PA Woods and Forests Storyline

[AAronCap]

A Frog Week Discovery!

Episode 6 of my conservation project involving frogs and toads is a discovery! As a citizen scientist I volunteer and take part in the Pennsylvania Amphibian and Reptile Survey (PARS). This survey focuses on documenting what species members find in each county and how many of each species is found. I documented the first ever eastern gray tree frog in Cambria County's history making a discovery. The eastern gray tree frog is not one of the six abundant frogs in Pennsylvania, but the work I am doing could mean this frog becomes the seventh abundant species in the state. Checkout this video of me filming the discovery!

https://youtu.be/WLoMrLVxdiA

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[AAronCap]

This update is the big one for the Gray Army, Dumpy Family, and Skink Dynasty...


Finally, after 2-3 years of not having a bioactive vivarium and not having my animals in their forever homes, that dream will become a reality! The Dumpy Family (White's tree frogs) had 4 negative tests and now join the Gray Army (Gray tree frogs) as being certified to go back to a bioactive vivarium. The forever home for them. This means I can begin to create BOTH enclosures for the three groups.

The big elephant in the room is the three groups going into two enclosures.

The Gray Army I decided to keep solo. They were supposed to move into the 125 gallon with the Skink Dynasty (Southeastern Five Lined Skinks), but I decided not to do that. Instead the Gray Army is moving to the Exo Terra XL 36x18x36. This space I'm hoping is enough for the four eastern gray tree frogs. They will have many plants and a unique background. The background will not be custom made, but will be modified with branches, logs, and plants. The goal is to make them feel at home like they can climb up a tree. The gray Army will be completely solo with only springtails as the clean up crew.

Now to address the elephant in the room. For many reasons I have decided to merge my two exotic groups and allow them to live together in the 125 gallon. The Dumpy Family and Skink Dynasty will meet. Max will meet Pharaoh. This encounter will never happen in the wild. Based on owning the animals for over five years and understanding carefully their personalities I felt this merger would make the most sense. The skinks like humidity and humidity spikes, they enjoy moderate humidity like the dumpy tree frogs. The skinks need very warm temperatures to bask and they do not like cooler than the lower 60s for lows, and neither do the dumpy tree frogs. The skinks eat larger prey items and so do the dumpy tree frogs. Hopefully you can see where I'm going with this. They have similar care. If it doesn't work out we will talk about having three setups, but for the moment I'm all in on building the 125 gallon and allowing the Skink Dynasty and Dumpy Family to debut in the enclosure together. This will be the enclosure that never sleeps.

A new series will come from these two enclosures. I'm calling the series "Wild Vivariums". The series will be ongoing meaning it will be continuous and there are no plans to stop it. This project will be filmed with the same technology I used to film Frog Week 2021. There will be some new gadgets that I use that will be introduced in this series that will be used in Frog Week 2022. I hope this new series will help educate people who keep any of these animals or related animals that are similar to these three species on how to care for their animals. I will finally have a series where I explain how to care for animals and also building enclosures and all of the details let go into designing a bioactive setup. I hope that you will enjoy some of these new ideas I've come up with, and I hope that you will enjoy seeing some of the old ideas integrated into this ongoing series.

For a long time fans of what I've been doing, the swarms videos will come back and be part of this. Swarms videos are where a feeder insect is chosen and a large number of it is released into the enclosure and we see how the animals react to a large swarm of feeders. I try to use invertebrates that would show up in a swarm for stimulation and enrichment for the animals. The skinks will make their first appearance in the swarms battles. It was originally only for the tree frogs.

The holiday battles that happened a few years ago where the two tree frog groups competed in a few challenges in their respective enclosures and the YouTube viewers chose the winner will also return in this series.

I will also document the animals and their natural behavior in some episodes. It will be more documentary styled. You will have the chance to see how the animals interact in their environment which is why I called the series Wild Vivariums.

There may be some product reviews added in if I think there are some items that are worth purchasing or items that are essential to the health and well-being of these respective animals.

These are just some of the ideas that I'm throwing around for this series that I've been planning for a few years now. Does this sound exciting to you? Are you interested in learning some care tips that I have to offer? Are you interested to see some older ideas integrated with newer ideas for an ongoing series?



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[AAronCap]

Checkout the new episode of my lizard! He will meet one of my frog groups as soon as I get the enclosure built!

https://youtu.be/8wjtKaKFnsk

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[AAronCap]

Checkout the new video focused on my White's tree frogs and Southeastern five-lined skinks.


https://youtu.be/pMXBb6i-2xI



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[AAronCap]

125 gallon vivarium almost done, and beginning talks for the Gray tree frog Exo Terra XL...


Finally, for the first time in two years I will have the opportunity to create bioactive vivariums for my ambassador frogs, toads, and lizards of the PA Woods and Forests Community. The 125 gallon will be home to two of the largest creatures I own. The Dumpy Family (White's tree frogs) and Skink Dynasty (Southeastern five-lined skinks) are both awaiting the opportunity to relocate from quarantine to the 6 foot long 125 gallon enclosure. I'm hoping to make that happen this month!

I am using large established vines of pothos as the main plants for the build. I actually don't have other plants at the moment, but that's okay because of how pothos vines kill other plants. I'll look at some potential plants, but most likely will just have pothos, an autumn brilliance fern, and maybe a couple of others that can take skinks burrowing and heavy large tree frogs climbing on them. The background is coconut baskets siliconed to expanding foam and some wood from Josh's Frogs. The plants were sterilized with F10 before going into the setup. The setup was washed with F10, sprayed, dried, sprayed with a Zoo Med cage sprayer, and wiped and sprayed thoroughly. I'm very confident the enclosure is clean and parasite free.

I will have to replace the soil a few times a year to make sure if the Dumpy Family still have some parasites, they won't be able to establish. Taking the soil out and using a nebulizer with F10 will rid the plants, background, and tank of parasites. It should prevent a build up. As long as the frogs are not overloaded with parasites they can stay out of quarantine. The skinks aren't effected by the frog parasites.

The Exo Terra XL is in planning for the Gray Army (Gray tree frogs). The plants, a drainage layer, and paludarium style setup looks likely. I'm going to use Zoo Med cork background for it with wood from Josh's Frogs and some other stuff for the background. I want to have unique backgrounds different from one another and I want to get these two enclosures done before November. So I can't mess around with a highly detailed background, but I can give them some nice modifications with the wood and plants.

I want to begin the series Wild Vivariums with Blogs and YouTube videos because I will have content about caring for the animals and will have new content featuring my pets for the first time in years. I'm anxiously awaiting the return of these three groups to the channel and for me to relax and enjoy.

The Gray Army will be living with many types of plants and it will be really cool to see them in a large setup. They have been waiting 2 years for the opportunity that awaits them this month. I'm hoping to make it happen with both setups, but I can't wait to have the opportunity to film and enjoy watching the animals interact with the large setups. The 125 gallon is coming along nicely. I will have a new video coming soon featuring one of the gray tree frogs that will be the star in his enclosure for Wild Vivariums.

Hope you will checkout the videos and follow the updates once the tanks are up and running.



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[mdb730]

Good stuff man, my 5 year old loves amphibians and we came across your channel on YouTube while searching for native PA toads so we could identify baby toads we found trapped outside our basement ingress.

[AAronCap]

The last post on here and a new thread coming with more details...

I wanted to make a post talking about my decision to move from the amphibian section to the general herp section for my two threads about my pets. I'm hoping to engage in more conversation with members creating threads to the general herp care section. I will copy the link to the new thread for any followers of this one so you can watch what happens next for all of these animals. I will still be in this section talking about my conservation projects with field work. Thank you guys for taking the time to read this blog type story about the three groups of animals featured. There have been some incredible advances for all of the animals. Everybody is in their new enclosures and I'm preparing to start filming for the next series featuring them. If you own gray tree frogs, White's tree frogs, or native skinks the next thread that I create will be of interest to you because I will explain more of the care that goes into the animals, the plants, and their ecosystem. Thank you very much for reading all of this and I will post one last update so you can follow the next thread.

Thank you very much!

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