they are placed in contrast and in an area where they have habituated to finding live prey before. With less distal hunters (than chameleons) olfactory cues are also incorporated. Rupturing a few exploits this trigger.
A few living insects put in with the live, whether same or mealworms, etc, also enhances the process, with all taxa habituated.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

My point in mentioning this is that canonization can be a block to development, not just to modalities that may or may not have appeal, but to information.

If we only see what we expect to see, we may miss out on nuanced behavioral clues that might be worthy to explore, perhaps if only for their own merit.


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## azandis (Sep 13, 2020)

Ravage said:


> I'll have a go at suggesting an actual prey insect: subterranean termites.


I've given termites a try. My tincs love them.


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## radiata (Jul 24, 2010)

Anyone have experience with _*Cariblatta lutea*_ roaches? The adult size is up to 7mm for males and 8mm for females (both less than 1/3 of an inch). They apparently can climb in all their life stages, but they do not fly.


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