Mantella prices on

Mantella are considered to be the poison dart frogs for Madagascar or of Africa (more generally). 

Their setup is similar to dart frogs but they appreciate it a little cooler and stress easily in higher temperatures (try keeping them around room temperatures) and a little dryer (60-70% humidity) than dart frogs. Misting is only required once or twice a day. Mantella do best in naturalistic vivariums (planted) and with a clean source of water. Like dart frogs they are not good swimmers so any water features should be shallow with easy access in and out. Keeping the planting very basic helps if you wish to pull the eggs to hand raise.

Adult Mantellas will eat pinhead up to 1/8 inch crickets or fruit flies (both hydei and melanogaster), as well as eating isopods and springtails if added to the vivarium as a cleanup crew. Their food should be dusted the same as dart frog food is.

Most Mantella are ground dwellers and spend very little time climbing but will utilize the odd plant or piece of wood if the urge moves them to climb. In a vivarium they like a lot of leaf litter and cork bark or driftwood to hang out under.  They are diurnal and generally are bold enough to be seen most of the day.

Mantella are harder to breed in captivity than dart frogs. Cycling helps trigger breeding (If they go through a cooler dryer "season" into a wetter and slightly warmer "season"). Once the wetter season begins the males should start calling.

Females are larger and more pear shaped than males. They lay their eggs around the water where their eggs hatch and the tadpoles can slip into the water, or under pieces of wood in the damp sphagnum moss. 

We currently only are working with expectata but if successful, we will expand our Mantella breeding program. Please note that the information here is from research more than experience, we have yet to have any eggs from our expectata. Patience is a virtue, so I keep reminding myself.