help with new tank (light and heater)

[sezzalovesmj]

hello, i've just bought a new tank for my frog its a small exo terra terrarium. but was wondering what sort of light would i need to get now and heater for him as i used to have the mini tank but now increased the size for him. at the moment i have a small compact top light and a water heater thats does reach to about 30oc. his an australian white lipped tree frog. so yeah any help would be great, like brand names? or what sorta wattage is the best and size? and my pet store here told me that my light and heater should be fine but i wanted to make sure first.... thankyou all very much sarah

[anderson405]

Hi Sarah..

I have actually have no idea of your type of set up you have or what your white lipped tree frogs need but any set up can be tuned just for your frogs.. Your ambient temperature (room temperature) also needs to be considered.. Honestly I have 4 red eyed tree frogs in a 24x18x24 exo terra. I dont have any type of heater in their.. Now I do have a light on them which is just a cheap 100w light bulb that heats the tank up.. I put a thermometer as far away from the light as possible which gives me a better reading. I also have to have 2 different parts of my tank a different temperature usually high and low. So that when the frogs get hot they can go to the bottom where its cool. You asked about wattage and brand names. How many gallons of water do you have for the heater to sit in.. What is your tank dimensions and how much water is at the bottom.. You can then figure out how many gallons or what of water you have.. Then you can just get a heater that fits that size.. If you only have 8 gallons of water you could get a 10 gallon heater or even a 15 gallon heater. Honestly heaters are just like light bulbs they never last forever. I just use cheap walmart ones because I will have to replace them again sooner or later.

[sezzalovesmj]

thankyou so much for your reply i bought a heat lamp for him which is going very good but i have that on most of the day but have to turn it off at night so i find the tanks heating drops especially at night when turning it off, i have a water heater as well but its not getting warm so im worried about that. was thinking of maybe buying another water heater with more watts? would you know at all if thats a good idea? and i would love to buy in the underneath heater mat but he loves his water i would say its about 10 to 16 gallons he just loves swiming but yeah.. thankyou so much for your help your very kind. sarah xx

[anderson405]

Honestly I wouldnt worry about the temps dropping at night inless they go under 60f. These frogs are a very easy to care for if you understand their natural habitat. People say they stress easy ok maybe they do but at the same time looking at their natural habitat drops temps at night just like everywhere else. The water not being warm is nothing to worry about.. I think you should go to walmart to the fish department and get one of those little thermometers that is used for a fish tank. Their like 2$ and you can then be sure of the water temp. Your feeling of temp on your skin is very hard to judge because warm water is usually over 80f.. 70f water will actually feel cool to your skin so please dont kill your pets by to hot of water. Remember most dont regulate their body temp so you have to help them do that. That is why people advise not using under tank heaters because their frogs dont know they are over heating. I am no pro at this but I feel I have researched it enough so my advice should always be researched more.. Keep me posted. I would love to hear of some of the frogs you have seen in the wild in Australia I would be outside every night catch different frogs if I lived their.

[sezzalovesmj]

thankyou for that will definitely go by what your saying yeah your right dont want to over heat him, just was going by the internet info about his breed as im new to the white lipped tree frogs. oh really then you would love my backyard have heaps and heaps of frogs mud frogs, some tree frogs and lots of toads too

[samfrog]

Light I use exo terra basking spot on a thermostat set to 30, and 2 thermometers measuring each end of the tank also have one. To monitoring the ambient temp, for a night I have 2 50w exo terra moonlight bulbs that keep my enclosure at 21 on a warm night they are also put on the thermostat to ensure I don't over heat them. Hope this helps.