My pipas and their set up

i could post this under the photo section but it really belongs in this species specific section. sorry for the dark and grainy nature of the photos, i have my filter now but i dont have a flash yet-and that will make a difference in the pics in the future. well here is a pic of my set up for them, ive had them for about 2 months now and they seem very healthy and happy and eat like crazy! its a 55 tank and its deep enough to support 19-20 inches of water -and i am told 18 inches is the minimum needed for breeding. there is an over the edge filter and also a bubble stone to filter the set up-ther are 7 adult frogs in this tank.





as in the post below there is definate sexual dimorphism in the rears of these frogs...so please check out my frogs a$$ (j/k john) here is a male



here is a female in breeding condition, although they are calling sporaticlly and the females cloacas are swollen, the fems will shrug off the males and dont seem to want to breed.



i only have 2 females, one of which i got free since she was a scratch and dent model (i had asked for 1/2 fems-but they couldnt sex them right) her name is 'lefty' and by this pic you can see why. despite her handicap (pipas like acf's eat with their hands alot) she is a big healthy girl.



i do recommend these frogs to others-they arent as active as some but they are just too cool..especially their feet-star tipped front feet and huge parachuted webbed back ones

Chris Mattison recently posted here that he once had these frogs breed in 30cm of water, so the oft-quoted 45cm minimum depth (I've also seen 60cm minimum quoted) is not absolute.

update: they seem to be getting serious lately about their amplexus-ive had a male clamped to my second female for about a day now-and any attempt to separate them results in him flinging other males off with his big back feet or opening his mouth to trying to bite them(or me if i m trying to hold them for a pic)-ill post the pics soon. just wanted to mention about the biting attempts though-its really useless since the not only have no tounge but no teeth-so the interior of the mouth is very odd, and can pop out of their mouth. its a bit like layers of wet cloth all wadded up. the tounge might not be there but there appear to be muscles there that can protude like a tounge -unfortunately i couldnt get him to do that particular response for the camera but ill post what ive got.