need help with my red eye!!

[DigitalPunk]

The single best move I made with my reds to stabilize the humidity was changing they way I heated and lit the terrarium. I had the same problems you are seeing and many others have seen and will see in the future. You mist and spike the humidity up within the ranges you want and within an hour or so it has plummeted below ideal conniptions. Here are the things I switched to that solved my issues.

1. Lighting. I switched from Bulbs to LEDs. The LED lights can provide the plants with the spectrum they need to start photosynthesis and grow and also provide your terrarium with very natural looking light and makes the colors on the inside of the tank really pop. The LED lights produce such low amounts of heat that a source of heating the tank needs to be added when changing to LED lights. Another plus for LED lights is because they produce little to no heat they are not cooking the humidity out of the terrarium. I found after switching to LED lights I could mist once in the morning and once in the evening and the humidity would stay stable without wild dips and spikes. You will of course want to experiment with how much of the top to have covered to trap humidity in while still allowing for good ventilation. Having half the top covered with glass is prob going to end up being good. Some good cheap LED lights can be found at Aquatraders - Guaranteed Best Prices on Aquarium Lightings + Free Shipping!

The LED lights I bought have the option of turning on just the blue LED lights to simulate moonlight at night, but from my experience anything other than total darkness and the Reds seem annoyed so I just turn everything off at night and let them do their thing.

2. Heating - I switch to using Ceramic Heat emitters. They produce a radiant heat that penetrates down into the terrarium. This creates a natural warmer spot right below the Ceramic Heat emitter (CHE) and cooler temps down towards the substrate. Frogs are smart and will move around the tank to find the temperature that is pleasing for them at that moment. CHE also produce zero light. This allows you to maintain ideal temps in the enclosure at night without having to use a red heat bulb and disturb your frogs. The radiant heat also does not dry out the air and zap you humidity from the tank. When you are purchasing a CHE I ended up going with one that was bigger than I needed for my terrarium (18x18x24 Exo Terra). I found the 50w CHE could maintain the temp in the terrarium, but it struggled to recover from the temp drop I wanted to simulate at night. It would take the thing nearly all day to bring the temps back up. So I switched to a 100w CHE. This allowed me to do the temp drops and then recover the temps faster in the morning and raise them to the daytime temps in an hour or so.

3. Thermostat - I paired the CHE with a ZooMed Hydrotherm. The Hydro therm lets you program a max and min temp range and help regulate the temps in the terrarium. It also has a "Night time" temp setting. The Hydrotherm has a photo eye on the led screen that is looking for the light to be on. Once the light in the tank goes out the Hydrotherm switches to the night time temp settings. This will let you simulate a natural temp drop at night which the frogs will appreciate. The Photo eye needs to be looking at the tank so the lights inside the tank will trigger it, this can take a bit of playing around with to get right, but I absolutely love it! As an example I will run my reds terrarium at 76F during the day and allow the temp to drop to 72 - 73F at night. The Hydrotherm will turn the heat source off and on throughout the day and night to maintain the temperature. This will also help conserve the cost of electricity. The Hydrotherm is not cheap ($60 or so), but was one of the best purchases I made for my reds.

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The big risk you run without getting your humidity locked in (other than the obvious dangers to your frogs) is creating a swamp in your terrarium. The soil can be soaking wet but the humidity in the tank read low because the bulb you are using is drying the air faster than the soil is evaporating water. You can end up with a bacteria filled cesspool in the bottom of your tank in a few days if you mist every hour or 2 because the moisture is being cooked out of the air.

Another tip for the CHE. I bout a wire dome for the CHE. It is not safe to use them in the normal reflective domes. I used this one Amazon.com : Exo Terra Porcelain Clamp Lamp, Small : Pet Habitat Lights : Pet Supplies
I actually took tin snips to is and cut the cage back so the CHE sat closed to the tank top. I positioned the CHE in the center of the tank (or as close to center as I could get), where ever you end up placing the CHE put the Hydotherm sensor as far from is as you can get. This will help ensure you are heating the whole terrarium properly. I use an Exo Terra Lamp holder to secure the CHE so it can't be accidentally knocked off the top of the terrarium. I am avery pleased with the way the Red tanks functions now. it is very stable and the now 5 Red Eye Tree frogs I care for a doing great!