As the tadpole grows in the egg, it will fill the egg and assume a C position. When the tadpole’s tail is straight again, you know it has hatched. It is now time to take the tadpole out of the petri dish. We use a turkey baster to get the tadpoles out. We then place the tadpoles individually in tadpole cups. We add 2″-3″ of Reverse Osmosis water, a piece of indian almond leaf and a small piece of Java Moss. After a day or two, we fill the cup up entirely. If you do not have a Reverse Osmosis System, we recommend that you use some of the water treatment products.

We feed my tadpoles a variety of tadpole foods. We feed once a week and NEVER do water changes.

Once the tadpole sprouts front legs, We pour out all of the water, get rid of the java moss, and add an inch or so of Reverse Osmosis water back into the cup. We then place the cup between two of the wires in the wire shelf. This creates a sloped area where the frogs can climb out. When we see a frog completely out of the water, we move the froglet into a froglet tub.

Froglets

Froglets get put into tubs in pairs. The tubs are a 190 oz container with sphagnum moss, some terrarium plants, and a film cannister. We seed all tubs with springtails so the froglets can have a variety of food. We feed all froglets every other day.

Sooner or later you will get eggs. Usually you will get a couple of clutches of eggs that will go bad and mold over. This is normal. Bad eggs will swell up and get cloudy. In developing eggs you can actually see the tadpole develop in the egg. When I get eggs, I take a paper towel, wet it, and place it in the bottom of a 24 oz Ziploc container. I then take the Petri dish and place it on the paper towel (I do not put the top of the Petri dish on Petri dish). I then add enough RO water to just touch eggs. If the eggs are laid on a film canister, leaf, or on the side of the tank, I scrap out the eggs and put them in a Petri dish and add water so it just touches the eggs. Finally, I put the Ziploc lid on and mark the top with species of frog egg.

There are a lot of different kinds of lights used in the Poison Dart Frog Hobby. All have their pros and cons. AJC talked abut the different types in his podcast here: http://frogroom-podcast.blogspot.com/2006/08/vivarium-lighting.html

AJC summarized his podcast on Frognet by saying:

Here is a list of items you should have on hand before you get your frogs.

• A terrarium setup for poison dart frogs. Not sure what that entails? Then check out our Naturalistic Terrarium Construction Guide.
• A Temperature and Humidity Probe. You will want to make sure that your terrarium stays between 70-85 degrees and the humidity stays above 80%.
• A container to quarantine the frogs. We use and recommend the 190 oz Quarantine Containers
• Fruit Flies. You can either order fruit fly cultures when you need them or order a Fruit Fly Culturing Kit and culture your own fruit flies