My Vivaria

what commercial brand media are you using for you cultures? i been using Eds for year, but i was considering trying something new like Josh's media.
 
darts are more addicting then reefing, just keep that in mind, i think we are gonna start a dart aholic anonymous fairly soon, this hobby is getting out of control.
 
Yea I post on dendroboard under the same name there. I tried to form a local club for darts and vivariums but there were not enough hobbyists in new york as much as there are for reef keeping..

I use media from joshsfrogs, I order a lot of stuff from him and his prices are great.. also I think he adds cinnamon so his cultures smell better than most.

The part of the hobby I like the most aside from the plants is the aspect of genetic diversity.. some species have multiple color morphs because of allopatric speciation in their natural habitat when they might just be a few miles away from each population. As hobbyists, there is a network (tree walkers international, amphibian steward network) that attempts to maintain diversity within our own captive populations by tracking lineage and keeping high fitness within the captive population so that we don't accidentally selectively breed from the wild caught population.. this would eventually make a properly maintained captive population suitable for reinsertion to the wild since deforestation is a major concern in the habitat of most of these species..

unfortunately I have not seen much of these issues with genetics in captive populations brought to the saltwater community as far as I know.. and it is an important concern ..
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11042521#post11042521 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Corpus Callosum
unfortunately I have not seen much of these issues with genetics in captive populations brought to the saltwater community as far as I know.. and it is an important concern ..

Too many of the "masses" as consumers that are driving the market in the same general way as the fresh water market that bring us things like Picasso Clowns as a high dollar collector's item to go along with such mutants such as flower horn's. It's a great way to make what would have been a cull a valuable commodity, but it is lousy way to maintain proper wild type genetics.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11042401#post11042401 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Julio
darts are more addicting then reefing, just keep that in mind, i think we are gonna start a dart aholic anonymous fairly soon, this hobby is getting out of control.

My daughter has been wanting azureus. With you two around talking dart frogs I just might end up giving in :lol:
 
Hey Bill,
i got a few breeding pairs, but no eggs yet, after Joe your daugther is next in line.
I will keep you posted.
 
I think this thread is going to make me get into it as well, I bought a 20H just for this purpose today...I'm thinking of going with a couple of blue and black Dendrobates Auratus... Doin lotsa reading up at the moment :)
 
auratus are nice.. they get a bit larger than the species I've posted.

Here are some I saw when I was in Costa Rica

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May 25th - June 19th, took a course and did research at La Suerte Biological Field Station and published a paper on Dendrobates pumilio microhabitat use.
 
sweet, i came back 3 days before you got there, my friend run high school trips out there and i got to hang out with some of hte locals and look for soem frogs and watched some of the sea turtles lay on the beach.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11046452#post11046452 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by imlocke
I think this thread is going to make me get into it as well, I bought a 20H just for this purpose today...I'm thinking of going with a couple of blue and black Dendrobates Auratus... Doin lotsa reading up at the moment :)

Best of luck and post some pics of the setup as you go along. Once you enter the world of darts you will never leave, fair warning.
 
My orange lamasi tad is a few hours away from morphing out.. put him in a film canister and into the morphing container!

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I hope the other tad comes out this orange.. it's got a month left because it was from a different clutch of eggs (younger clutch).
 
very cool. im pretty sure im gunna set up a ten gallon for a pair of frogs. im reading on the dendro forums right now and im gunna try and place an order for some supplies this coming week. any websites you can reccomend for things like background/ substrate?

also, i may have skipped this, but how is your substrate/ bottom set up? is it eggcrate or what? and im not sure if im understanding this correctly, but with the eggcrate do you just put it down on some pvc to elevate it and put the substrate over it?

sorry for all the questions. any help is appreciated.
thanks.
 
hey constantine, I believe that most tanks also have a hole cut into the false bottom underneath the egg crate for a powerhead/valve to drain the water out.

You can try this site: http://www.joshsfrogs.com/catalog/
I believe it's the site that Corpus uses. I think it's the one I'm going to be using when I order my stuff soon as well.
 
Julio, yea I got 2 orange lamasi tads from Rob, but they are from different clutches of eggs. So I got the one in the picture above that's about to morph out now, and the other one that is a month behind and only has back legs and zero patterning.

Chris, drop by anytime!

Constantine, yea www.joshsfrogs.com has a lot of good prices on stuff, then there's always www.blackjungle.com but they're overpriced although they have a lot of good things. Every 3 months there's a show in White Plains, and I usually buy my supplies there in person. But for everything else online I use josh and some other sites. www.calwesttropical.com is another good one for substrate. I've also ordered plants from www.tropiflora.com , but they don't specialize in terrarium stuff so you have to know what you want.

Each tank I have was built differently.. like experimenting techniques.. but here's some construction pics I dug up of the 40.

Used eggcrate as a spacer to allow drainage, and created a wall out of corkbark and Handi-Foam (polyurethane foam):

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Then I added a cork bark background in the same manner:

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Then I cover the foam with black silicone and before it dries, stick on the coconut fiber:

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Cut a piece of 1/8" glass for the top, then build a screen out of window framing and spline for the remaining area for slight ventilation:

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Add screen on top of the eggcrate, add substrate, add driftwood:

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Water drains to the front area, where I keep aquatic plants that can tolerate it such as Anubias sp. This tank doesn't have a drain like my other tank, so every month when the water level from drainage gets too high, I just siphon it out:

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