How secure is JoshsFrogs.com?

I just had a customer question whether my site was secure or not because they didn't have the padlock icon on the bottom of their browser, so I thought with holiday season coming, I would write up a little bit about security and how you know a page you are looking at is secure.

JoshsFrogs.com uses the highest security available on the web today. The sad part is that not all sites go to the lengths that we have here to make sure your information stays secure.

First off, the lock icon has moved on your browser (if you are using firefox or IE 7). Security info is now next to the address bar at the top of the screen and the lock is bigger now. You can also right click on the page to get security info by clicking on "View Page Info" in Firefox and "Properties" in IE 7.

Secondly, secure pages begin with https: instead of http:. If you are being asked to login, enter in your address or credit card info, make sure the page begins with https:.

Thirdly, I highly recommend opening up a browser and typing in an address instead of relying on a link in an email. Because they could be doing this:

paypal.com

If you are on a page asking you to login or give your payment info and you don't see the padlock and the page begins with http: instead of https:, then it is best to move on.

Surface area in Fruit Fly Cultures: Excelsior or Coffee Filters?

One of the most common variables overlooked in culturing fruit flies is the surface area used. I have seen cultures with everything under the sun used as surface area. The two most common sources of surface area in fruit fly cultures are coffee filters or excelsior. Each has their pros and cons.

For best results, coffee filters need to be folded so they look like pie slices. I will fold 5-6 together and push the point into the media. Coffee filters will absorb excess moisture in the culture media and therefore act as a moisture barrier, so they are less likely to dry out or become soupy. The downside to coffee filters is that they can get too wet and will collapse and bury the fruit fly media and hurt production.

Excelsior has been a long time staple in fruit fly cultures. It creates tons of surface area and takes less time to use (just grab a handful and throw it in the culture). The downside is that is quite messy to use as some of the fibers will inevitably fall out with the flies when feeding.

All cultures sold at Josh's Frogs will be setup with excelsior, but our fruit fly kits can be ordered with coffee filters or excelsior.

Poison Dart Frogs as Pets

More and more people are acquiring exotic pets every year. A lot of these pets can get too large to be properly cared for by the average hobbyists and others can harbor diseases that can be passed on to humans. Still others require foods that are hard to come by, messy, or expensive. Poison Dart Frogs, on the other hand, are a great choice for an exotic pet.

Poison Dart Frogs come in all kinds of colors including blue, orange, red, black, bronze, yellow, and a host of other colors. There are poison dart frogs that reach an adult size no bigger than your thumbnail and others that are 2”-3” as adults. While bigger is always better when building a terrarium, these animals can be kept in pairs in tanks as small a 10 gallon aquarium.

While deadly in the wild, these creatures lose their toxicity in captivity due to the change in diet. In the wild these frogs get their poison from ants and beetles that eat poison plants. Without contact to these specific insects, Poison Dart Frogs lose their toxicity.

Poison Dart Frogs are fed a staple of fruit flies. The fruit flies used to feed poison dart frogs are wingless fruit flies or larger flightless fruit flies, so they are much easier to work with than one would think. When it comes to culturing fruit flies, they are far easier then other feeder insects.

Poison Dart Frogs are beautiful animals that are easy to care for, amazing to look at, and allow people the opportunity to own exotic pets with less of the drawbacks associated with other exotic pets.

In our hobby, we are turning natural selection upside down. Instead of one frog eating his brothers and sisters, we let them all live. Then we get rid of all the predators, (over)feed them, relentlessly clean their water, and give them a stable temperature to develop. We make it so the vast majority of eggs laid in our hobby turn into frogs that are bred and produce offspring for this hobby.

I think there are a lot of frogs in our hobby that shouldn’t have made the cut. We are watering down the frogs we have by continually adding weak frogs into the system. I have set a few guidelines for my breeding practices in an effort to get rid of some weak frogs while still maintaining the supply I need to make a living.

First off, I have stopped using Methylene Blue on my eggs. If the egg molds then it molds. I’m not babying eggs anymore.

Secondly, I’m not doing any water changes. And I don’t miss it at all. Could our constant water changes be affecting our frogs in the same way too sterile conditions lead to allergies in humans?

Finally, I have created a slope system (see Breeding) where only frogs with the strongest front legs survive. SLS comes in varying degrees, so I want to cull the frogs that show any signs. Could easy access out of the water be a contributing factor to SLS in the fact that frogs don’t need strong legs to get out of our water, so they don’t develop strong front legs?

I welcome your feedback.

Vent Hybrids???

Last year I traded two 2-year-old male Citronella Tincs to a guy for a pair of “blue-legged vents” he had gotten from __________(I won’t use their name and will refer to them as X). After a few months in quarantine I went to the move the frogs to their new home, but instead I found out that one of the frogs had died.

I then began my search for a mate for this frog. Not wanting to mix frogs from different lines, I contacted X (the person who supplied the frogs to the guy I traded with) to find out what line they sold to him. This person patched me to another person they had bought the frogs from. That person could not remember who they got the frogs from.

This got me thinking. Are all “blue-legged vents” from the same line? I asked the question on Dendroboard and got no response. I then posted the same question on Frognet. The only person that responded was Tor Linbo.

He responded back to my question by saying:

I have 3 types of yellow vents... these have little information on where they are from... one from Dutch breeder, years ago, ... another from an animal importer that I think is gone from the hobby... another imported by a reptile breeder who thought he was getting snakes and ended up with frogs... all standard yellows like the ones in Heselhaus... one a little more metallic...

He also referred me to his site www.natures-web.org where he lists 5 different morphs of yellow vents (not including the red vents). Of those five there is two with metallic bronze legs, one with metallic green-blue legs, and two with coppery bronze legs.

Tor sent another email saying:

There are at least 2 more lines in Europe... also an "albino" line that is from Germany that may still be in the US.

Later I bought some vents (never mixed them with the odd vent I already had) from Herpetologic who said his blue vents came from:

My blue leg ventrimaculatus come from a few sources, one is zoo stock and one is a European import.

This research leaves me with a bunch of questions. What is a “blue legged vent”? What is a “gray legged vent”? How many people know which “blue legged vents” they have?