@#$%&((&$@@!$%&FIRE ANTS!

[Anonymous]

Came home today to find that fire ants had found one of the dart terrariums. They killed all the frogs in it, the first thing I saw wrong was a Dead leucomelas in the water bowl, an azureus was black with ants dismembering it. No sign of the auratus but the amount of ants in cage they surely must be dead. Before I get grief about a "mixed species" cage this terrarium has run for about 10 years as a display tank at work. I took the frogs home from work as the caregiver there quit and I have been full time at the production greenhouse. It seems that the staff at the retail site couldn't be bothered to mist or feed the frogs. This most likely caused their demise since the frogs were skinny and I was feeding heavy. The scout ants found the fruit flies in the cage and the resulting feeding column killed the frogs.

 

[investigator1]

That sucks big time! I used to be a dart frog freak before I got into reefing.

 

[Mouse]

unlucky man, i suggest you find yourself an anteater to patroll your crib. Going to be getting some PDF's myself soon, thinking of strating out with 4 viv's. Been keeping and breeding Hondo's for two years successfully, and ive kept fish forever. Trying to save a buck or two an the misting system by sorting out a big one. anyways, my comiserations.

 

[Anonymous]

FYI, anteaters won't work since their diet really is more termite based. Any other ant wouldn't have been a problem since it would just been dart frog food. Anyway some ant bait seems to have had the desired effect. Nice thing about fire ant poisons lots of them are slooow acting so they are dispearsed in the hill. BTW they climbed up the light power cord to get access to the cage. Sort of my "NAKED JUNGLE" moment.

 

[Anonymous]

Wow, that's terrible. That's one pest I wouln't like to have around my area.

As far as mixing species, I hope this forum can have open and friendly discussions on the topic without the subject being taboo. My 150 vivarium has mixed species.

 

[investigator1]

There is nothing wrong with mixing dart species at all. You only need to consider thier space and territory requirements.

 

[Anonymous]

I think the anti-mixing hysteria comes from the typical American way of keeping frogs, which is some variation of wet paper towels in a bare tank.

In large enclosures filled with vegetation, a variety of species can be kept together with no problems. My big vivarium is actually producing new Phyllobates aurotaena with no assistance from me whatsoever! The D. azureus don't bother them at all...

 

[Anonymous]

Try ground cinnamon and quick grits ranaman. It's safer than your chemicals for getting rid of the fire ant pests. :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Quick grits and cinnamon? The only problem with using such things is they don't work! Most compounds used in baits have a fairly low toxicity, one spinosad is compatible with organic cultural systems. Others are insect growth regulators which interfer with molting and egg laying.
my main problem with the current baits is they are all formulated with the same bait soybean oil on corn grit. The ants that liked this food tended not to reproduce so alot of baits seem to be ignored by ants right now. The reason I had some amdro bait on hand was because I wanted to see if ants would eat it before I invested in 50 lb bag for work. Anyway for a comparison of various baits see http://www.uaex.edu/Other_Areas/publica ... A-7052.asp
Wonder what kind of effect feeding a 50lb dog 5lbs of cinmamon would have?

 

[Anonymous]

ahve you ever tried the cinnamon and instant grits? cuase they are a hell of a lot less harmful than synthetic hormones and poisons :? Everytime the ground cinnamon has worked at repelling them and the grits work well for killing them. Don't know why your so against using natural effective ways of ridding your self of pests. Anyway sucks to hear about your frogs muy malo indeed.

 

[Mouse]

Dan, i see that you have Philobates and Dendrobates where there is no risk of cross species breeding. The problem with mixing Darts from what i can gather is that their natural habitat is under threat so their are limited wild specimins available. Therefore, if we are going to keep the bloodlines pure enough for re-introduction at a later date, and for the long term captive longevity of the species we need to ensure that those species are pure.

Snakes on the otherhand, that have large robust native poulations are seen as acceptable candidates for hybridisation, because the need to re-intorduce captive bread populations isn't there.

Many Dart frog nuts are extreemly proud that they are helping the continuation of a endangered species, hybridisation will mean that that species no longer exists and therefore would become technically extinct.

Mixing familys of frogs is cool, mixing species from the same family is not. If only that their are allready over 200 species of darts, do we even need anymore.

besides ive seen some hybrids and they look lame, the colours become washed out and blurred. Some girly was toting a bunch she's bred in the internet saying, "i call them Azurincts", i sent her a very nasty e-mail.

Infact, its a bit hard line. But if you did intend on mixing simmilar species, id just kill the offspring, it would be far more ecologically concious.

 

[Anonymous]

Totally agree Mouse; I would never mix species that could hybridize.

 

[Mouse]

Yea dude, and thats why you rock!!

i have to say though, quite a motley crew you have in there. We need more pics for the board!!!!

 

[Anonymous]

So tell me again why hybridization is a bad thing? It usually makes a healthier animal and if your going to be that anal about it why have them in the first place. I seriously doubt any one hobbyist is soley going to be responsible for supplying the breeding population of one of the species of frogs. Come on man if people are so worried about hybridization don't take them out of the wild in the first place as pets. No hostility meant by this post so no hard feeling JMHO.

 

[Anonymous]

The real problem is losing the species in captivity. Auratus will hybridize with tincs, luecs, azureus, etc. You can end up with things that no longer look like wild frogs. I have seen this with orchids where hybrids have been sold as species. Not all hybrids have desirable traits the old saw in plant breeding is the cabbage/ radish hybrid. It had the roots of a cabbage and the leaves of a radish.
Killifish breeders are very concerned with keeping geographic data on their fish. They really try to keep hybrids out of their fish rooms. In some cases they have the only captive populations of some fish with very restricted ranges.