# Be aware when keeping mossy frogs together..



## Darren.rl (Oct 2, 2008)

Hi,
Haven't posted for a while but here's something for mossy frog keepers to
look out for if keeping more than one together when reaching maturity.
I have been keeping mossy's for over 15 months now had a group of 4 juveniles and over the last 6 months one male having had countless breeding attempts. 
So i'm thinking now i have 1.3 even though the redishness of the thumb pads was on three of them and have only ever heard the one male call.
A few weeks later lots of breeding type activity was seen but no eggs. 
then a few weeks later it looked as if the male owned the water because
he would always be in there unless to odviously feed but the other 3 were out the water most of the time until lights out.
which the male would grab another anywhere by there leg(s) even front of the head but the thumb pads still looked much the same.

By now it seemed to me to be a bit terratorial as no eggs were laid and so i posted up a thread about males being terratorial and the experienced keeper/breeder told me not that they were aware of.

Well all this was still happening on and off up until just over a week ago 
to wake up on Monday morning to find the male had drowned one and was still in amplexes even though it was dead and a bit bloated and it was until i scooped them up in my hand did he let it go.
Now im not sure if it was a female or another male but since removing the 
killer mossy 3 days later i've had one start to call again, 100% male.
Well terratotial or not drownings happens in female frogs when multiple males try to breed with one not one on one.

Hope you find it helpful...


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## Ron Magpie (Oct 11, 2009)

That occasionally happens even with European common toads- when they're in season, the males will grab anything- even goldfish or koi. Useful to know about mossies though- and a real shame you lost one!


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## pollywog (Oct 6, 2005)

I'm sorry to hear you lost one, and in such a way.


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## Tehanu (Nov 12, 2006)

Unfortunately you're more likely to have all males than anything else, females are rare and the key to raising for female seems elusive.

We've had males drown males before and actually only place one male with the females are any time, another male is housed next door to allow a chorus.

For reference 

A female;



















And a male;


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## Darren.rl (Oct 2, 2008)

pollywog said:


> I'm sorry to hear you lost one, and in such a way.


Yeah Andrew i was really gutted.



Saedcantas said:


> Unfortunately you're more likely to have all males than anything else, females are rare and the key to raising for female seems elusive.
> 
> We've had males drown males before and actually only place one male with the females are any time, another male is housed next door to allow a chorus.


So really they should only be kept one per housing and all those with more than one should think of getting something sorted out for the other(s) incase there not female.

Does anyone have any idea why there's all males around and whats the likely ratio of males to females like out of 10 ?

Good reference pic's though, thanks, i'll be checking the other one later for sure.


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## Ron Magpie (Oct 11, 2009)

With a lot of WC frogs (reed frogs, for example), the males tend to be more vocal and more visible, so proportionately more of them get collected. I don't know if this is the case with mossy frogs, or if yours are WC, though. There seem to be more male FBTs around then female, too, and a lot of those are captive-bred. Hmmm. I wonder if development temps affect the sexes, as they do in reptiles????


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## pollywog (Oct 6, 2005)

I personally haven't had any problems keeping them in groups and other than this thread I've not had any reports back of other problems from keeping them in groups so it's interesting to hear.

With regards to the sex ratio I kept back my entire first batch of offspring and it resulted in a pretty much 60:40 split of males:females (before anyone asks I'm not parting with any adults), I have also kept back odd frogs from later batches and am rearing up some from other breeders but it's too early to say for sure what sexes most of those later frogs are.

I do understand that many others breeding them have had a largely male outcome and I have theories as to why but nothing I can share at present.


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## Tehanu (Nov 12, 2006)

Very few mossies were WC, the majority around come from a few captive bred lines.

It seems that sex is likely to be interlinked with developmental cues rather than genetic, the vast majority of offspring all turn out to be males (we raised 49 last year and they were all male...). One suggestion has been that tadpoles might need to be kept cooler, or overwintered and allowed longer development time in order to turn out females, but I think this is all pure suggestion as no one really seems to have any clues!

How were they housed? A water filled bottom? Any running water?

We kept five males in a 1.5 x 1 metre tub with 6" of water in the bottom for around two years, they all showed clear signs of slight skin rub from amplexing one another, but they were never prolonged nor anything bad happened.
We housed two females in a similar fashion in a tub half the size in the same room as the males for about 8 months with no problems at all.

We then housed the groups seperately in comparitively dry Herpteks with sphagnum moss substrate, for a good 5 months before attempting to breed them.

It went wrong once we placed 2.2 in a rainchamber together, one of the males drowned the other, laying had already begun at that point. 
Since breeding finished we have housed all 6 of them in one single large arboreal Herptek on sphagnum moss substrate with a large waterdish, everyone behaves themselves this way!

Really sorry you lost one, I have lots more details if you have other questions, just got to stop waffling somewhere!


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## Ron Magpie (Oct 11, 2009)

Saedcantas said:


> Very few mossies were WC, the majority around come from a few captive bred lines.
> 
> It seems that sex is likely to be interlinked with developmental cues rather than genetic, the vast majority of offspring all turn out to be males (we raised 49 last year and they were all male...). One suggestion has been that tadpoles might need to be kept cooler, *or overwintered and allowed longer development time in order to turn out females, but I think this is all pure suggestion as no one really seems to have any clues!
> *
> ...


Yeah, that's what I was wondering- it would be interesting if anyone is researching this; I was just speculating.


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## Darren.rl (Oct 2, 2008)

Amazing Andrew how you get 60-40 and saedcantas gets 49 all male,
i also thought it could possible be temp related like in reptiles, very interesting though.

They are housed in an exo terra 60x60x45 with a part land area and fluval1 filter.
heres a pic.









My other one does look male but on both your accounts vary with them being quite tolerable to each other in many ways, 
its just ocassionally a drowning is going to happen.


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## ipreferaflan (Oct 8, 2009)

Darren.rl said:


> Amazing Andrew how you get 60-40 and saedcantas gets 49 all male,
> i also thought it could possible be temp related like in reptiles, very interesting though.
> 
> They are housed in an exo terra 60x60x45 with a part land area and fluval1 filter.
> ...


Sweet set-up.
I've got one in a 30x30x45 at the moment but he's growing fast.
What plants are those? I'd like to move him to a 45x45x60 and add another couple of frogs.


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## pollywog (Oct 6, 2005)

Darren.rl said:


> Amazing Andrew how you get 60-40 and saedcantas gets 49 all male,
> i also thought it could possible be temp related like in reptiles, very interesting though.


I think as already mentioned the rearing may have something to do with it, I have been rearing a seperate batch mimicing the methods of other breeders rather than using my own methods to see if that batch turns out male but obviously these things take a lot of time.


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## Darren.rl (Oct 2, 2008)

ipreferaflan said:


> Sweet set-up.
> I've got one in a 30x30x45 at the moment but he's growing fast.
> What plants are those? I'd like to move him to a 45x45x60 and add another couple of frogs.


Thanks, :2thumb:
yeah they do grow fast and i've had one start calling at just under 2".
the plant in middle'ish is real (devils ivy) the other 2 are plastic.
If your adding more be carefull i personally wouldn't yet till you know for sure
what sex yours is first as i'm seriously thinking of outting my other male.



pollywog said:


> I think as already mentioned the rearing may have something to do with it, I have been rearing a seperate batch mimicing the methods of other breeders rather than using my own methods to see if that batch turns out male but obviously these things take a lot of time.


Would be interesting to here what the outcome will be.


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## ipreferaflan (Oct 8, 2009)

Darren.rl said:


> Thanks, :2thumb:
> yeah they do grow fast and i've had one start calling at just under 2".
> the plant in middle'ish is real (devils ivy) the other 2 are plastic.
> If your adding more be carefull i personally wouldn't yet till you know for sure
> what sex yours is first as i'm seriously thinking of outting my other male.


Oh! The plants look real!
Looks awesome.
I might just get one more, or would two males still fight even if a female wasn't present?


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## Darren.rl (Oct 2, 2008)

ipreferaflan said:


> Oh! The plants look real!
> Looks awesome.
> I might just get one more, or would two males still fight even if a female wasn't present?


Possibly when in breeding mode just like the trouble ive had.


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## ipreferaflan (Oct 8, 2009)

Darren.rl said:


> Possibly when in breeding mode just like the trouble ive had.


Ah, I thought you had a mixed group.


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