Questions about feeders

[Danielle01]

Hey everybody,
here is one question I have about my pacman frog Chubbs so he is about a year old maybe a little less have to ask PetSmart where I got him got him for free since nobody was interested plus he ate their juvenile Chinese water dragon anyways he was mainly fed crickets and the occasional once a month to two month pinky but I want to add more variety to his diet since I'm afraid he will grow tired of crickets so I tried superworms he didn't like them then I tried red wigglers and he backed away from them keep in mind he still has some growing to do but is big and wide enough to sit on a soda can but I was thinking of buying a few minnows and night crawlers along with some crickets I dust the crickets as well with calcium powder. Will my pacman frog take them I've had him for two weeks now and he is very comfortable with his home and even croaks at night when I'm in my room and he seems comfortable so just want to know if he would take the worms and minnows since he didn't grow up on them like the crickets. Any advice?

[Lecroixe]

From my personal experience I got a tiny Juvenile (no bigger than a Gatorade cap) and have had him for only about 3 months and he's about the size of a soda can top; but since his second feeding I've fed him a staple diet of only nightcrawlers (with like, an occasional dusting maybe once a week).

From what I've gathered reading about others feeding their Pacmans, some frogs can be trained to eat foods if they go a period long enough without eating. Pacmans don't seem to be picky eaters but there are some that just rub them the wrong way; (Red Wrigglers are an example. Their defense mechanism where the ooze this really gross tasting liquid makes frogs think twice about eating them; imagine yourself eating something really gross and nothing to do but swallow it.)

In fact, Keropi didn't like nightcrawlers at first since his primary staple diet at the Petsmart I bought him from was crickets, but after a 3 day period of no food he graciously took them in and he now no longer eats crickets, never offered them to him until maybe after two months. I can put him into a shoebox and along with two or three crickets and he won't even glance at them.

As far as minnows though; if you're getting like feeder minnows from a lfs, I don't know how healthy that would be to feeding your Pacman as it's similar to the rule that I picked up that you don't want to introduce wildlife from your backyard or unknown sources to your froggy. If you know that the minnows are 100% healthy it might be a possible food selection for your pacman but if you're not positive I wouldn't risk it. You might want to wait around for someone with more experience in feeding to give you a second opinion.

[brian c]

i think it like this if you buy it from the store you are not the wise man who built his house on the rocks but if you breed then you are the wise man who built his house on the rocks

[Lija]

Danielle - the best staple is nightcrawlers, they are the easiest to digest and have perfect ca/p balance, to that you can add roaches ( dubia, etc), hormworms, silkworms, phoenix worms, mice ( once a month), also very occasionally butter worms, wax worms. You can add silversides ( sold frozen)
Stay away from gold fish, mealworms, superworms and red wigglers, never feed anything from outside.

Always dust ca/d powder every second feeding, once a week multivitamin powder.

[Danielle01]

Thanks for the advice unfortunately nobody has night crawlers at the moment will continue to look. And I found out that Chubbs HATES the red light so I am going with a blue moon light provides the heat without being too bright and got him a hiding tree hut will post pictures later and also got some organic cleaner made my fluckers. I did buy some rosy red minnows and as far as I know they are pretty healthy only got five just to test them out and hopefully he likes them. I also had some questions about live plants would it be a good idea to have a live plant or two was thinking a fern or something to get expand and grow wide.

[Lija]

Rosy red minnows or fathead minnows, commonly sold at the pet stores as a feeder fish are very very bad idea.
they very often carry huge load of parasites, are very fattening, but most importantly contain big quantities of triaminase, feeding stuff like that will lead to triamine deficiency or short tongue syndrome. You dont want to deal with that.

Frogs cant hate infrared light, they cant see it , blue light they can see and it might disturb them at night, it also dont provide much heat and is not useful overall for pacman frogs anyway.

Nighcrawlers carry any fishing stores or department stores like walmart , people were saying they buy theirs at gas stations along with a beer lol.

[Danielle01]

Ok well quick update tried the rosy red minnows and Chubbs didn't give them a second glance oh well guess it's better Chubbs didn't go for them and as soon as I put them in his water bowl he went in and basically went to the bathroom never seen him do that usually goes in the eco earth well I'm not complaining I rather he do it in his water bowl easier to clean that way. I will keep calling places and see what other stores will sell them and I did set up the moon light and he seems to be ok with it he's not running away from it I have it on a dimmer so it's not full on and it seems to be helping with the temperature and humidity thanks for all of the help lately it seems the only thing I can find are crickets and mice for him can't find the night crawlers.

[Lija]

Have you read my post above?

[Lecroixe]

I usually only use my blue daylight bulb during the early hours of the day where my room is still dark; I have Keropi on a 12/12hour light/dark cycle with a timer outlet switch.

As for my Nightcrawlers, I buy them from Walmart. Several other forum goers have noted that they are excellent staple-diet food choice for Pacmans and have done reviews and commented on the safety and quality of the Nightcrawlers that Walmart sells in their hunting/fishing/camping section. I would imagine there is a Walmart somewhere down in Florida and a small cup of 18 worms is no more than $3 here in Ohio. A cup for me will last me a two weeks so long as I keep them refrigerated around 70"F or below. And while some Petsmarts associates will tell you blank and blank, or what's best for your pet; you honestly can't trust them on every bit of information.

You need to literally take into consideration every factor that can possibly be associated with keeping your frog. Does the room the terrarium in get enough day/night hours? My room has black curtains and pure white blinds so throughout the day I will usually not get any natural light on my terrarium, so I use a dual lamp light to supply "natural" sunlight and at night, a infrared heating light.

I've mentioned before, my room is very cold because my family runs A/C 24/7; this would cause the humidity in my tank to go bonkers, so I opted with a glass cover instead of a traditional nylon net mesh cover on top.