5 or 10 Gal Terrarium
 

Hey I plan on only having 2 posion dart frogs. Mostlikely the bumblebee variety.

I am going to be living in an apartment at the college I go to and iam wondering if it would work out.

Do I need anything specific?
Do I have to have mist?
I feed them wingless fruit flies 5 times a day correct?
Any specific lighting?

Iam working at a carnivorous plant nursery this summer and i will have those and most likely a small orchid.

Member Tindomul would be a good person to talk to about this.

I've kept Dart Frogs before. And they're the thumbnail varieties.

5x a day of fruit flies sounds like alot. I got away with 3 times a day.

The larger the frogs, the larger the tank. So in this case, I'd go with the 10 gal, but I honestly think that your best bet would be to use a 20 gal for a couple of Dendrobates leucomelas. Especially if you don't know if they're male or female. Males are fairly territorial.

A misting system isn't necessary if you're able to keep the terrarium moist enough by growing small wet growing tropical plants. You can just use a spray bottle and mist 2 or 3 times a day.

The main concern is keeping the tank cool enough during the warm summer months. Try not to exceed 80 degrees F.

The lighting I've found to be of benefit for both plants and frogs are the Power Compacts. A Kelvin rating of 5500 K to 6500 K is adequate. Try and find a bulb that maximizes the amount of wattage to the size of the bulb in accordance to the tank as possible (it won't fry the frogs, I promise).

Other good food sources are springtails. Springtails get demolished quickly especially if your frogs are as large as Den leucomelas.

If space is a problem, you can try a similarly color schemed frog species of the thumbnail variety that I've found to be relatively inexpensive and fairly easy to keep, Den ventrimaculatus. These get no larger than 1/2". They're very active frogs too, especially when young. I've found that they frequently like to jump onto the top 1/3 of the tank. So a tall tank for these are beneficial over the long ones.

As far as plant choices...

I don't know about the carnivorous plants being suitable for a Dart Frog setup. Particularly if they're Nepenthes spp. The larger species of Nepenthes, such as Nepenthes rajah are said to be able to trap animals as large as rats, but normal fare tends to be insects, and sometimes small lizards or frogs. Although I believe that if the frogs aren't small enough, Venus Fly Traps may be okay. Sundews might be okay too, not sure. But the pitchers, I'm pretty apprehensive about recommending. So, regarding carnivorous plants, idk, on this department.

As far as orchids, there are many Central and South American orchids that grow in the same habitats as the Dart Frogs.

PM me and I can give you some other forums to use for dart frogs. I think Marty has one also called DartFrogz - Powered by vBulletin

I think I read something on black jungle about them having PDFs actually laying egg in Nep traps

is it true you cant fertilize your orchids if they are in with dart frogs? What kind of ramifications does this have on your orchids?