# Mixed Tank Information.



## Guest (Feb 1, 2006)

As I see more people are trying a hand at mixed tanks I thought it was about time to do some reserch on the subject and report my findings to you. The first step I took was making contact with a friend at the Klon zoo, Germany who was recently on T.V speaking about their 11 species Dendrobate tank. He gave me the information he had and pointed me to the book Poison Frogs Professional Breeders Series, (Schmidt/Henkel 2004). 

Acorrding to Schmit the Dendrobates who are know most commenly to inter breed are the D. tinctorius species to include D. auratus, D. azureus, leucomels, D. tinctorius, and D. tuuncatus. Therefore only one of these species should be repesented in a tank.

Schmidt also makes notes on Interspecific inbreeding that is know of between D. lehmanni and D. histronicus, E. tricolor and E. Anthonyi, and E pulchripectus with E. pictus / or E. parvulus. Though only D. lehmanni x D. histronicus and E. tricolor x E. Anthonyi are known to be fertile. 

Schmidts final statment is that only one of the Dendrobates Tinctorius species be repesnted in a tank And can be housed with a single member of other groups such as D. Ventrimculatus, D. Pumilio, Epipedbates, Colostethus. As long as only one from a family group is repesnted in the tank. You should also take into thought of possible fighting and eating of eggs of other species. 

I hope this information helps anyone how has or is thinking of making a mixed tank. Remeber the goal of the hobbie is to have happy heathy frogs and perserve the bloodline so future froggers can enjoy these beutiful animals


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

What about the size of the enclosure compared to the amount of frogs inside?


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## Guest (Feb 1, 2006)

Schmit makes no refence to tank size for mixed tanks I would say you would need to give the room needed for the largest species you plan and placing in the tank and add aleast 50% to that for each aboral species you add. If you plan on having two Grond dwelling species I would add the area of floor space needed for the two species. Ie. Tincs and Vents Have the floor space slightly larger and at least 50% more height to the tank. For a pair Leucs and pair Vittatus, Leuc floor space should be no smaller than 60 x 40 x 40cm and 50 x 50 x 50cm so a 100 x 80 x 60cm should be good.


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## bluedart (Sep 5, 2005)

Where do the 11 species come in?


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2006)

Great post Titus.
I have been wanting to mix a pair of tincs with a trio of tricours for a while now. What size viv would you/people suggest?

Cheers
Mark


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I still wouldn't mix those frogs - ok, so they don't hybridize, so they will get along... I don't think so! My biggest problem is not ybridizing, its behavior - and honestly I don't think a zoo is the best place to be looking at mixing advice (much more likely to mix species on display because that's what they do, display). Zoos break most of the rules that we follow when it comes to display (population density and what not) because they are displaying the animals, not trying to keep them alive the healthiest and longest in the same tank. If a frog gets sick, they swap it out with another. They replace frogs with stock from their breeders, or just get them from other zoos that breed them. I'd like to think we run our tanks more responsibly than zoo displays, going all out to make the frogs happy in their specific habitats than trying to cut corners to get as many colors in the same tank as possible.

If you are throwing a bunch of different frogs in the tank, and they don't breed, there is something wrong. I'm not saying your goal in life should be breeding your frogs, but if you have the frogs in a remotely decent set up, and both sexes, they should be breeding, its what they do. Mixed tanks rarely have frogs that are breeding... why?! A zoo doesn't care if the frogs aren't breeding in a display, their breeding goes on behind the scenes (and in species specific tanks usually).

There is also the bit about mixing frogs that come from varying habitats, and such different places. If the frogs don't occur together, then why? All rainforest habitats aren't created equal, and the frogs have evolved to take advantage of their type of rainforest. I don't think tris and tincs would do well together - the tincs like it cooler, and are much more aggressive and that can seriously hurt a more laid back frog if they don't have enough of a group of their own species to take it out on.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "because they are displaying the animals, not trying to keep them alive the healthiest and longest in the same tank. If a frog gets sick, they swap it out with another. They replace frogs with stock from their breeders, or just get them from other zoos that breed them. I'd like to think we run our tanks more responsibly than zoo displays, going all out to make the frogs happy in their specific habitats than trying to cut corners to get as many colors in the same tank as possible"

This may occur at some places but this would be an unacceptable standard where I work. I have to take strong exception to the implication that the health of the animal is not a serious concern. If a Zoo is not keeping this in consideration then I would be willing to bet that they are in violation of thier charter and as such are answerable to thier board as well as to the public. 

Ed


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2006)

If they aren't found together in their natural habitat, then it would just irk me to no end to see them co-habitating in a viv. Part of the reason I'm involved with this hobby is because of the awareness of the large ecosystem they are apart of and the various organisms and conditions that comprise them, and how specific species fit into those systems and utilize their physical surroundings. To just throw together some atypical enclosure with different frogs seems strange to me. I just don't see the point.


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## cbreon (Apr 25, 2005)

My experience with mixing tincs with other frogs has not been good. I used to help maintain and advise a university on managing their tank. They really wanted a multi species tank. There tank was 180 gallons, had a great environment and plenty of food and the three pairs of tincs/Azureus eventually boiled down to one pair. In the case of mixing tincs and tricolors, they are both aggressive and I don't see them cohabitating very well, even with a lot of space. 

The only frogs I would consider mixing are some of the less aggressive species galacs, leucs, truncs, auratus, but then you run into the crossbreeding problem. Maybe a mix of fantasticus and imitators, or a multilevel tank with tincs or terriblis on the bottom, thumbnails on the top i.e. vents, amazonicus, panguana or GL lamasi. There are some dutch and german vivs that I have seen cohabitating such species and sometimes more, but these are 200+ gallon custom vivs. If you search the links on this board you can find some amazing dutch vivarium sites which show pics of the type of cohabitive environments we are discussing. Cheers!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

snip "There tank was 180 gallons, had a great environment and plenty of food and the three pairs of tincs/Azureus eventually boiled down to one pair. In the case of mixing tincs and tricolors, they are both aggressive and I don't see them cohabitating very well, even with a lot of space"

I bred tincts for more than 10 years in large groups. Multiple-males and multiple females in the same enclosure (and these frogs lived to be between 12-15 years of age). I have also bred and kept azureus, and auratus in groups of 4 or more without seeing the mortality issues reported on this board. 

Ed


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2006)

Here is my dirty little secret that I normally would not share on this board. I kept a trio of d. azureus with a trio of d. tinctorius in the same tank. They ended up weeding down to my "dream come true", what I believe to be a pair with one d. azureus and one d. tinctorius. I beleive these are a pair as they have cohabitated peacefully for a long time but are still too young to breed (but realize this does not indicate for sure a pair) I never once saw the frogs fight but one by one I would find the frogs dead, face up, with their head mushed down into the soft, really wet, peat substrate. Maybe what I was doing wrong was putting too few frogs and should have put more in instead of just trios. I think there is a fine line thats walked with mixing the right amount of d. azureus or d. tinctorius with regards to amount and tank size. I am inclined, through experience, to agree with P. Nabhors, that d. azureus and d. tinctorius should only be kept in pairs, while d. leucomelas and d. auratus can be kept in groups.


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## cbreon (Apr 25, 2005)

Ed, your comment is regarding breeding one kind of tinc, but would mixing different tinc morphs and azureus together have the same results as one morph of tinc in a large group? This is what I was commenting on. More importantly, I was trying to point out that mixing tincs and other aggressive species together might not be a good idea.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Mixing the different tinct morphs shouldn't be any different than one tinct morph (with the exception of the "dwarf" and "giant" races). I normally do not recommend mixing different species (or morphs) like tincts and azurues or auratus (etc) but it can be done. You need to pay attention to detail, set up the enclosure properly (with this goal in mind, and not that you are optimizing the enclosure for your viewing etc) and then monitor the frogs closely to see if anything needs to be rearranged, moved/ reset up. These modifications can disrupt the attempts to set up a territory allowing all of the animals to establish themselves to the point where the dear enemy phenomena" becomes established (see the work of Judy Stamps for a full explination). If you have a frog or frogs that is getting picked on, do not remove the frog that is getting picked on, remove the frog that is doing the picking for a couple of days and move some items in the cage around disrupting the territories and allowing the other frogs to become more established. Supply at least one hide area per frog and if possible have thier entrances facing away from each other. Include visual barriers so a chased frog can get out of the sight of the other frog. This has typically (at least for me) eliminated the aggression between frogs as a pecking order is established and each frog has its own hide and breeding area. (this by the way is how I was doing this 12 to 15 years ago). At that time, I was breeding D. azureus in groups of 2.2 and 3.2 in 20 longs, 2.3 auratus in 10 gallons and E. tricolor in ten gallon tanks in groups of 1.2) 
As I have said in other threads, I do not normally encourage the mixing of territorial species that have similar body structures and behaviors as this can induce strong territorial aggessions between the animals nor do I normally recommend the mixing of those species that can hybridize but with a lot of attention to detail and patience it can be done without any losses of animals. It really is not easy and it is complicated as you also need to know the animals well enough to judge if some of them are having "issues". 

As a final note, the comment about the soft substrate just rang some bells in my head as I do not normally use "soft" substrates or water pools when working with larger frog groups or mixed groups so my frogs may not have been able to drown or suffocate each other. I tend to use a fine milled cypress mulch that is packed down as it resists decay, can be planted, and holds moisture well (and is cheap when purchesed from some of the big box DI stores).

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The methods below should be used in addition to the ones listed above not on thier own... 

Some other items to consider to diffuse the aggression is the density of the frogs in the tank. In a lot of other territorial species (such as crocodilians), increasing the density of the animals diffuses the aggression as it is harder for a single animal to "defend" a territory. This inability to defend a territory diffuses the aggression spreading it through the population. I do not think that in most cases dealing with dendrobatids that this may be a good method as this already tends to occur to some extent as the size of the tank increases. 
Another method to consider when dealing with an animal that has one sex more territorial than another is to increase the limiting resource that is defended by the animal. In the case of tincts, these are generally considered to be access to males, and nesting sites. Increasing the male to female ratio and the number of nesting sites, and calling sites for the males (as more males calling = more males available for the females) to a ratio equal to or better yet greater than the number of females can also help to diffuse the aggression. Typically this is one of the items that determines the size of the animal's territory in the wild as the adult's territory has to encompass all of these items. 
Another point is to use multiple feeding stations, as it is possible that a frog will monopolize one feeding site and attempt to exclude the other frogs from that site. 

But people need to keep in mind the signs to watch for as posted above. People also should keep in mind that this will probably not work for all species of dart frog (since this is what we are discussing here and not multispecies enclosures). 

Some more thoughts. 

Ed


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