Humidity up, Mold down

[BerDip]

Hi, I'm trying to get some help with a problem concerning humidity and mold. I have 3 whites and 2 greens in an 18x18x24 terrarium. I've had hydroballs, layered with screen and cocofiber, and rocks and have tried many different set ups, but i cant seem to keep my humidity up and mold down. As well as a pretty bad smell from the fecal matter even though I would clean the tank 1-2 a wk, as well as spot clean. Whatever I try to do just doesn't end up being practical because of the number of times i need to go in and clean. I went to plastic plants as well, so now I don't have problems with mold, but now the things that helped with my humidity are gone. I was planning on getting a mister, and separating the whites and greens now that the whites have gotten bigger, but I'm not sure how to go about having level humidity and a healthy vivarium at the same time without mold. I've seen some people put glass in place of the screen lids, should i do this? Any tips would be appreciated.

[Mentat]

Hello and welcome to FF! What humidity levels are we talking about? White's can handle low humidity (65% is fine) and the enclosure proper ventilation is as or more important than humidity. Keeping those two frogs together is not a good idea because of different enclosure parameter requirements. The White's need 85F daily temp (with small night drop) while the Green's need 75F daytime (with up to 10 degree drop)!

Need a better description of your enclosure to figure out problems in it. Please answer these questions and we will take it from there. Thank you !

“Trouble in the Frog Enclosure”

The following information will be very helpful if provided when requesting assistance with either your frog or enclosure. To help with your questions, please utilize the below list and post the information in the proper forum area to get advice from FF members that keep the same frog. This will allow for little confusion and a faster more informed response.

1. Size of enclosure
2. # of inhabitants - specifically other frogs and size differences
3. Humidity
4. Temperature
5. Water - type - for both misting and soaking dish
6. Materials used for substrate
7. Enclosure set up i.e. plants (live or artificial), wood, bark and other materials.
- How were things prepared prior to being put into the viv.
8. Main food source
9. Vitamins and calcium? (how often)
10. Lighting
11. What is being used to maintain the temperature of the enclosure
12. When is the last time he/she ate
13. Have you found poop lately
14. A pic would be helpful including frog and enclosure (any including cell phone pic is fine)
15. How old is the frog
16. How long have you owned him/her
17. Is the frog wild caught or captive bred
18. Frog food- how often and if it is diverse, what other feeders are used as treats
19. How often the frog is handled
20. Is the enclosure kept in a high or low traffic area
21. Describe enclosure maintenance (water changes, cleaning, etc)

by Lynn(Flybyferns) and GrifTheGreat.

[Louis Charles Bruckner]

Glad to see that you're going to be separating the species of frogs that's always a good thing to do.

Since I've been keeping frogs I've kept Whites and packmans so far.
Both of which have been EXO Tara terrariums.
And have had excellent results with having a higroterm HT-10 controller controlling heat mats(placed on the sides) and a combination of ceramic heat elements and infrared bulbs with a zoo med repti-fogger.

And to keep the temperature humidity stable I have experimented with covering the screen with pieces of clear Lexan.
I've been able to keep the enclosure stable and only use about liter of distilled water per week.

If you plan on buying any of the above equipment I highly suggest that you get it from Amazon and not from a big box pet store Amazon will be vastly less expensive.
I bought the controllers for less than $40US a piece and also the foggers for about the same price.

[deranged chipmunk]

How much water do you have in your leca bottom? And what kind of mold?

[BerDip]

1. Size of enclosure
-18x18x24


2. # of inhabitants - specifically other frogs and size differences
- 3whites and 2 greens (greens soon to be removed)

3. Humidity
- ranges 29-75% higher when misted multiple times a day, but falls to 20-30's

4. Temperature
- 80-81 degrees daytime , 71-72 night

5. Water - type - for both misting and soaking dish
- filtered water from tap for both misting and soaking. (pur water filter)

6. Materials used for substrate
- hydro balls, screen separator, cocofiber, moss, decorative rocks. removed bark halves from mold

7. Enclosure set up i.e. plants (live or artificial), wood, bark and other materials. - How were things prepared prior to being put into the viv.
- live plants to start with hydro balls, cocofiber, then switched to fake plants, vines, suction cup vines, plastic ground plant, fake wood branch.

8. Main food source
- crickets, mealworms, night crawlers

9. Vitamins and calcium? (how often)
- vitamins (herptivite) once a wk, Calcium (with vit d) every other feeding.

10. Lighting - solar glow (165 wat) 80-81 temp.

11. What is being used to maintain the temperature of the enclosure
- light

12. When is the last time he/she ate
- yesterday

13. Have you found poop lately
- oh yes

14. A pic would be helpful including frog and enclosure (any including cell phone pic is fine)

15. How old is the frog
- im not sure of age's. looks like one full grown green (had for 8 months - petsmart), one small green had for about a month (from petsmart), oldest dumpy bought from petco (had for about 3 months), 2 younger whites from petco (had for about 2 months)

16. How long have you owned him/her -^

17. Is the frog wild caught or captive bred
- bought from petsmart & petco

18. Frog food- how often and if it is diverse, what other feeders are used as treats
- feedings 2-3 times a wk meal worm, night crawler treats

19. How often the frog is handled
- once a wk for tank cleaning if necessary.

20. Is the enclosure kept in a high or low traffic area
-low traffic

21. Describe enclosure maintenance (water changes, cleaning, etc)
- water changes every 2-3 days as needed, spot cleaning after feeding, usually must remove decorations & some substrate to clean fecal matter.

by Lynn(Flybyferns) and GrifTheGreat.

[BerDip]

In Order: tank pic, 2 greens (oldest on the left), dumpy 1 (blue eye), dumpy 2, dumpy 3 (oldest), tank pic.

[BerDip]

How much water do you have in your leca bottom? And what kind of mold?

I would get white and green mold when i use to have natural wood. but since i got rid of the wood and live moss, no mold. I miss having living substrate, but having the fake stuff is a lot easier to deal with.

[Mentat]

2. # of inhabitants - specifically other frogs and size differences
- 3whites and 2 greens (greens soon to be removed)

Good!

3. Humidity
- ranges 29-75% higher when misted multiple times a day, but falls to 20-30's

See my comments in light section.

4. Temperature
- 80-81 degrees daytime , 71-72 night

Once you remove the Greens, get day temp up to 85 with drops between 75-80F at night.

5. Water - type - for both misting and soaking dish
- filtered water from tap for both misting and soaking. (pur water filter)

This needs correction ASAP! Pur does not remove chloramines from water. Need to add dechlorinator! If same used for preparing shreeded coco substrate need to remove and replace with new mixed with dechlorinated water.

6. Materials used for substrate
- hydro balls, screen separator, cocofiber, moss, decorative rocks. removed bark halves from mold

See no. 5.

7. Enclosure set up i.e. plants (live or artificial), wood, bark and other materials. - How were things prepared prior to being put into the viv.
- live plants to start with hydro balls, cocofiber, then switched to fake plants, vines, suction cup vines, plastic ground plant, fake wood branch.

See no. 5.

10. Lighting - solar glow (165 wat) 80-81 temp.

165 W bulb is very powerful and is probable cause for low humidity. Recommend get a lower watt bulb and supplement with heat pad on enclosure side.

11. What is being used to maintain the temperature of the enclosure
- light

See no. 10.

15. How old is the frog
- im not sure of age's. looks like one full grown green (had for 8 months - petsmart), one small green had for about a month (from petsmart), oldest dumpy bought from petco (had for about 3 months), 2 younger whites from petco (had for about 2 months)

Did you quarantine these frogs from each other for at least 30 days? If not recommend you do so in future, because new additions could contaminate all other frogs and enclosure.

21. Describe enclosure maintenance (water changes, cleaning, etc)
- water changes every 2-3 days as needed, spot cleaning after feeding, usually must remove decorations & some substrate to clean fecal matter.

Clean and change water dish daily per no. 5 comments.

Well, there are a few things recommend changing. Hope these helps some and gets your humidity up. The use of Pur filtered water is a high risk factor and should be corrected now. Also, would cover all sides (but front) to help provide privacy and reduce stress in frogs. Good luck !

[BerDip]

Both the whites and the greens get along very well. I've spent hrs at a time watching them interact with each other to make sure there wouldn't be any problems. I've never seen any territorial clashes or dominance issues. They usually sit right next to each other, or seek each other out. My youngest green actually follows my blue eyed white around, they soak in the dish together, sit together... i thought it was kind of strange. But, neither of them demonstrated any hostility towards each other, nor do the whites attempt to make a meal out of the greens. Every frog eats, the whites are obviously more outgoing in regards to feeding, but the greens always get there fill and are not pushed around. I wanted to separate them for space issues because the whites are getting bigger, and I didn't want any issues to arise if there attitudes should change with maturity.
What is Lexan? is it like plexi glass? My biggest problem would be keeping the humidity at a stable level, not so much keeping it high. Im thinking the repti-fogger would be the way to go.

[deranged chipmunk]

White mold is normal for a humid environment and perfectly harmless. And the green is most likely not mold, but algae, since you are running such intense lightning and everything is damp. It's the perfect algae culturing environment.

[BerDip]

Well thats a relief at least. I'm no mold expert lol. by leca do you mean aquifer? the hydro balls would be about 2 inches thick with water just under an inch. Currently i have layered hydro balls, screen, cocofiber, and moss. The moss makes it smell pretty good.

[deranged chipmunk]

Yes, leca is the drainage layer. And 165w of light over such a small tank is a bit much. If it was a planted aquarium, it would be cool, but that's quite intense for a small terrarium

[BerDip]

I've never dealt with foggers or misters, or managing humidity. But all my frogs seem very happy, they're very vocal. I'm confused with how lowering the wattage of my light and adding a heating pad would help humidity. Either way the temp will be rising to 85 deg. ...so heat rising = humidity lowering. (Side note- the greens escape higher temps by sitting lower in the tank when stressed, the higher temp is present only within the first 5-6 inches of the canopy.) So, if I'm lowering the wattage of the bulb..to reduce the "intensity"... of the heat...yet adding a heating pad....to increase ..heat... thus raising humidity? that doesn't sound right or maybe I'm not understanding the process. As for the water chlorination, its a simple enough fix. I honestly hadn't thought about it since I didn't see any mineral build up on the glass.

[BerDip]

I'm sorry. The wattage is 125. My mistake. Also, I've read a lot of different things on what the "right" level of humidity and heat should be. I'm just kind of confused about whats right or whats wrong for these guys. Like, humidity vs air flow, should i cover the screen to boost humidity or will that be bad for them? Which is more important. Or, will a repti-fogger create that perfect humidity level that I'm needing.

[BerDip]

Also, as far as mold goes, when creating a vivarium how do you avoid mold? Or is it just to be expected? Substrate, wood, plant examples for a mold free environment? And what kind of lighting will be ideal for a small vivarium that would be good for plant life but not mold? Is that even possible? If mold happens, do you have to start from square one or is it still salvageable? Which mold is ok and which mold is a danger?