How hard is it to setup/keep PDF?

[biggiy05]

I spent a good two-three hours last night looking up tank setups, care sheets and finding breeders. The only thing I couldn't find was how hard it is to setup a terrarium for a poisonous dart frog. I read a lot of articles about making a live plant setup so the waste from the frogs is broken down by the plants, only thing I couldn't figure out was cleaning.

How do you go about draining the water out of a setup like that and when do you clean the tank and how? The other thing I was trying to find and had some luck but not as much as I'd hoped was keeping them together. Is it better to keep them one to a tank or have two males together in a 20 gallon long?

My biggest problem was the setup, getting it put together and cleaning.

 

[CSgecko]

The setups are pretty easy to maintain once you have them going. If you have a water feature you just filter the water as it runs and just need to change the water every few months. If you dont have a filter hooked up you just siphon it out. If you want to talk to a lot of people about this, dendroboard.com is a really big pdf forum.

 

[ZachXBass]

Dendroboard is awesome... i don't have any PDF's yet but am looking into them and that has by far been the most helpful forum i have found. Pretty much anything you can think of is on there. Also lots of good tips on building PDF enclosures.

 

[AVALover5498]

I would recommend Dendroboard as well. Alot of nice, helpful people on there.

-Chris-

 

[RBroskie]

i keep a group of d. tinctorius "brazilian yellow heads" and they are really easy to take care of. the big thing is learning how to culture food items. once you have that routine down the rest is simple. ill echo the others- go to dendroboard and look around. do a few searches and youll find everything you need. good luck.

 

[RBroskie]

these are older pics the viv has evolved quite a bit. ill have to get some more recent ones posted.

 

[Emg]

I've got 3 PDFs and they are very easy to care for. The hardest part is culturing the food, and that's not all that difficult....just tedius.

The vivs aren't difficult to care for either. You can do something as simple as a 10 with terra-lite balls under coco bedding or you can design a viv with water features. After you get it all together you just mist it daily and trim back plants as needed. I never have to 'clean' my tanks as far as the frog droppings go except to swipe them off the glass on occasion. For some very odd reason, my frogs like to do their business on the side of the tank..... :stunned:

Here's a link to a PDF supply store. They specialize in PDFs and tropical plants and you'll find anything you could possibly need to get started. It's owned and operated by two hobiests who really know what they're doing and take good care of their frogs. Awesome display tanks there too ! www.blackjungle.com

 

[Nubster]

There are people who have kept vivariums for 5 and even 10 years without ever having to tear them down. They are often self-sustaining when setup correctly.

 

[MeiK]

It's not too bad to set up... A misting system makes life easier - and an easy way to do at least partial water changes regularly also helps out.

My setup:

One valve per viv drains - one fills. Water isn't centralized so no bacteria or any other bad stuff can be transmitted between the cages. Changing water on 7 cages takes less than 2 minutes - and the misting is fully automated twice a day for one minute.

Seeding the cages with Springtails (look 'em up on google) makes life even easier! With springtails in the cage - the frog poo is taken care of. On top of that - the springtails are eaten by the frogs - so it becomes a really beneficial life cycle to the vivarium.

...there are many know-it-alls on dendroboard... Take negativity w/a grain of salt.