DartFrog .pet Info
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Bringing a dart frog home

If you ever kept aquarium fish, you are probably aware not to just toss the new fish into your established aquarium. Otherwise you will risk bringing new problems into an established stable aquarium. Same principals holds true for dart frogs. Your new frog may have issues that you need to identify and resolve before introducing into their new home vivarium or introducing to established frogs. When you bring your new dart frog home it is important to quarantine them first.

Quarantine
Bare minimum quarantine time would be a week. Ideal quarantine time closer to a month in a separate room to prevent any fungi or parasite to spread in the air or from your hands as you move between vivarium's. During quarantine you will want to observe your frog closely. Inspect it for any visual problems, Look for:
-Movement issues
-Sores
-Eating behaviors
If is has issues walking or with coordination you will want to seek out medical assistance. If you frog has sores, lesions, wounds, bloated you will want to treat accordingly and only introduce with other frogs well after it has healed. Hopefully the wounds are cuts and not infections from bacterial or fungal in nature that require more care.
If you frog is not eating well you will want to observe it for causes. Does your frog seem to lack of interest in eating? Perhaps its stress or sickness. Does your from have difficultly catching flies with its tongue? Maybe (STS) Short tongue Syndrome usually associated with a Vitamin A deficiency. Read more about vitamins and supplementation here.

The benefit of isolation when your frogs have health issues is to prevent other frogs from getting illnesses or infections from your new frog. Bacterial infections, fungal infections or parasites from your new frog can be easily passed on to new frogs or take hold in your new vivarium requiring it to be broken down to sterilize. When in isolation/ quarantine your new frog will be better able to eat without competition from other frogs as it settles in. A sick frog will not be able to eat as aggressively as a healthy frog which will lead to its quick demise. Thus you can better monitor if it is eating well in a smaller quarantine setup.


A quarantine setup/ enclosure can be as simple as a closed plastic shoe box container that is lined with moistened sphagnum moss and leaf litter. White paper towels can be used as well to monitor for parasites in a frogs stool. It is best to cover 3 of the 4 sides of a enclosure so that they are less distracted by passing motions or lights around them which may add to stress which leads to further stress related problems.


If after week(s), your frog is eating well, looks good, looks healthy, and shows no signs of concern you can look to move him into his new home vivarium. Continue monitoring his success in the new home, as change does lead to stress. Interactions with frogs as well can be problematic. Look for aggression between frogs. Any wrestling, or fighting is a sign of a bad interaction between frogs. Fighting is not mating and can lead to death. Relocation frogs that fight is the best coarse of action.

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