Hi I work at an animal hospital and have for the last 14 years. I
have previously owned reptiles and of course have dogs and cats. I
was discussing with one of my doctors about looking into having dart
frogs as a hobby. In our discussion she told me about Mantellas, so
I have been researching them. She said they are more forgiving if
their habitat isnt perfect right away. Of course beings that I have
owned reptiles and not amphibians I wanted to check this out. Now
that I have done some reading on them (and have a book on order) I
was wondering if some people who have mantellas could tell me about
them. Care, Housing and habitat. I am getting a 150 gallon aquarium
and will be cleaning it very well, then rinse rinse rinse before I
start. I am planning on starting with a wood base that is cured. It
will be a few inches above the bottom, sitting on PVC pipes. I will
also have wood set up in different areas throughout the tank. I will
have moss on the wood throughout the
tank and will be playing with a
few different plkants to actually unpot and plant in the terrarium.
I will be buying some slate rock and using pipes make a waterfall
(there will be a nice thick rock on the bottom I am going to groove
for the water to run into. I am going to set up a misting system on
a timer to set off 3 times a day (as I work 10 hour days and will
not be able to mist them that often myself). I have UV bulbs for the
plants, should be able to keep the humidity pretty good in there and
think I am good to go.
The couple of things I would like to find out is what types of
plants shoulld I use. Does anyone have preferences? Does anyone have
a set up like this? Should I make a light rain on occasion? I have
PVC pipe I can make into a rainfall type thing if I need too. What
about preferences of different types. I would eventually like to try
and breed them, not to sell as much as for fun (I will give most of
them to friends or keep).
Is there anything I am overlooking that I
need to be thinking of? Any thoughts would be wonderful on this
matter. Thank you all for your help.
If your successful in getting them to breed, do you know what to feed the tadpoles on?. If the answer is no, then I can tell you that the outside lettuce leaves that everyone usually throws away are the ones to keep and cook up in a pot for 5 minutes until they are all soft and mushy. Tadpoles just love this, as you will find out when you put a cooked lettuce leaf into the water. Cheers and good luck.
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If your successful in getting them to breed, do you know what to feed the tadpoles on?. If the answer is no, then I can tell you that the outside lettuce leaves that everyone usually throws away are the ones to keep and cook up in a pot for 5 minutes until they are all soft and mushy. Tadpoles just love this, as you will find out when you put a cooked lettuce leaf into the water. Cheers and good luck.
References :
I haven't owned any exotic amphibians before just the native amphibians where i live but i think the best thing is to research their natural habitat and try your best to duplicate it, but I'm sure you already knew that.
sounds like you have allot of it figured out, frogs need plenty of water seance they need to always be wet because they breath though there skin as well kinda like a small scale pond or something with enough water to submerge.
And also if you are trying to breed them you will need a pool of water for tadpoles, they feed on algae and small aquatic plants so a little research on that can also help.
References :