Mantella Care
Captive Care - General Prinicples PDF Print E-mail
Written by Richard   
Sunday, 16 March 2008 10:14

Before we can breed our mantellas we must be able to keep them healthy. In this section I consider the following:

HOUSING: Mantellas need to be maintained within fairly clear temperature limits. Although they come from the tropics, temperature requirements vary between species. Lighting is important, with strong lighting probably an important factor in breeding success. As with many amphibians, relatively high humidity is required.

FEEDING: Correct feeding regimes are vital to ensure adults come into breeding condition, and that, when they do, their offspring are viable. Tadpoles and froglets also need particular foods to ensure that they develop without any complications. Cultured foods available include microcrickets, fruit flies, and curly wing flies. Cultured foods can be greatly enhanced by adding vitamin supplements and gut-loading. Wild-collected foods include ‘meadow plankton’, aphids, and springtails. Tadpoles do well on foods such as frozen bloodworm and ‘Turbo Tadpole’.

DISEASE: Mantella diseases are poorly understood, and therefore need much research. I have been unlucky enough to have lost mantellas through ‘heat-related muscle spasm syndrome’, and another spasming disease. I have seen tadpoles die from spindly leg syndrome, and also suffer from starvation. One mantella I have damaged its noise, which became infected. I will describe how I treated this.

As we can see by the large number of occurrences of the word ‘syndrome’, mantella epidemiology (epidemiology is the study of diseases) is an area ripe for more research!

Last Updated on Sunday, 16 March 2008 13:47
 
Housing PDF Print E-mail
Written by Richard   
Sunday, 16 March 2008 10:24

Four main parameters need to be considered.

SPACE: Although mantellas are small frogs, they need quite a large amount of room per each individual frog, since they are territorial. For example, I have 7 aurantiaca (4.3) in a tank that is 30 inches by 18 inches by 18 inches, and I would not recommend adding any more. In fact, in the spring, when they become more active, I may take at least one of the males out.

LIGHTING: In many species strong lighting seems to be required, of a type closely mirroring ‘full spectrum’ / ‘natural sun light’ quality. Certainly in species such as aurantiaca strong lighting seems to be required.

TEMPERATURE: It appears that adult mantellas (at least) are very tolerant of cold temperatures, but not so of hotter temperatures. Thus I aim to keep my mantellas between 18-25 Celsius during the day time, with a drop of a few degrees at night. Although I am keeping four different species, they all seem to be OK with the same temperature range.

HUMIDITY: Since mantellas are amphibians constantly high humidity is required. However, during the winter ‘rest’ period, lower humidity levels are acceptable. I fit my vivaria with mesh lids that allow good air circulation, and I maintain humidity by spraying the tank using a hand-held house plant sprayer usually once a day. Where water is obtained from is an important consideration: I used to get water from my Mum’s pond, since I reasoned that this would be well aged, free from chemicals, etc. However, after advice provided by the Zoological Society of London, I became wary of using pond water. This proved a potentially life-saving move given that our native frogs experienced mass mortality over the summer of 2002. (More details in the Conservation Portal – to be added soon.) Now, I use bottled mineral water (pH 7.4). I would assume that aged tap water would also be satisfactory, and I do use tap water on occasion.