Feeding your Oophaga pumilio

The Oophaga pumilio is an insectivorous animal. Their diet consists strictly of live bugs. Good nutrition is a crucial part of animal husbandry

How much does the Oophaga pumilio need?

Juvenile– feed as often as possible, springtails, isopods and 10-20 melongaster fruitflies per feeding.

Young Adult– feed daily 20-40 flies per day per individual.

Adults– once established and feeding well with a fat bellies you can leave them occasionally for several days without worry of them needing to be fed. Feed daily as much as they can eat in 15 mins.

What insects to feed the Oophaga pumilio?

Springs are a must – use 4-5 different types of springs/isopods to seed the viv

The primary diet of the Oophaga pumilio should be flightless fruit flies. As the fruit flies are tiny food items, the pumilio needs to eat a lot of them. There are two ways to get your pumilios nutrient’s: 1) through a varied diet and 2) through vitamin supplementation.

flightless fruit flies – due to the Oophaga pumilio size they can eat both Melanogaster and Hydei fruit flies. Melanogaster are the smaller of the two varieties.
pinhead crickets – make sure they are less than a week old so they are very tiny. Do not feed any that are too large or too many as they will continue to grow to full size within the tank and will then need to be manually removed from the tank.
springtails – they are tasty snacks and double as a janitor for the tank. These will help keep the pumilio’s foraging through the leaf litter for food similar to how they would in the wild.
isopods – similar to the springtails they are tasty snacks and double as a janitor for the tank.
Tropical white woodlice-Similar care to springtails, however they will need leftover veggies as well. The woodlice are seen as garbage collectors and will feed on rotting plant matter and even mold.
wax worms – these are very high in fat and should be fed sparingly. The larger frogs will love these, but half-grown wax worms may be required for smaller species as they get rather large.
phoenix worms -Josh’s frogs sells some phoenix worms that are 3/16″ long. These would be perfect for the Oophaga pumilio. They are low in fat and high in calcium so you will not need to dust or gut load them.

I recommend 4-5 types of springtails and isopods to seed your tank. This will provide a variety for newly morphed froglets who will depend on these to survive.

Supplementation

Supplementation is very important for pumilios. Tadpoles will depend on female’s unfertilized eggs to survive so it is crucial that the eggs are nutritious otherwise froglets may not make it through the critical first 2 months due to nutrition deficiencies. Fruit flies on their own are a poor nutritional source so they should be dusted in a high quality vitamin supplement. Do not overdose the vitamins as Vitamin A in high doses is fatal.

Daily- Dust the prey with Repashy Calcium Plus to increase the nutritional value of the insects.

Monthly – Dust prey with Repashy Vitamin A plus & Repashy Superpig for adult frogs. Vitamin A is essential to produce healthy offspring and reduces the incidents of Spindly Leg, STS while increasing the overall egg health. Superpig will help keep the vivid coloring of your frog.

Ultimate Oophaga pumilio Care Guide:

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Cover photo was taken by Brian Gratwicke and used with the Creative Commons License. Photo was cropped & text was added to original. See Original photo here.

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