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Poison Frogs - Food

Contents :

Poison frog food

Fruit fly production

Springtale production

People reading the homepage this far could become enthousiastic about keeping poison frogs, since there seem to be little backlogs compared to for instance a tropical fish aquarium : colourfull interesting creatures in a beatifull setting filled with flowers could be attractive for a larger audience. The less attractive part will follow soon and this is the part that most people don't like about this hobby ( especially the house mates ). In these pages I would like to give some ideas which are tested in practice and work well for me, although a number of people will swear with their own feeding techniques or food systems, my system will show a number of advantages which are mayb appealling to some. The improvements are born from the fact that this is also not the most favourite part of the hobby for me but essential for keeping these beatifull animals.

Poison frog Food

Poison frogs require large amounts of small insects to feed, these insects should be alive and not exceeding 6 mm. The largest insect that can be eaten by some of the largest poison frogs are the curly flies, but this is exclusive for the full grown D. Tinctorius and D. Azureus. For the smaller versions I have the main food is fruit flies ( Drosophila small and larger ). I use the special mutant versions that are not capable of flying for reasons of ease and security. Small crickets are also eaten but only the smallest versions and i feed them aphids from my garden ( if available ). Fruit flies remain the main food and is generally good for the frogs as long as you dust the fruit flies with vitamins and mosthly calcium. If you use UV lamps in the vivarium Vitamin D3 is not really required since this is generated via the light, but it does not harm either. Both substances are essential to make sure that no growth disorders occur ( rachitis ).

The dusting is easy : put the fruit fly culture above a polyethylene ( tupperware or similar ( read : cheaper )) freezer box and put a small amount of dusting powder in this box. Tap on the culture and let the flies fall into the larger container. The sides of the polyethylene ( or polypropylene) box are usually high gloss finished and much to slippery for the flies to climb out quickly, a small tap every now and then is enough to let them fall down again. Close the box and shake it with the powder and the flies so that the flies are dusted, then tap the flies ( and not the remaining powder ) into the vivarium. The last part requires some practice but after 3 times it will be easy enough.

I feed the frogs an average of at least 10 flies per frog of the larger type and of the small type about 20. These are ball park estimates since i never counted them, but my estimate would be around 100 - 200 flies for the 8 frogs i have a day !!!!. The last one does an excellent job getting rid of the larger insects like crickets that have grown in the vivarium.

The frogs only react on movement, they do not see an insect when it does not move !!, therefore dead animals are not eaten and for instance slow moving aphids and maggots are less quickly eaten as faster moving fruit flies. I feed the frogs once a day, just before the "rains". And they eat the flies within 15 minutes. Once they are used to the pattern they know when the food is coming and when to go to the feeding place, a kind of Pavlof reaction.

The statements above show clearly that a solid amount of fruit flies should be bread in order to maintain a reasonable amount of frogs, which is not as easy to do intentionally as happens almost automatically in the bio-containers during sunny weather. The method i describe in the food breeding page shows the set-up i which is proven and a result of a lot of failures and problems in obtaining the right quantities of food. Make sure that you have a backup source available ( pet shop, proven internet shop ) in case all your cultures crash because of infection with mythes, too high temperature, fungus, bad closure or other disasters.........

Fruit fly production

The production of fruit flies is not simple, there are several problems to solve :

The culture should be temperature controlled.

The culture should be free of mythes which kill a fuit fly culture by eating the eggs and attacking the larvea.

The growth substrate should not mold or start to smell terribly during the weeks or more of such a culture.

The feeding should be simple and easy, without a lot of debris in the vivarium

I use a number of 8 1 litre polypropylene boxes ( like tupperware or rubbermade freezerboxes ) were i alternately make and use 4 cultures every 2 or 3 weeks ( 4 new cultures, 4 cultures in production for feeding ), this is more than sufficient for my frogs. These boxes are preferrable above glass pots since they are easy to clean afterwards and can be reused, secondly they are square which is room efficient and they can be closed easily ( with the polyethyle flexible lid ) and repeatedly.
In order to load these boxes i use the following composition : 100 gr of fruit containing muesli ( Albert Hein, 4 grains + dried fruit, costs 0,8 Eur / 500 gr ). 200 gr of rolled oats ( Albert Hein, Euroshopper, 0,44 Eur / 500 gr ). 400 gr of water. 250 gr of white wine ( the cheapest, preferably sweet German wines ( no offence intended ), 1,5 Eur / bottle or less. 20 gr of vinegar. a teaspoon of dried yeast.
First add the oats and meusli to a large bowl, add the water, wine and vinegar and slowly stir the mass with a spoon, then pulp this with a blender. Leave this mixture for half an hour to stiffen, then divide the pulp over the four 1 litre boxes. Although usually recommended i do not use wood fibre to give the fruit flies some dry feet, the pulp is relatively dry and does not fall out of the container when feeding or tapping out the fruit flies, i have seen no negative results from not having a spongue or wood fibre in the boxes. I use a piece of aluminium foil which to provide some extra surface inside For closure i have cut a large square hole in the polyethylene (PE) soft lids and press a paper towel in between the lid and the box. This provides enough air for the flies and does not dry out the culture too quickly.
Now find a myte free culture as a start and add about 50 to 100 fresh fruitflies. I usually use a mixture of small and large fruit flies, the small version has the fastest cycle 10 days to 2 weeks , the larger version takes more time abou 3 weeks. Every 3 weeks I make 4 new cultures, at that moment the other 4 are fully producing, which gives me ample flies to last the following 3 weeks. and the cycle starts again. Every now and then i order a few boxes of new flies to start new cultures and prevent the flies from inbreed and getting smaller and more sensitive. In order to prevent mytes from ruining the cultures i use ant powder on the bottom of the breeding cabinet. Nevertheless sometimes this happens, but due to the powder it is restricted to one culture and does not jump over to the other cultures due to this powder ( one can see a brown circle of myte corpses around such a box quickly ).
The cabinet were i keep the cultures is a former kitchen cabinet, which i have isolated it Polystyrene foam sheets. Inside the cabinet is a air pump and 2 small lamps, The air pump ( large aquarium pump 300 litre/hour capacity ) refreshes the air in the cabinet and prevent any smell from coming out, since the air is pumped to the outside of the house. The pump and the lamps are switched on and of with a thermostat ( aquarium version ) to maintain the temperature on 23 - 25 C. Since the cabinet is in my basement, i do not face the summer problem that most of the hobbists have, that the temperature goes up too high and the flies die or the cultures die due to mytes, which can not be stopped at temperatures above 25 C. Due to the isolation the electrical power use is minimal ( 2x 8 W lamps and 1x 15 W pump is enough to keep the temperature at 23 C with 10 minutes per hour switch on time )

There are a lot of advantages to this system :

practically maintenance free.

No or managable myte infection risk.

Very cheap substrate.

Non smelling, compared to sugar rich banana or fruit based mixtures.

Easy to clean and also easy to feed due to the hard paste like substrate form.

No wood fibre in the vivarium any more.

No food problems any more for me, and i have tried several commercial mixtures, home brewed banana based mixtures, etc, etc. with very poor results.

Good production of fruit flies.

Springtale production

Springtales are small white invertebrates, which can be found in the garden in moderate and humid climates all around the world. Their size is a maximum of 5 mm and they are therefore perfectly suited as food for small froglets, who can not eat fruitflies at start. Fully grown poison frogs like them too, and they eat them like a TV snack or candy. They have 3 pair of legs in front and 3 pair at the back of their body, which they use to jump.

Breeding springtales is easy. Use a small old aquarium ( or buy a small plastic one in the pet shop ) fill it up with standard flower soil ( which can be bought at the flower shop or garden centre ) and keep it moist to wet ( but not fully immersed in water ). Buy a starting culture of springtales, or try to get some from a frog friend ( or try to find them in your garden ) and put them on top.

Spring tales feed on the small fungus, algea and bacteria that live on rotting soil. Therefore one should let it rot. The older the soil the better. The larger the aquarium the better. I feed the springtales with fish food from the pond I have in the garden. This starts to rot and mold and the mold feeds the springtales. This is however not smelly ( compared to fruit flie cultures a heaven ).

This was the easy part, the difficult part is to get them out and feed them clean to the frogs. One described and proven method is to use the small throw-away., preferably white filmcontainers and stick them in the soil, the springtales will fall in and are not able to come out again. White containers work better than black ones, because the spring tales go to the light !!!.

The method i use is to scoop some soil with spring tales in a small canister, container or something you like and put this in the vivarium. The springtales will come out and the frogs will find them. After a day the soil is dropped back in the breeding aquarium and one can take a new sample.

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