75gal frog paradise...

[nonamethefish]

tigerente: The larger species. Standings Day gecko was the one mentioned. They eat frogs in the wild also I hear.

[Guitarchiq]

guitarchiq: You watch the Simpsons? If so you know why I mention it here...lol

haha!  yes!
I will definitely keep your advice in mind.  We'll have to compare pics when we both have out tanks set up!

[nonamethefish]

Besides the species you listed you thinking of any other possibilities? Some I've been looking into are.

dwarf tiger leg monkey frog(Phyllomedusa hypochondrialis)
-unfortunately these guys prefer it a little on the dry side as they are not rainforest frogs...so that might kill my plan to do a jungle with a pool.

Red eye tree frog(Agalychnis callidryas)
-obvious choice, but a little more $ than the 1st. Both of these are also mainly nocturnal so would be great if you work all day but not so good if you don't stay up late.

Amazon milk frog(Phrynohas resinfix...spellin prolly wrong!)
Cute buggers, like a SA version of the Whites tree frog. Could have gotten a smashin deal on these but now that it passed probably won't bite. They don't seem to be quite my kind of frog.

Clown tree frog
-know nothing bout em except they look cool and I've only seen WC available.

Dart frogs
-Considering 2 kinds. They should be a bit more costly than the 1st 2 choices. One thing(good or bad, I dunno) is that they require smaller foods so instead of crickets you raise fruitflies and other microcritters for them. The 2 I'm considering also have a very cool call which is what originally got me interested in a paludarium.

Actually this idea has been incubating for a few years...LOL

[Guitarchiq]

I'd love to do a dart frog tank but I have 2 cats and a 3year old so...maybe not a great idea for me.  I like the monkey frog idea!  But I am home durning the day and work evenings, so I probably wouldn't see them much.  Is the red legged walking frog related or in the monkey frog family?  They have such similar traits. 
I've been thinking that I may want to stay with a type or couple of types of frogs that would be semi-diurnal at least and fairly active (as in , not chubby frogs hiding in the dirt all day), and also non-toxic. 
wonder if i can incorporate our mystery frog into this somehow?  that'd be cool.
Your list looks great, and it's awesome that you've put so much thought into this!  I'm using you as a model, going slow and planing everything before I do it. 
there was one other type of frog i was interested in but I really don't know anything about them other than that they are neat looking.  Glass frogs.  I love seeing their innerds! 
Another idea I had was to grow real moss on the rocks I would be placing around the water feature to hide it's true form (kitchen bowl).  You find some moss thats living, put it in a blender with buttermilk and pour it on a surface, and it grows!  It would also lend an ever changing aspect to the habitat, since it would eventually spread and grow.  But I'm a little concerned about parasites from living moss.  although the blender may help that a bit! 
What kind of plants are you thinking of using for your jungle?  And what will you be using to create your pool? 

[nonamethefish]

Thanks! I've always had a habit of taking it slow...sometimes way too slow I feel. So now I think I need to speed the project up a little...LOL

Dart frogs are said to be nontoxic in captivity...or at least they are not as toxic as they are in the wild. That doesn't give you an excuse to stick the rubbery little things in your mouth though! In the wild of the many species only 3 species are used by the Indians for hunting(Phyllobates terribilis is one). One site says the wild ones are so toxic that a chicken can die just by pecking a paper the frog has walked over ...but in captivity they are no worse than any other dart. I appreciate your caution and consideration for fellow family members in this regard though! If I was in your place I would be a bit uneasy too.

The red legged walking frog is a totally different frog, across the pond in Africa. I think they are probably some kind of true frog. Sci name Kassina maculata.

If your mystery frog is a leopard frog like I think it may be you could do a pretty cool pond habitat using some of these guys. I can see some plump leopard frogs watching you from under some ferns at the ponds edge...(maybe its because they are not wild here but I think leopard frogs are very pretty frogs). I bet leopard frogs would be pretty amusing captives...feeding time would probably be a blast! You'd probably want a pretty decent sized water section. No idea how tall a 75 gallon is but since leopard frogs tend to stay close to the ground you will not make much use of your vertical space. I'd bet in this case a few small fish would be fine in the pond with the frogs, but might dissapear every once in a while.

Never heard much about glassfrogs in captivity...so I'm assuming they are very rare in captivity. A few reed frogs(Hyperolius) look similar though, but those are all WC.

Have you heard of the vietnamese mossy frog(Theloderma corticale)? Now that is one cool looking frog...supposedly easy and easy to breed. Quite a few plants from Vietnam are available so you could try a sort of biotope...the frogs are said to naturally live in small limestone caves and along streams. Sorta an aquatic treefrog...they can climb well but adults love water.

I'm planning on lots of different plants, trying to stay with South American ones. www.cloudjungle.com stocks alot of cool plants some of which I'm thinking of. Bromeliads, Peperomia, moss fern, you get the drift

The tank will be done using the false bottom method...(piece of plastic screening type material(eggcrate) with PVC supports to hold it up and provide a place for the water to drain to) so I will just cut a section of it out for the pond. It is hard to explain so I will post photos soon.


This is cool as you and I are more or less at the same stage of this little experiment. Bring more stuff to the table!

[Guitarchiq]

Awesome site, and I really appreciate all the info.  I'm mimicing a sponge as we continue this thread! 
I'm glad you like leopard frogs, they're native to my neck of the woods!  They are rather glutonous and are much more active than the bull frogs we've got around here. 
that's really interesting that the darts loose at least some of their toxicity in captivity.  So, is it some insect or something else that they ingest in the wild that makes them toxic?  If so, what a really neat adaptaion.  Not only do they develope a toxicity, but aposomatic coloration as well to deter predation!  (sorry, I'm a totall geek when it comes to different survival adaptations for critters. Kinda grew up with the stuff) I'm assuming that as with snakes there are mimics too, that have similar coloration but no toxicity?  if so, neato!
Anyhow, back from my trip to geek land...
I love your false bottom idea, I know pretty much what you're describing.  We did something similar (with the same 75 gal acctually!) when we fostered a Tegu lizard.  He needed a large water dish, yet needed to burrow, so we used some plywood to fit a shelf that the bowl sat in.  The tegu was happy because he could burrow and not have water dumped all over him when he tipped the bowl, and we were happy because we didn't have to change bedding everyday.  Obviously, there's a big difference, but i know totally what you mean. 
this will be cool when we're done.  Here's an idea: we should both take pictures throughout the process and when we're done do an article about both the set-ups, stressing how 2 very similar ideas can be done in different ways. 
well, I'm off to bed for now, but I've got so many ideas in my head now!  Again, thanks a ton for all the info and help.  By the end of this I'll be a frog geek!

[nonamethefish]

LOL on the sponge! I am being one myself...or maybe an amoeba.

The bullfrogs are kind of sit and wait...they are killer on dragonflies and similar though. Even eat stuff like birds and mice...and of course they love fellow amphibians 

Yep, you got it. The diet they receive in captivity is very different from the wild so they cannot produce the toxins. They currently believe the toxins come from certain ants, beetles, and millipedes consumed in the wild. Not all darts have aposematic coloration...some of them are more like typical frogs and are camouflaged or have flash marks. Also, many of them are nowhere near as toxic as terribilis. Despite the toxins some animals still prey upon dart frogs so they aren't safe from everyone! In captivity though people have found Phyllobates terribilis to be very bold so it obviously knows it is loaded. However, at least one snake species still eats these guys! I'm not too sure if any non darts mimic dart frogs but I do know a few mimic each other. I love survival adaptations too!
Edit: Looked around and here is an example.
http://www.utexas.edu/opa/news/2006/03/biology08.html

Interesting stuff with the Tegu. So the water was able to go through the wood?

I'll definetly be taking photos...right now I have some coconut coir soaking...

 

[Lori]

I can't wait to see how this develops.  Noname, should we sticky this so we can all follow the progress of these two projects?

[nonamethefish]

Sure, that would be good. I'll see if I can do that.

[Guitarchiq]

with the tegu bowl, we just sunk it into a hole, wich still left ample room for him to crawl & burrow underneath it.  He did spill it a couple of times until we used bolts to keep it into the wood "shelf".  It also gave him a basking ledge, which in turn allowed for more free space underneath for his burrowing activities. 

I love that this is stickied!  We'll have to start taking lots of pictures.  this will be so cool! 
btw, loved that site!  I figured there must be something that ate these guys still, otherwise there'd be no population control.  And that leads to another way cool adaptation, the snakes that eat them adapting to the toxin!  Chains...

So, I will be placing my water feature this week, and starting to look for cool stones for around it.  I will take pictures! 

I want to know about your coconut stuff.  I was going to use that "forest floor"  or  "eco-earth".  Those bricks that you soak in water to make a soil, and I know that it contains some coconut fibers.  Obviously there are more options, so can you tell me where you get this stuff, how much you use, and how often you'd have to replace it for cleaning?
Also, I really want to grow my own moss by doing the blender thing, do you think that I would have to worry about parasites?  Would there be a way to disinfect the moss first to prevent this? 

My brain sponge is going "slurp!"