Hi there!

Although I don't have years of experience (only 1 yr w/frogs) my first suggestion would be to go to your local library and read up on any possible animal you may be considering keeping in a terrarium. Each animal (even each subspecies) has very specific and sensitive needs. Frogs of different species should never be kept together.

I have three frog terrariums right now-one is 60% water 40% land with fire-bellied toads in it. These are a great beginner frog. If you've never dealt with amphibians before these guys are fairly hardy, active during the day and, well, ACTIVE, so they're fun to watch.

My other terrariums have white's tree frogs, which are also relatively easy to keep if you meet their environmental and dietary needs, and mantella croceus, which are small frogs native to Madagascar. If you are considering any animal it is best to try to find one that is captive-bred, rather than one captured from the wild, as it will not be under the additional stress of adapting to life in captivity as well as moving to a new home...

Basically, just make sure you do TONS of research and take the needs of the animal seriously-otherwise it will be an expensive dead animal. Set up the terrarium well in advance of purchasing a frog etc., e.g. have it running successfully and maintain optimum conditions for a few weeks before introducing animals to it.

You'll read all this over and over again...

Read up, enjoy and good luck!

Okay, I promise I'm not being rude, but would you please use capitalization and punctuation when you post? It would make it MUCH easier to read.

I don't know anything about some of the plants you mentioned, but I do know carnivorous plants. the cobra lily is a temperate plant, plus it gets too tall for a terrarium. It needs to be planted outside yearround so it can have a winter dormancy. Depending on what type of pitcher plant you have, it may also need to go outside. If it is a tropical pitcher plant it can be in a terrarium, but it grows too big eventually. The other thing about the cobra lily is that it needs way more light than what you can give it in the terrarium. It needs to be outside in full sun.

There are some great frog forums where you can go to ask questions. Dendroboard is one, but deals mainly in dart frogs. Talktothefrog.org is another great resource. So is doing a Google search.

One thing is you need to wash all plants free of their soil before planting them in the terrarium. The chemicals and fertilizers are a big no-no.

Figure out what kind of frog you want then research what plants would go well with it, or figure out what type of terrarium you want and research what type of frogs go best with it. Good luck!

Another reason for washing out the old soil of plants before placing them in the terrarium is that brown recluse spiders and other bugs can live in the soil. I didn't rinse off my plants at first and ended up with a small brown recluse (little baby spiders only) problem in the tank and had to replace all the soil plus rinse off and replant all the plants. Some went into shock and died from being taken out and then replanted. I have a dart frog and she isn't so hard to take care of. She gets pinhead crickets to eat and never tries to get out of her tank. Green tree frogs like to have stuff to climb on and prefer a tall upright tank. They also have a tendency to try to jump out of the tank occasionally (Mine are pretty good at staying in their tanks but wanted to escape the tank at first).

I kept a Darlingtonia [cobra lily] in a 10 gal terr for 4 years or so. It never got over 6 inches tall. The only lighting was natural lighting from the window it was next to. Later removed it and put it in a pot. Grew well for a couple years til a combination of heat & drying out killed it off. So the upshot is ... it can be done.

thanks for all the ideas i am continuing to do reasearch and i will post pics when i have them