New here and just one quick question about bulb kind and wattage please

[kadaysa]

Hello, I am been searching all over the internet to try and find this answer and really with no luck so I would like to bounce this off of you guys.
I will be getting in some Leptopelis Uluguruensis in next week. The home is a 18x18x36 exo (50gallon equivalant. I would like to use lighting versus heat pad for this home. My reason is I use a heat pad for my pacmans and I think the lighting would be better for the tree frogs because the home is much bigger. Not sure if this is entirely correct it is just the way I was thinking of going. Anyway, I was thinking a 5.5 lamp but I wasn't sure if I should go with a 8.5 diameter lamp. I definitely want the flukers one with the dimmer attached.
I have two reptile rooms and the room I believe I will be placing these frogs in is usually at 72 degrees. If it does happen to dip, mostly in the winter I use an oil filled radiator heater to bring the temps back up.
In my research for these frogs I read that I should be at 78 degrees for the day and a night dip down to 72 is okay. (if the tank does actually drop that much in heat)
My question is what type of bulb and what wattage as well as what size lamp would be good for my tank size to heat the tank just about 6 degrees during the day. At night I will be using no lighting/or additional heating as I think I should be good with the general room temp.
Thank you in advance for your help.

[Mentat]

Hello and welcome to FF Kadaysa! I would go with the larger Flukers dome since it's a large enclosure and will help spread head better. Just make sure it will clear the middle plastic rib on top. If it doesn't; then go with the smaller dome to prevent the heat from melting rib. For heat would go with a ceramic heat emitter. I've run one for more than a year in same dome with no problem. The dimmer will control it fine. Think for your needs the smallest (60W) might come short so would go with at least the 100W unit with dimmer top. Recommend buy emitter locally and then test in enclosure; if you need to dim up more than 75%, then trade up to the 150W model. I've used that one dimmed around 60% up to heat a 20G tall 15F higher than ambient and works fine.

If room has no windows or you have live plants will need to add supplemental illumination; compact fluorescents with little (no more than 2.0) or no UVB will be fine. Not sure if you bought enclosure already; but for tree frogs would go at least 24 in. in height.

Also, all LUs are wild caught so recommend you quarantine at least for a month and insure there is no contact or shared equipment with any other amphibians you might have. Good luck !

[kadaysa]

Thank you very much. I order the 5.5 clamp w/dimmer with a 60w as you suggested. I appreciate your help. I will post the new additions when they arrive. I have been spending a ton of time here browsing around. Thanks again.

[Psychotic]

I have several leptopelis uluguruensis. I have a tropical stripe light on mine, mainly just for the plants. These frogs do not need any special lighting or heat. They are nocturnal. I also very rarely turn the light on and my plants are dying because of it. But my frogs do not like the light at all! They turn brown and become stressed and try to burrow. I did have the tank heavily planted so they would have more cover. However the crickets were hiding too well and they were not getting enough to eat. I could never get them to eat from a bowl. Being Wild Caught, they are very skittish frogs. I only have one that will take food from feeding tongs. He only has one eye so he depends on me for food.

These guys do not like heat. 75F seems to be the sweet spot. They love high humidity. After they are settled in you can get a spray bottle with a fine mist and spray them. They seem to love it.

They will not wake up at all if there is any light. When I first got mine, I kept them in my bedroom. However my computer is also in my bedroom. While off (unless I cut the power on the power strip) my mouse has a little bit of a blue glow. This prevented them from waking up! I had to cover the mouse up with a towel so that they would get up and hunt. After several months they did get used to the blue glow though. Just thought I'd throw that in there since mine are not the only ones that have done that and didn't want you to get freaked out.

Also be prepared for death. I know it's a sad thing to think about. But being wild caught, they come in with all kinds of problems besides the stress of being imported. I ordered two originally. Then a couple months later I ordered six from someone else. During the QT one died within the first month. He never ate. Then in the second batch 2 frogs died within a couple of months. I had 3 become sick and I tried everything I could to save them. Only one got better. The other two died.

If you have any captive bred frogs, you will want to keep these guys very far away from them for at least 6 months (I kept mine separate for a year). I did not get mine tested for cytrid. But I know a woman who bought some around the time I did and had her's tested and they were positive for cytrid.

[kadaysa]

Thank you for the helpful information. I was going off a care sheet that stated 78 degrees day and 72 degrees at night. The room they will be in is about 72 degrees at all times. I just bought a ceramic heat lamp to bump up the heat just a tad for them but based on your information maybe I might just see how they do at 72 or see if I can control that emitter to just tweak the heat slightly They will not have any lighting on the tank. The tank is a 18x18x36. The room in general will have window light as well as some extra light around the room for the rest of the reptiles. The frogs I will be receiving in I was told have been in captive care now for about 6months and doing well. In the room I was putting them in there are no other frogs in that room (I have two pacmans but that is it total frogwise and they are in a different room) but there are geckos in the eventually tree frog room. Over a hundred of them actually but I was planning on doing a 1month QT in a separate room. When I QT I keep the QT animal(s) in a completely separate room where there are not any other animals. You are suggesting a longer QT perhaps 1 yr or is that just away from frogs?
The room goes completely dark at night, so that will be good for them then, I appreciate the tip. I feel positive about that part of their care LOL. You mentioned the color shift. I will watch that carefully. Do you know specifically what humidity level you are keeping them at. I read 65-70 for them. Do you find you are more or less from that level? I will find out for sure what they are eating. I almost always have crickets at the house and I breed dubia roaches so hoping they will prove to be two good staples for them.
Thank you very much for taking the time to share your experience with these frogs. I appreciate it. I am sorry if this post jumps around a ton.

[Psychotic]

You are welcome.

My year long QT was just from my captive bred frogs. I tend to have much longer QT for wild caught animals as it can take a while sometimes to really notice anything wrong. Like I said with mine. One died right off. The other two that died didn't stop eating until a couple of months later. I did notice they were skinnier but at that point were still eating fine. Then they just stopped and died shortly after in the same way the first frog did. The frog that I managed to save, I force fed after the other two had died. It was very tricky to do on such a small frog and normally would never do that unless the animal were on deaths door. I was also soaking. But I really think force feeding that frog saved his life.

My room drops to 72F when the air conditioning is on. I just block my vents and they do fine. I read the same info as you in a care sheet and bought them a heat lamp. But every time I turned it on, even though I had it on a dimmer, they would burrow.
I keep my humidity on the upper end of the info provided. I try to stay at 70. But it is hard. I don't worry about it too much. I mist them often because they seem to enjoy it. Even when they are asleep. As soon as they feel the mist they lift their little heads up towards the water. It's very cute!

Color is pretty important. They will turn dark if sleeping on a dark surface and light when sleeping on a light surface. However they turn an ugly brown when they are too hot/cold or dry. They also do it when stressed. They will burrow when stressed too. Every time I have changed anything in their tank, they will burrow for the next day or two.

I feed mine crickets mainly. I have tried roaches but I put them in a bowl and mine ignore the bowl. You might have better luck. I feed them a lot of small crickets as opposed to larger crickets. Mine seem to prefer the smaller ones. You can try with yours and see what yours like. Maybe yours will like bigger crickets. Maybe they will actually eat from a bowl.

One neat thing about these guys is they ambush their prey. It's fun to watch. Once they become settled they may not mind a dim flash light every now and again.


If you plan on sexing them, the blue throat thing isn't very reliable. I can not tell my males from my female based on throat color unless the males have been calling. When they call the throat turns very blue. But they are also calling which confirms they are male lol. Females are also quite a bit bigger than the males. I only have one female now. It really sucks because one of the ones that died was a female. There is no record of captive breeding with these frogs and I really wanted to observe their behavior to maybe help figure out the key.

Here is a video I made of mine calling. They also make a louder quacking that sounds like a ticked off duck and then start the clacking. Not sure what that one is all about but, I've yet to record it because its rare that they do it.

[kadaysa]

Thank you so much you have been awesome in responding with all of your information. I truly appreciate you help. I am excited to get these little guys in. I have had RETF in the past and I miss the calling of frogs in the reptile rooms.