How do I get to know my Pacman?

[Lecroixe]

Hiya guys, I just recently purchased my Pacman the other day; got him/her into their own terrarium by the end of the night. I was told by the staff that they feed their animals everyday (?) but just to make sure I bought ten small crickets to feed him/her with. I got home and was able to slip the Pacman into a separate fish tank for feeding and it ate about five crickets before giving me the "I'm full" vibe, then I put him in his full 10ga terrarium.

The temp right now at about 11pm is 75'F / 80-90% humidity.

Now, one thing is I'm not sure how to tell whether it is a boy/girl. I want to say it's a boy because I'm almost positive I've heard him croak a few times.

Right now he is burrowed in the EcoEarth Substrate that I've read about/highly recommended. He has been like that all day since I got off work (probably about, 9~ hours now). I came home and he was burrowed up to the eyes, turned around to my PC, and turned back maybe 5-10 minutes later and he has covered himself completely (this is adorable in my opinion). I've made a small attempt at trying to uncover him (still in the same spot when I came home and I was able to move some substrate off of him to see his eyes again, doesn't look like his eyes are closed so I believe he is awake, and he is definitely alive because I saw him blink.)

I've read through a few topics already and some people have tried to dig them out to try and feed them but I'm weary to forcefully pull him/her out of her little hole if they don't want to come out. The little fellow is probably about a little bigger than a quarter so I'm not sure what kind of "feeding" schedule works best. I've read that every other day is fine and that some people even leave a few crickets overnight so that they can hunt them when they come out of their burrow.
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I think right now I just need some helpful first-week-month ownership advice. I think it's a cool concept that my Pacman alike many others, will burrow, but I'm just scared that he could just flop over and die because I missed a signal or didn't realize something.

Like an odd question here, but can they burrow far enough down that they can't climb back out? I only have 2-3in of Substrate in the tank where he can visibly burrow. Can the only dig vertically? I'm afraid he might dig underneath his water dish (I bought a fairly large one for him to sit on and soak in at his preference.)

Also one more question; I purchased a ZooMed Dual Lighting Kit with the UVB+Heat and I'm not sure as to which light should be on when (like which light should be on from x-hours to blank x-hours). My room is fairly dark so he needs something to supplement normal sunlight but I also want to be able to see him during the night and the blue "Daylight" bulb has me highly confused. Should I get a different bulb specifically for night time?

Thanks for helping me out guys. I'm just nervous is all with him as with every other time I bought a pet that I had not owned/taken care of before.
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EDIT: 11:30pm, seems like he's sleeping, his eyes don't seem as wide-beady eyed so he must be sleeping if they're closed. I must've stirred him a bit when I was uncovering that substrate off his head.

[DVirginiana]

I won't get into bulb specifics, but if you check out the care sheet for pacs on this site you'll find all the habitat (temp/humidity/ect) specifications. As long as the temps fall within the correct range, you don't need a bulb at all. Just make sure they get a roughly 12/12 hour day/night cycle. I have a space heater in my reptile room, so my pac just gets ambient light with a heat pad in case it gets too chilly during the winter.

Frogs don't close their eyes when they are asleep. Closed/squinted eyes for long periods is not good... But you probably just spooked him brushing substrate off his head.

If your frog is burrowed, it's usually easiest to just clear a space in front of their mouth if you want to see if they're hungry. Mine usually doesn't stress out about that. I wouldn't recommend actually digging him completely out of his burrow too often though. Also, he may be unburrowing at night to look for food, since they are nocturnal. I wouldn't worry about the water dish.

As for the croaking; male pacs don't croak so much as screech. Look it up on youtube. If your pac is calling, there's no question about it. If this is a young one (if you picked it up from a chain pet store it's probably a juvenile) then you probably heard a couple 'surprise' squeaks. Males and females will make an almost chirping/squeaking noise if they get scared by something.

[Hypnotic]

Well, juvenile males do screech DVirginiana, I have one doing that right now, he's trying to croak but not much is coming out yet. But if he's the size of a quarter, he won't be croaking yet. Some frogs make a squeaking noise while hitting the bottom of the enclosure, they scrape it with their feet trying to burrow deeper, alot of people have mistaken it for croaking before. (myself included)
I only have one frog that closes her eyes at times and that's my albino, I'm assuming the light is a little too strong for her taste, eventhough it's pretty dim.
Pacman frogs don't require UVB, so leave that one off. Some people do use an UVB but only a few hours out of the day.
I would switch him over to nightcrawlers when you can, it's the best diet there is, easely available and cheaper then crickets! Theres no reason not to feed it really :P

[Lecroixe]

I think his eyes look a bit like your profile picture cuacuayatl. Hard to tell without squinting myself and even then I can hardly tell whether or not they're closed, or he's mocking the fact that I'm asian lol. I have the substrate for the least deepest part at about 3 inches so I don't think he's quite dug all the way to the bottom yet, I'm sure I just spooked him a few times though. He's been in his hole for the last two days now (I fed him on Saturday morning and we're going into Monday morning here, gonna try to feed him a little later today when a pet store opens up.) I'll have to look into that.

I think the only time he leaves his burrow is whenever I have my room completely dark (I think he won't leave his burrow with the UVB/"Daylight" bulb that is to be used for my night time viewing (which is fine by me, I won't have a bright light in my face when I try to sleep - haha).

As for Nightcrawlers, I have to cut them into pieces right? I would imagine feeding him with those using tongs is a lot easier than feeding him live crickets (having slightly unsteady hands makes it hard to snatch a cricket with tongs, esp. without squishing it to death - though I prefer to put him into a separate/smaller container so he can eat as many as he'd like without having to chase them very far). I've also read about gut loading crickets to give him the proper nutrients, would I need to do that to a Nightcrawler prior to cutting it up and feeding it to him?

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Edit: Yuppp, seems like my little guy will only leave his burrow at night when my room is completely pitch black/dark, just checked right before going to bed; looks like my little feller might be hungry and expecting food. I might need a darker bulb if I want to view him at night then don't I? Could anyone make suggestions? And also if Pacmans are nocturnal, how would you go about feeding them? Just drop a worm in for him? I am concerned if I have to leave crickets in there for him. Or do you guys just drop their food in, and do your morning dailies and come back before leaving home to clean up leftovers?

[DVirginiana]

lol, the frog in Hypnotic's picture doesn't have it's eyes closed, that's just the pupil contracting in the light. Their pupils are horizontal, so it's kind of like the opposite of looking at a cat's eye. If you can look at your frog at night with either a red bulb (they can't see red light) or cellphone light, you'll see his pupils will probably be completely round. Nothing abnormal about that

[mchell43]

Hi mine is a sweety and never shown any signs of aggression. I have had him over a year and half. I left him to settle for 2 weeks without bothering him much. I then just sat by his tank so he could see me for 4 days then I started talking softly to him, he now turns to look at me, I can stroke him, I whistle n he calls/sings. I feed him at 8pm each night so he gets into routine. I never take him out when I change him out , I remove soil around him, you can use cardboard to put in front of them at first. I then put new soil in and ease him over while I do where he was sat. They are great as long as you give them that secure feeling by not fussing them too much.

[chibikaie]

I tong feed mine. S/he caught on pretty quickly and definitely is more attentive when wanting food. Today, s/he actually turned toward me while I got food ready. I don't like to handle my frog otherwise - of course others will have different opinions, I just feel it's not necessary.

The one time I freaked out because I hadn't seen him/her come out for two days, it turned out that the ground coir substrate had become too dry. I wet it down more thoroughly and Froggy has been much more active since.

[Lecroixe]

Whelp, as a little update my froggy seems to be doing well. He comes up out of his hole every once and awhile (every other day it seems to change holes, usually he leaves me a nice big poop in his previous hole, he won't go into a hole that poop still exists in I think). I also named him Keropi haha. After a japanese cartoon frog that my girlfriend suggested.

Currently feeding him nightcrawlers (I did some research and the DMZ ones or whatever from Walmart are perfectly fine for the little guy) and I think I'll keep him on nightcrawlers, they're just so much easier to feed to him then crickets, it's a little cleanlier too. However, my only issue is that nightcrawlers is that they secrete that mucus or whatever on their skin and it makes them pick up the coconut substrate. Not to mention when you cut one in half it's a lot harder to dust them with calcium. Is it easier to dust them whole before cutting them into sections?

I read that it's completely normal and fine for Pacmans to eat some coconut substrate and they won't have to worry about impaction. Does anyone else try to like toss their nightcrawlers on a paper towel or something to maybe soak up the extra sticky fluid or something before trying to feed? (I also cut each worm in half or even thirds if it's incredibly long, Keropi will only eat one and a half worms before he does a complete 180 in his hole and burying himself; he's about as big as a half dollar now maybe?) I'll try to see if I can upload a video or a picture of my froggy.

Other things to note, I keep his tank at about 80% humidity at the minimum, temperature of 72-85ish from night to day. I'm hoping to keep track of his size so that I can appropriately adjust his water dish to fit his size. He's only used the new dish a few times (I can always tell because the water dish is angled so that dirt falls to the bottom). I also have another dish on the left half of his tank incase he wanted "cooler" water to sit in, but I figured the one on the right is where he'll spend most of his time soaking since it's a bit warmer on the right half (I also have a heatpad on the right side of the tank).
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EDIT: I didn't have anything on hand to really compare him to atm besides for a regular average bottle cap, but underneath the dirt he's definitely about the size of at least a half dollar (if not a smidge bigger, plus he was comfy in his burrow, he had his face covered and I went back to check on him real quick and he uncovered his face). And as of today, I will have had this feller for about almost three weeks now.

[Hypnotic]

That's a very big enclosure for Keropi, but if he's eating fine, I wouldn't worry about it. I actually have a bowl of treated water, I shake the worm in with my tongs, then dry it off using a towel, then cut it and throw it in my dusting box.

[Lecroixe]

Ooh. You give the worms a little bath prior to dusting? I might have to try that to see if it's works better for me, I have two little round container that I got back when I bought two Marimos from PetCo (they also use the same one to hold betta fish) and I use that to hold my worms temporarily when I transition from the fridge to feed. Since they're naturally slimey they worm around in their own fluids and remove the dusting if I don't feed them immediately (which I can't, Keropi prefers them cut into halves rather than a whole one haha, I've watched him struggle to eat a fat small one before.)


And yess.

The substrate is about 2-4" high in a 10gal tank but he seems to enjoy it. I may end up removing the tree in the left corner as he gets bigger to provide for a little more room, might opt for a few more plants to provide shade on the left.