How much water?

[daziladi]

I was just adopted by a Blue Dumpy tree frog and looking for some advice. For the first week when I cleaned his water dish, I tipped dish so the water would settle at the bottom of the terrarium thinking it would help keep the humidity levels high. After a week of doing this the bottom is sopping wet and I worried I may have too much water pooled on the bottom layer. To fix this I figured I would remove the plastic cling-wrap I have blocking 75% of the opening on the mesh-lid, hoping it would evaporate the extra pooled water at the bottom. That was this morning.... so I went back in to check him an hour ago and the humidity dropped to 30%... I promptly replaced the cling-wrap and now the humidity is back where it should be. So the question is... should I worry about that extra layer of water at the bottom level? To be clear I have a 20x10x14 tank, with absorbent dirt at the bottom mixed with marbles, then topped with an absorbent layer of thick moss where Chester lives. His temperature stays at about 75-78 and the humidity level between 60-70 percent. We live in Las Vegas so any humidity I expose will be gone almost in minutes. Any advice appreciated!

[John]

Sorry you didn't get a response sooner. What many people do is have a drainage layer on the bottom like these terraria:



I run a siphon hose down to the drainage layer when there is too much water in there, and just siphon it out. Often it helps to have a small section of pipe incorporated into the drainage layer and through the soil so that you can easily siphon the bottom whenever you like, just by sticking a hose in that pipe. It's harder to do this once the terrarium is built but it sounds like it may be advantageous for you in the long run to do something like this. You may need to put some holes in the bottom of the pipe section to allow free water flow into it.

An alternative I've heard of is to run a shoe lace into the drainage layer and leave it hanging over the side of the tank with the end lower than the water in the tank - through capillary action it will slowly soak up the water, eventually dripping it on the outside lower end - effectively a slow siphon. Just add a bucket.

The first method is going to be a lot quicker though.

[daziladi]

Thx for the reply John. On Sunday I went ahead and cleaned out his tank and that fixed the water problem. The water at the bottom level had a stagnant odor that I noticed after I removed the moss, surely that can't be good for a tree frog. I'm not tipping the water dish into the bottom anymore so hopefully that will keep it from happening again. Thanks for the tips on siphoning, sure to come in handy down the road.

[Kurt]

I would also add that if you use a pipe for drainage that, one, you have a cap to cover the exposed end and two, you cut some slots in the other end to allow for better water flow when siphoning.