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!