Smelly tank!

[Kerry1968]

I have a problem with my frogs tank (he's a Kassina senegalensis, African Running frog). He is pretty much 100% terrestrial, I hardly ever see him use the water bowl, only when I've scared him by moving stuff around in his home.

Anyway, to keep the humidity up I thought I'd have a boggy end and a drier end. I have a siliconed in divider roughly halfway to keep the water one end. Every couple of days I use the water from his water dish to water the plants, keep the moss moist and top up the wet end. I have mostly just top soil in the tank, along with some bits of wood, stone, slate, etc for hides.

So today I did the usual water change, water the plants etc. and noticed a really boggy, rotting vegetation kind of smell. I have some earthworms in the tank to try to keep the soil healthy, but guess they can't keep up! Perhaps the wet end is too wet? I thought keeping the tank this way would make it more naturalistic and lessen the need for spraying/misting.

So..........do you think it would be easier to just give in and use the 'bed-a-beast' type of substrate and just mist him every day? I wanted to try to get a part aquatic part terrestrial thing going on, perhaps with a small filter, but I'm thinking now that is probably wasted on my little terrestrial guy!

What do you think?

[Kurt]

Well, I change out smelly substrates as soon as I can. Does it smell like potting soil or is it a more foul smell? Maybe you should just remove the water and replace it, rather than water the plants with it. Also is there any kind of drainage for the plants or are their roots sitting in water, rotting? Are you over watering the plants?

[Kerry1968]

Thanks Kurt.

I have about 1 inch of gravel , increased to 2 inches on the drier side, this is topped by mesh, then the soil.

It smelt just really sort of boggy! Sorry, I don't know how else to describe it. I think I'll maybe let the wet side dry out a little more and like you say, use fresh water rather than the water from the dish. Perhaps as there is no fresh water going into the soil it's become kind of overloaded.

I'm going to keep an eye on it for a week or so, see if the smell dissipates as the substrate dries out.

I think I just panicked a little! I don't want to poison my little friend.

[Kurt]

If you gently press on the substrate, does water come out? If so the it is way too wet.

[adawinters]

From my experience, once soil gets really mucky like that, it'll be hard to get rid of the smell. It might die off if it dries 110%, but it'll retain the smell in the tank as long as it's wet. I'd remove it. I wouldn't give up on soil altogether, though. Try keeping it dryer. Aim for the moistness of a houseplaint. Maybe you could use moss for the really wet, end that's under the water line. That way, it would make for easy removal if it gets a little funky. Also, remember that those earthworms can drown if it's too wet. It's possible that some of the funk is coming from a drowned worm or two.

[Kerry1968]

Thanks Ada, It's going to be one big hassle cleaning out the wet end, so I'm avoiding that job til I have to! I'm just going to keep a close eye (and nose) on it for the next few days and make my decision then.