My Frog Room

Construction Started: November 10, 2008

I felt like the luckiest person alive when Erin (Shelley's mom whose house we live in) said I could convert the small downstairs coat closet into a Frog Room! I have been breeding poison dart frogs since the summer and they have slowly taken over our room, especially now that I am raising more then a dozen tadpoles. Here are some photos of my old set-up in our room.

I started construction on the room by removing the carpet, shelf, and the closet rod. Next, I cleaned, sealed, and painted (with Shelley's help) the entire closet and floor. I then removed the light fixture and ran new electrical outlets down the corner of the closet. Next, I welded two stands which can each hold three 10 gallon tanks and installed the stands in the closet. Each tank will have a drain on it where waste water drips from the tank, so I added a drain system in the same corner as the outlets. Next, I added a new shelf and my tadpole rack system. Here are some photos of what it looks like at this stage of construction.

My frog room with the stands and drainage system in the corner.


These nails will support cups with growing tadpoles in them.


All the frog tank's waste water will drain into this bucket.

I still have to install the misting system (which is being shipped from Canada) and of course the actual frog tanks. I started construction on November 10th and I am planning on actually introducing the frogs and tadpoles into the room on November 19th. One concern has been all the V.O.C.'s from the paint and PVC glue, so I am trying to give the small room several days to air out. I will update this page after I install the tanks.

Update: 11/29/08

I have now finished the frog room! I installed the two frog tanks and the automatic misting system. The misting system automatically turns on twice a day to simulate the frogs natural rainy rainforest weather patterns. On Mondays it rains a little extra to simulate a heavy storm which often encourages the frogs to mate.

Here is the finished room. I have two frog tanks set up and one tank (the bottom left) set up for breeding siamese fighting fish. The inside of the door holds the frog and tadpole food.


Here is a close up of one of the mister nozzles inside of the frog tanks. It sprays an ultra fine mist similar to the nozzles in the produce section at the grocery store. The "rain" waters the plants and breaks down the frog droppings in the soil. The extra water then seeps through the soil and into the central drain system. When the drain bucket fills up I use it to water plants in the front yard.


Here's a photo of the tadpoles happily in their cups. In the wild, poison dart frog tadpoles often grow up in small pools of water in between bromeliad plant leaves. Bromeliads grow high off the forest floor in the trees, so tadpoles suspended off the ground by nails in the wall is not an unreasonable simulation of the natural world.


Finally, this photo shows the two frog tanks installed. See the small blue thing in the tank on the left and the yellow spots in the tank on the right? Those are the frogs.