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Chiral

Raising and caring for frogs.

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Wild caught food rarely needs dusting with vitamins and calcium as they have been exposed to the natural elements. House flies are easy to breed and are pretty small. Vinegar flies ( compost bin flies) are smaller still and can be farmed on banana skins. Or make a fine mesh net and scoop it through long grass to collect meadow plankton. Place a solar light near a pond to attract moths for frogs to eat.

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frog are not as good at predicting the weather as legend has it, so one excellent way to help them along is to look for puddles that are 100% going to dry up before the spawn hatches or even before the tadpoles mature to land life. I've seen them in tractor tracks, old buckets, and even footsteps in mud lined by plastic bags. If there is no rain for a week the water is gone and the spawn is dead. At uni we used to collect these as they were regarded as ultimately dead anyway.

Collect locally - as local as possible, so you don't introduce something that shouldn't be there.

if you're right in the city and there is not much chance of them colonising any nearby areas, you can also go to the fruit&veg market and ask around. Most australian markets now have a return taxi service for frogs so they go back to where they came from, but I am sure some don't. That way you are not introducing them as they have already been introduced, but you are still helping them get established, so this might be contentious.

I think if you provide clean water then you don't need to worry about pollution. Clean means no chlorine! if you have to sue tap water then leave it open in the sun for a few days, with a screen over it so they don't jump in. The chlorine will gas off. In an emergency you can also boil some water to achieve the same result. Rainwater is best.

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There is a junk yard right near me and they have heaps of old bathtubs, 5 bucks each sorta deal, thought I might buy 2 and place one at one end of the area and the other at the other end, reason being is the guttering from the garage at one end doesn't terminate at a downpipe, rather it's just open and rainwater pours off the end of it onto some large bushrocks that I purposely placed under were it pours off.

At the other end of that side of the yard same deal, but I cut some 100mm conduit and have trained the rainwater that would normally run off the patio roof into a down-pipe, and it now flows along the conduit half pipe and out onto my garden in a very nice shaded protected area where there is some shade lovers like elephants ears etc.

I'm thinking to place a tub at each end under where the water will spill out of these gutters and pipes, and into or across the edges of the tubs. Not so much that it would be too brutal or rough, maybe have it splash down onto a large rock in the tub to break the waters fall.

So if I fill the tubs with tap water and just leave them they will self purify and be okay for frogs...?

then put rocks and ledges or old school besa blocks..(the ones with 2 holes in them ) around the outside edges of the tubs and plant stuff and back fill around the edges with soil and stone, old bricks etc..

Are rats predators of frogs...have seen a few around these parts..big bastids too.. :unsure:

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FROGS OF SYDNEY. click the slide show for beautiful photos of frogs.

Edited by Chiral

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So if I fill the tubs with tap water and just leave them they will self purify and be okay for frogs...?

then put rocks and ledges or old school besa blocks..(the ones with 2 holes in them ) around the outside edges of the tubs and plant stuff and back fill around the edges with soil and stone, old bricks etc..

Are rats predators of frogs...have seen a few around these parts..big bastids too.. unsure.gif

 

Keep in mind that Some metals are toxic to frogs or tadpoles and so can be some uv treated containers. Frogs have a funky secretion on their skin which can repel some predators. The frogs shown earlier (Perons tree frog ) smells peppery and if you rub your eyes after picking one up,it can sting.

Chiral, are you going to dig the bath in at ground level? Ground dwelling speceis may have trouble getting to the water if it is too high up. Also Some frogs can drown if they can not get out of a body of water. Many pool owners find drowned frogs as a result of the water level being too low for the non tree frog varieties to get out of.

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Not going to dig the tubs in rather build up/back fill with soil and rocks and bricks up to the edges so they can climb up relatively easy, and hide amongst the bricks and the holes too. Plant some reeds and water grasses right at the very edges of the top of the tub and have one end shallow by tapering the amounts of sand and rocks inside to deep water up to a mini beach like situation at the other end.

I have it sussed in my mind just need to get the tubs and a load of rocks etc...funnily enuff for my area being a ghetto there is relatively great access to free mulch, free rocks, junk yards and general waste that be recycled back into something like a frog setting, just gotta do the work but of the stuff neede will be free and I have a station wagon which is the bomb for collecting shit in and bringing it home.

I'm sure if they are happy here and they do actually settle, there are literally millions of crickets in my yard, I can here them chirping every nite and sometimes they come inside and I collect them and carry em outside again.

Just wanna get the health parameters sorted and don't wanna kill any in the initial introducing process.

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Hey Chiral I'll take a pic tomorrow. I dug my tub into the ground but I've actually been planning to raise it back to ground level and have even began to move rocks and transplanted some of the plants.The plants around it smother the water plants a bit too much when they're at the same level and I even got a bit of dirt in the pond when digging in plants around the outside **SHAME**.

I may put some plastic sheet under the tub to make the whole area around the tub a little bit boggier/marshier, so when the tub overflows it would top up the marsh area.

It's good if you can have a drain pipe feeding into one end of the pond or the overflow from a rainwater tank etc.

So yeah, good idea to have it raised, I wish I had done that to begin with lol.

Oh and by the way, if you made a nice terrarium (which doesn't require any electricity or maintenance), you could keep any frog you find in your pond as a temporary pet for a week or two and then let it go again, back into your pond to breed and be happy. Just don't get caught or they'll probably hang you.

Edited by Quantum turkey

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So I went and looked at my local junk yard this morning for any bathtubs and they are out...someone bought the last one yesterday apparently..they had a spa bath and kitchen sinks and bathroom sinks by the dozen, but nah i want bathtubs or baby pools if i can get a couple...so if anyone see's any on the street around the Sydney area gimme a holla and I'll nip out and pick em up, or if you have an old kiddies pool laying around your yard I'd be happy to take it for a trade or something.

Also looking for the cheapest way and place to buy a meter of crushed rock or very coarse sand and have it delivered.

thanks.

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check your local tip chiral. i used to dump all the old baths i used to collect there. u will also (if you are lucky) find bags of sand and shell grit. Tips are a treasure trove! (usually in the recycle area). be sure to post us some pics of your froggie paradise!

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if you have an old kiddies pool laying around your yard I'd be happy to take it for a trade or something.

.

thanks.

 

Kiddies pool ,are you talking about like one of those clam shell pools. Most of the kids pools will break down over time and may leach toxins into the water. A bath is your best /cheapest option. Look on EBAY under ponds and you might get a bargain.

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Here's some pics of my frogpond. It's hard to tell but there is a bath tub under all that. Like I mentioned, I plan to raise it back up above ground level as the surrounding plants seem to smother the water plants a bit too much.

Please note that this is not, nor is is supposed to look like, a fish pond. I don't think a bath tub is all that great for a fish pond because it's hard to disguise the tub without all the plants etc but the frogs love this one anyway. If I was going to make a fish pond I'd use something large like an old water tank.

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Edited by Quantum turkey

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It warms my heart to see that there are people caring for frogs...we need more frogs, we want them back !

Good job !

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Quantum, how do you deal with the shitload of cane toads in SEQ?

dont they overtake the pond?

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Quantum, how do you deal with the shitload of cane toads in SEQ?

dont they overtake the pond?

 

I've never had one here because Toowoomba is 700m high in elevation making it a bit too cold for them. I'm sure they'd go bonkers in a frogpond like mine though. I don't know how you'd keep them out.

Another good way to provide frogs with homes is with certain native plants such as Spider lilies, Lomandras and Sword-grass.

I grew the spider lilies and lomandras around my pond from seed. They are both easy to grow and are quite drought and frost tolerant.

Edited by Quantum turkey

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frogs amaze me. out at the nangar national park here : http://www.eugowra.aus.net/nangarnp.htm

its is dry as a bone for much of the year. in fact its been like a desert for the last 7 or 8 yrs, nows the first time in ages ive seen water in the creeks. I took a drive yesterday, and the little creeks are absolutely chockers with tadpoles!!!

im thinking that the frogs must burrow and go dormant for AGES then reappear when its wet.

funky.

id be keen if any acacia experts would like to join me for a bushwalk there. theres an amazing diversity of acacias, from lil'ns to HUGE ones!! i cant tell them apart to save my life but would not surprise me at all if theres some actives amongst them. Its pretty virgin forest for this area.

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frogs amaze me. out at the nangar national park here : http://www.eugowra.aus.net/nangarnp.htm

its is dry as a bone for much of the year. in fact its been like a desert for the last 7 or 8 yrs, nows the first time in ages ive seen water in the creeks. I took a drive yesterday, and the little creeks are absolutely chockers with tadpoles!!!

im thinking that the frogs must burrow and go dormant for AGES then reappear when its wet.

 

Absolutely...lots of frogs burrow into the soil and go dormant...it's way cool huh...thing that freaks me about frogs is that they have porous skin...that would be so weird, cool lil fuckers for sure...nice lil pond there quantum, mines gunna be better though... B)

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