How to Care & Cultivate Tree Frogs in your Tropical Water Garden (Polypedates leucomystax)

  

Four-Lined Tree Frog

(Polypedates leucomystax)

Hello! Welcome to Garden Chronicles! I'm James David and in today's video I'll be talking about how to cultivate tree frogs in your open tropical garden space and here I would like to share some tips and videos about them, so sit back and enjoy the show.

Some introduction here, a friend of mine passed me these tadpoles and it took about two months or so for them to turn into frogs. Something that I must say that I would consider, it took a very long time for them to mature, give or take about two months, it's a bit of a long time and I can't really say that this may able to survive uh in in a natural environment and give and take, that if at all, that these tadpoles actually laid their eggs on the open puddle; I think by a week's time all this would have dried up. 

So in a way, I would mention that cultivating them in a controlled environment or given a proper care, I think these will have uh greater chances of survival or may uh leave to chance of nature where these frogs may lay eggs on puddles and a small water feature or something like that in a natural environment; chances are this might just dry up and may be driven to almost to an extinction in that particular region.

So coming back to this collection, a friend of mine actually has collected all this from her water pond and passed me to cultivate them and introduce them in my uh garden space. Do take note that these are actually native tree frogs that are actually common in my region. So a little bit of cultivation and care about tadpoles, I have noticed that these tadpoles do eat fish food for sustenance and was glad that they are able to consume these and also some moss but if I were to just give them moss, it will take forever for them to grow.

As I mentioned that it takes about two months and two months is a long time then anything can happen to them and chances of survival is quite slim. I have done some research and found that these tree frogs do tend to eat whatever that is available, sometimes rotten leaves, anything that is organic and they may be able to suck and eat from their small mouth. I must say that it's easier to cultivate tree frogs by introducing them as tadpoles in the garden environment rather than adult frogs as these may migrate eventually. 

Another thing I've noticed that tadpoles, however while turning mature may seems to anchor their residence in where they actually have found, especially they may feel territorial as once they come out uh from the formation of tadpoles to small tiny frogs and the element here is that when they are found in their birthplace they seems to feel more at home rather than collecting them elsewhere where they may have been found in another jungle spot and bringing them into or introducing them as tree frogs into the garden space they may not feel comfortable and they may actually migrate elsewhere.

One of the factors about keeping pests away especially if you're not using pesticide, is to introduce natural predators uh normally the introduction of natural predators - pest killers will be creatures such as frogs, dragonfly, spiders, ladybirds and praying mantis. Of course it's not just exclusively just these creatures but in my case I'm actually introducing frogs because I find that these creatures seem to do very well in my garden space and they do not upset the ecology and the factor but natural environment, this seems to sit very well. 

One of the factors is that using pesticide does have a lot of problems; it creates a lot of natural problems in my garden space and I would not want to use a pesticide. So one of the factors is that introducing frogs does deter my pest problems in my garden. Based on my personal opinion and experience, I have found that frogs however do tend to be territorial and may establish themselves where they are familiar with, especially when they are introduced as tadpoles. 

This particular common tree frog known as "Four-lined Tree Frog" appears to be very comfortable and happy in my garden space. Frogs such as this are actually amphibians, do require a visible water element with their stable humidity conditions, lacking which they may not be able to survive and chances of them leaving the garden space is high and probable. So coming back to one of the most important factors about humidity, these tree frogs are actually tropical, hence the environment must be very much in the context of being wet and humid. 

It won't work in the context where if the garden is very much like a dry and a very hot setup, something for succulents and cacti and if you want to introduce them in that kind of desert-like environment, these tree frogs will not be able to handle that kind of garden conditions. Another factor here is that you can do so in uh keep them in a paludarium or something like enclosed space and care for them in an environment like a vivarium or like a aquarium kind of stuff but that is very much for the exotic pet kind of thing and the factor here is that you may have to feed them daily and according to what that is required for them to eat. 

In this context however they are actually exposed to a natural environment and I don't really have to worry a care for their feeding factors or figuring out what exactly they need to eat or providing a food factor for them, hence uh they are actually naturally and ecologically have embedded into my garden space and I don't really have to worry about it for the fact that I do have small creatures as insects and even for fruit flies, ants, whatever not. 

These tree frogs tend to somehow be able to keep them in check. Another factor that I must mention to you is that when I actually introduced the tadpole in this pond and they are actually introduced together with the fish, I found that they don't tend to attack the fish and somehow they are actually able to co exist together without any problems and the best part here is I also noticed that when they turn to a adulthood, where these tree frogs don't actually attack these fish. 

So in a way I believe, basically this is based on my opinion, tree frogs only hunt insects, probably maybe when they are turned to adult stage they probably will hunt bigger prey but as for now I think they are able to coexist together without any problems. Also do take note that frogs do not drink through their mouth rather than through their skin, hence it's very important to choose the water carefully; Do not use chlorinated water rather more on natural or non-chlorinated water as these actually are very sensitive creatures that can actually harm them. 

So do take note that having a water body nearby for them as I mentioned concerns the humidity factor in the environment where they really need to have a water element nearby for them to coexist. I must say another factor here about frogs is that only the male frogs make the loudest noise, especially the croaking. So do take note about that, the female however appears to be a bit more larger and fatter but they do not make noise. So it's kind of a fun fact to take note of concerning this matter. 

This is another set of a different type of tadpoles, I have yet to identify them. I have not seen them turning mature yet, so chances are I was going to do a little bit of a challenge here because I'm not sure they may be very elusive, maybe chances are they may have been totally black or maybe hidden. So the factor here is that coming about tadpoles, you may not really know whether they are tree frogs or common frogs or even toads. 

So these are the factors that you may have to be very careful about in introducing because depending on the circumstances, like in my case, I would really like to have tree frog because of my garden environment is very much vertical garden and there are a lot of plants that they can actually hide and dwell together in that kind of a garden space. I must say that I have initially introduced toads earlier and I can say that initially it was nice and of course being toads they were actually in total black in the pigmentation and they were okay initially in my garden space but once they turned to adulthood, they were such a menace because especially the male toads they make such a huge croaking sound and actually it was quite a nuisance. 

Really quite a nuisance when they come together in a group especially when they are in a mating season. So imagine about three to four of them are croaking in unison in my garden space and it is a terrible time to sleep and the croaking lasts about from 11am right up to, sorry 11pm right after 3 am. And it's on a daily basis during the rainy season. So eventually I have to collect all of these toads. Somehow they seem to be docile, they don't run away, so I was able to collect them in a bucket and transfer them far away from my living regions. 

So in in a way, yes there are problems that you may face in this kind of context, so in somehow I still can hear these toads around but they are far away and they are more on in how they say in a controlled environment where it do not disturb the dwelling place, So again, So coming back to tadpoles, do check your source, figure out and find out that exactly what species there are and if you're not sure, maybe don't take all of them, perhaps one or two or a batch and you can actually... So this is the video that I want to show to you, being a toad if you can notice that they are more on a ground dweller, they - I have not seen them on trees. 

As I was actually moving my pots, I actually saw them here. So in a way yes they do have a good environment control ecologically but somehow I find that it doesn't do well for when it comes to in the night or sleeping time. Another thing about toads, they can appear to be very large and may not look attractive; some people are okay with having toads if you have a huge garden space and you don't mind the element where it doesn't disturb you, so it's okay they can naturally coexist with the environment in a garden space, by looking at my garden space is actually a very small plot. I don't think thoughts such as this make me able to handle my garden space. 

One of the things that I've actually noticed is that they tend to be territorial and no doubt I have transferred them quite a distance; they seem to be able to home themselves back to my garden space. So this is one of the things that I've noticed that when it comes to toads, these seem to be territorial. So this is what I might mention about it: so do take caution on toads, if you are planning to introduce them in your garden space.