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SMALL COULD BE BEAUTIFUL

NEW FROG IN TOWN

 



 

Cope the problem

The problem is all too well known. You buy a nice plant, which fits very well, in your vivarium. Then, it starts to grow. After a few months the vivarium is stuffed with this single plant, either because the plant’s leaves occupy the whole tank on their own, or because the leaves are still small, but very numerous
One way to cope with this problem is to rearrange the interior of your vivarium every six months. This would not be wise. A vivarium takes some time to establish and the animals inside take even longer. When you turn the whole thing upside down, it disturbs them a lot, giving a lot of stress they can very well do without.

Think about the consequences before buying plants for your vivarium. If you really want your vivarium to turn in to a green (OK it might be silvery or somewhat purple) jungle and do not care to much about other plants or parts of the interior to be visible, buy Tradescantia, Zebrina or Secretsea. You know the wandering yew and its allies. Ficus repens might do the trick as well. So does the Nephrolepis fern. To be on the safe side and have just a few not to fast growing plants, try these: Ruellia, Episcia, Marcgravia, Peperomia, Geogenanthus. Even these will given the opportunity, on occasion grow like weeds. However, not at all at the speed the tradescantsia’s will develop. You can manage them by a monthly pruning.
It might be even better if you stick to the smaller species. Like Peperomia rotundifolia. This one has round, somewhat lens-formed leaves that hardly exceeds a centimetre in diameter. The leaves are thick and green with some grey lines. The plant readily flowers, but these are just a few yellowish sticks emerging from the plant. The plant can grow into a dense math, on which a larger frog looks terrific (but seems a bit reluctant to sit on in front of a camera.)

 

 

 

 


NEW FROG IN TOWN


Well, not THAT new, but for some five years ago, Dendrobates galactonotus was virtually unknown. There is a picture in Walls’ jewels of the rainforest, which does not look very much like the real frogs.


Since then, some have been introducing in the hobby. At first weird stories told about frogs with shortened lower legs or metamorphosing without hind legs at all. Right now, several breeders produce nice and healthy specimen. (That is, here in the Netherlands, I cannot vouch for the rest of the world)
The frogs related to the Dendrobates tinctorius group and kept in a similar manner.
They like a warm (over 20°C at least) and humid vivarium and given time they will show themselves quite often, though not as much as the Dendrobates tinctorius use to.

However, there is a knack. The Brazilian government has never given any official permits to export these frogs from Brazil and since the whole area where Dendrobates galactonotus is to be found in nature lies well within Brazil, the first ones to reach Europe and the US have had to be illegal imports.

 

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