WTF hibernating help

[Buck Rogers]

Hi all

I'm hoping you guys can help me with the breeding of my Whites Tree Frogs. I live in Johannesburg South Africa and we are now in the middle of winter. I have an adult pair and keep them in a large exo-terra glass terrarium set-up with soil, natural plants and wood hollows and branches. I have a dome 40w spot light which is on from 5am till 8pm, and a fluorescent tube which was on a 12 hour cycle (7am - 7pm). 1 month ago I slowed down the misting to light misting every 3rd day and slowly stopped misting completely. I then also started following advice (Breeding White's Tree Frog) and moved the light cycle on the fluorescent down 1 hour to 11 hour then 2 weeks later moved the fluorescent down to a 10 hour cycle, but I have kept the spot light on its original cycle of 5am - 8pm. For a week they retreated into one of the hollows which has sphagnum moss but then they started moving around very late at night and would move positions and then in the last week they have been active again and out hunting and soaking in the shallow water bowl, I then started feeding them a lot but in the last 2 days I have stopped feeding them again, but they are still out at night.

We are in the middle of winter at the moment and our minimum temperatures are going down to -1C and maximums are in the high teens. I have been lazy and haven't got a thermometer in the enclosure so I actually don't know what the night time temps are, but I can guess that they are between 10C and 15C.

Do you think from your experience that it is too late for them to hibernate (granted that our Spring really only starts in mid-late September)? I also have been thinking that I need to change the light cycle on the spot light to the same cycle as the fluorescent but am just worried that it will get too cold for them.

Please if I could get any feedback from you I would be gratefully appreciated.

Many thanks!
Darryn