Origin: southern part of Nicaragua, Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama, but also released in Hawaii and the United States.
Length: 5 cm (head-torso)
Age: on average about 7 to 12 years old.
The golden poison frog comes in different colors, mainly the color is green with black markings. It also sometimes happens that it has blue with a black pattern.

Care
Experience: This animal is an easy frog for novice amphibian keepers.
Adult feeding: Offer food 3 to 5 times a week. This could be fruit flies, dust crickets, woodlice or beetles.

Feeding young: offer food every day (the animal may not want to eat every day). You can feed these almost anything you give an adult animal.

Water bowl: Yes.
Water change: Daily

Feeding
When feeding your frog, pay attention to the size of your frog and the size of the food. For a young frog, for example, give less fruit flies and smaller insects.
You also have to be careful with crickets, because the hard exoskeleton can cause blockages in your frog. This could cause your frog to die.
It is also important that you properly supplement the food with vitamin and mineral supplements. Various powders are available for this at specialized pet stores.
Feeding itself is best done with feeding tweezers, but some animals will not know this and still have to learn this.

Water
Poison frogs absorb water through their skin. That is why a shallow water bowl cannot be missing. Make sure that this water bowl is stable and cannot fall over. In addition, the tank must be cleaned every day and filled with fresh water. If this does not happen, the water can become dirty and if the animal ingests this water, the animal can become ill.
If you make an area in the terrarium with water instead of a water bowl, make sure that there are resting places such as driftwood in it. The frog can then lean on it while it is in the water.

Cleaning
You really only need to completely clean your frog's enclosure once a month. If you turn the bedding every few days or once a week and clean the feces you find, that is enough. The water bowl must of course be changed every day. During cleaning, check whether all systems and meters that are included in the accommodation are still working properly, so that the climate in the accommodation is good.

Handling:
Try to avoid handling as much as possible. Although the animals are nice to handle, they can still bite hard. In addition, the animals can get sick from dust and bacteria that we humans have on our hands.
If you really need to pick up the animal, the best option is to do this with gloves and approach the animal from behind. This way the animal cannot mistake your hands for a prey animal. Then grasp the animal around the abdomen and gently lift the animal. If you pick up the animal without gloves, it is important that you have washed your hands with water before time. Do not use soap.
After handling the animal, it is important to wash your hands with soap.
If you are bitten by it, it is important that you do not try to shake the animal. The animal will only bite harder and if the animal does suddenly let go, you can seriously injure the animal. Keep the animal under a running tap with lukewarm or cold water. Eventually the animal will slacken and let go.

Housing
Minimum size stay for 2 frogs: 50 x 50 x 50 cm.
Day temperature: 24 – 27 degrees.
Night temperature: 20 – 24 degrees.
Hours of light: 12 hours of light. An extra heat lamp is possible, but choose a soft lamp that is not too bright. Otherwise there is a chance that your animal and the bedding will dry out.
Humidity: 80-90%

Ground cover:
Moisture retaining ground cover. It is best to use cocohusk/cocopeat, but regular potting soil is also possible. Spagnum moss is not recommended, because the animals can swallow it and become constipated. You can use regular moss again. Make sure the bedding is slightly moist, but not soaking wet. If you grab a handful of bedding material and you can squeeze a few drops of water out of it, it's fine.
Equipment: Because the animals are mainly dug under the ground, they do not need much. But it is important to give them a heat mat and a water bath or a place where they can lie in the water. They will also appreciate a hiding place. A lamp is therefore also possible, but make sure that it does not dry out the residence too much.

Behaviour
Lifestyle: day active
Character: golden poison frogs are fierce frogs. They try to eat everything they see. That is why it is wise to keep 1 animal per stay. But it can also be more than 1. As long as you don't put subspecies together.
Apart from eating behaviour, they are quite calm animals that will not move much. That is why they do not need such a large residence.
Points to Note: Many golden poison ivy (and other reptiles) in captivity suffer from metabolic bone disease (or MBD). This means that the animal does not get enough calcium and the bones become soft. In the golden poison frog this can be seen quickly by a drooping lower jaw, lethargy, muscle spasms and deformities of the spine and hips. If you see this, you should start taking extra calcium as soon as possible. This can be done by sprinkling it over the food as a powder or by giving it as a paste in the mouth with a syringe. If the animal has developed deformities, they will not go away.

Cost and Purchase
Legislation: No additional certificates or permits are required for this animal.
One-off costs: With the one-off costs you should think of the costs for the accommodation and everything for the furnishing such as the water bowl, the heat mat and shelters. This can quickly run into the hundreds of dollars, depending on the quality of your gear.
Fixed costs: With fixed costs we are talking about the costs for the feed and the bedding. This often runs into the tens of euros per year.
Unexpected costs: Unexpected costs can also appear. We are talking about costs when your animal is sick and has to go to the vet or if your equipment breaks dow