New and hoping for reassurance

[awelcome]

She's been eating every day, and I have seen her poop at least once (I may not be seeing the others if she might be doing them in the moss or behind the log) and I cleaned it from the leaf she was sitting on. I would rather use it if that sounds ok. I also have two small water bottles of spring water left over that I just found... would that be ok to use until my dechlorinator gets here? I know you said the one I bought is ok, but I feel kind of leery of using it now.... in case you can't tell I am a worrier rofl.

[awelcome]

glass thermo is reading about the same as the other... so pretty sure temp is ok. If I use plastic wrap to cover the top fully would that interfere with the hood/light? It's UVB so I am not sure it puts out much if any heat, but wouldn't that melt the plastic wrap even if there was a little?

[awelcome]

my piece of glass I have right now doesn't quite cover it all.... I could cover it under the hood, and then plastic the rest that is uncovered in front.... would that be better?

[awelcome]

better yet I had a bigger piece of glass that covered the whole thing. I just set the hood on top until I can cut it to fit around it.

[Lija]

in case you can't tell I am a worrier rofl.

Nope, i would never suspect lol

how do you know she was eating everyday and pooping properly? You just got her remember you have total amnesia, didnt hear anything at the pet store, oh and by the way im pretty sure you have no memory on how the frog even got to your house. Yeah? Dang it sounds so strangely familiar lol

edit- if it makes you feel better use spring water that you have

[awelcome]

we watch her eat. I sprinkle in the coated flies right next to her and she goes to town on them lol. We got her Saturday and she's eaten every day we've had her.

[DigitalPunk]

awelcome,

Your frog does not require UVB. Just a normal light will do. An LED or Florescent bulb will not heat the air in the tank and dry it out. Any normal glass (which we all use on the top of our Dart tanks) block UVB from making it into the tank anyways.

The water conditioner you bought is fine. Don't worry about it. nearly all water conditioners say something about preserving the fishes slime coat.

Watching them eat is great fun! I love it!

You are on the right track! Ask all the questions you need. We are here to help

[awelcome]

Hmm... I thought these lights DIDN'T produce much heat. If I put my hand directly under it there isn't much heat. I played around with putting the thermo/hygro on a dryer and higher spot and it does show my humidity closer to 80%... if it's even reading accurately. I have been misting several times a day trying to bring it up.... how wet should I be getting everything? This is one reason I want more stuff in there.... I feel like more stuff and especially more LIVE stuff will help this issue. The only two plants in there right now are fake. I have been spraying the moss, the log, and the fake plants. And there is a water dish. Temps are pretty consistent so far between the two thermos.... sitting at around 74 degrees.

She's been under the log again for quite a while now, but she has been having a pretty quiet time each day around 4ish or so until the evening. Sometimes she just hangs out on the log or something for that time, but some days like today she hides under log. Does that sound normal? She was active this morning, and came out from behind the log by herself (yesterday she first came out because I had to rearrange it a little). I can't wait until I start to know what is "normal" for her, and what to look for if there are issues..... and I will just feel a lot better once I take care of all the other little issues I've been asking about lol.

[DigitalPunk]

Unfortunately all the messing we have to do in the tank can stress out the frog. IT may make her hide more on some days than other. Frogs also know if it is cooler under there or maybe more humid and will relocate based on their needs at the time. Mist as often as needed to keep the humidity up. It is ok to let it drop down into the 60% range humidity wise then mist to bring it up. Just be careful not to swamp out the substrate (you will know if you do... it will smell like rotten eggs).

You won't know what normal is for her till she has a good stretch with out her tank being played with. You are doing everything right now it sounds like

[awelcome]

that's the part I worry about.... I don't know how much water I am putting. Should the moss be like soaking wet? It doesn't take much spraying to get it feeling wet. Should things have like drips on them, like the plants? Once I get a full set-up with the drainage layer and whatnot, will it be easier to get it wet without worrying about getting it TOO wet?

I know I am asking a lot of similar questions, I just really want to wrap my head around this so I completely understand.

and out of curiosity... in case I ever run into the issue... what do you DO if you get it swampy as you said?

[DigitalPunk]

If the whole base (substrate) is moss than you don't really need to worry about over watering right now. Also having a water bowl in there will give him/her a place to go soak if they are feeling like they need more humidity.

Once you have the tank setup with a drainage layer/false bottom you won't need to worry as much about over watering the tank. In fact with a drainage layer of 3" it is recommended you fill it 1/3 the way with water to help with humidity and a thriving micro fauna population (springtails).

You do want water beaded up on things. If you have the top blocked off and keep the door closed more often than not, your humidity will be fine. Sometime it takes a bit to get the enclosure saturated enough to get it up high and keep it there.

If you have soil (ABG mix is the best) and it gets swamped out your only choice is to pull it all out and throw it away. Clean the tank really good and add new soil in. If you don't swamp out AMG mix and seed the tank with some micro fauna the soil can last between 1 and 2 years.


Once you start working on fixing this tank I would say don't rush it. If you throw everything in the tank in 20 mins odds are you will miss something that will cause you to have a nightmare on your hands. Post the list of things you bought and what your plan is prior to doing anything. It will give all of us time to see your list and plan and point out things you might need to change or ideas we have for tweaking it. All our advice will be to help keep your costs down and to keep your frog safe and happy.


Yay! You were my 1000th post!

[awelcome]

Thanks for the help.

As mentioned before I bought the ExoTerra rock like background... so I will put that in first (may or may not use silicone as needed, but kind of hoping I can get away without to speed the process)

I bought the drainage,barrier, ABG, Moss, Leaf litter kit from Josh's frogs... so I plan to put that in as instructed.

I had wanted to add in springtails, but didn't end up getting to order them at the same time. Can they be added in a little later and not be an issue until then? If I can add them in later, how do I do it so they get down into the substrate properly?

Then I plan to put in the piece of wood I ordered as long as it fits, and some fake vines if I can situate them nicely.

I got a 6 pack of plants from Josh's frogs geared for dart frogs.

I also have a couple fake plants types that I might mix in if needed like at the top.

And now I have the glass thermometer, but still just the dual analog for the hygrometer.

Top is taped off with a piece of glass over it for now, but I plan to have it cut to size probably while I am doing the rebuild... I will send DH to get it done.

Will still be using the hood with the UVB (which DH said was 13 watts)


I think that's it. It's still going to be pretty simple, nothing like the builds I see people doing. I am not ready for that, and especially not in such a small tank.

[DigitalPunk]

Can't go wrong with Josh's frogs If you want to browse another candy store google NeHerp and look through their stuff it will make your wallet hurt! lol

I wouldn't use the Exo background. It is notorious for letting feeder insects get back behind it and hide from the frog. Then they die behind it and foul the tank up. Even if you don't try to do a custom background I would take it out and return it to the store.

You can use plants and the wood for decorations then cover the sides and back with some contact paper or construction paper. Your frog will love having 2 or 3 of the sides covered up. Will make him feel more secure.

Adding the springs later won't be an issue. You can either dump the culture you buy right onto of the soil and then mix it in, or fill you culture with water (springs float) and pour the water out into the tank (it will have loads of springs on it.) Adding them later will not hurt anything

[deranged chipmunk]

Wow. I go to shoot pool for a night and I miss a lot!! Lol looks like the gang has you covered. I love this forum because we always have back up!!



Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

[awelcome]

aesthetically it's going to be sitting out in a fairly open spot and we'd like to be able to watch her at times too. Having paper on the sides kind of sounds ugly, and weird if you're going to go through all the trouble to make the inside so nice. I have seen cling type backgrounds.... do those go inside our outside? Would it be enough to maybe JUST do the back, as long as there are ample hiding places with the stuff I put in? I saw the cork tiles, but I imagine those have similar FF trapping issues? If a bunch of FF die in there will it start to stink?

I wondered that (and I have another question on the feeding section) but even though she eats some when I put them out it seems like plenty end up just crawling around in there and I add more the next time because I am not sure if she's just not a good hunter yet or what.... because she will eat when I put them in as long as she's out. And the pet people said to feed her every day for now (though they didn't clarify what "for now" meant) and that I couldn't overfeed and she'd graze. I don't put a ton, but one day I did get a little over-zealous on a shake lol. Many of them end up in the water almost straight away, and it seems like plenty make their way out in my house too, but when I mist in there especially I can see a bunch moving around in the moss, on the log, etc.

[Lija]

Well, you will need to cover 3 sides of the enclosure. How you do it up to you. Paul is right, you better return exo terra background and get fish tank cling background. It looks nice, but you better attach it from outside ( tape, duck tape, etc).
However i really suggest not to rush things. It is the worst thing you can possibly do, before you do or buy anything ask. It will save you bunch of $$$ and big headache and frustration along the way.

Your frog will be just fine for as long as needed for you to set up the cage properly. Cork tile is probably the worst thing i have bought, they warp so fast that it's not even funny and then dont stay in place, fall down, stuff gets behind. One word - awful!

And another question - the place that you got everything from, do they accept returns? If so, why dont you get a bigger tank instead, do something basic naturalistic with custom background, especially if a tank is going to be standing in a visible place, you can put more and nicer plants in a bit bigger tank. It is actually not that difficult with our people helping all the way. It just sounds complicated, but it is not, and you have stuff coming your way from josh frogs anyway

no pool for Bill! No tequila either

[awelcome]

yeah, I read that about cork tile. I got the tank from PetCo, and I don't know their policy, but I doubt they will take it back now that it's been set up and everything since it was a kit. I think as long as the frog is happy enough with that space I will stick with it until some day in the future I either decide to make a new one or we want another frog. Dh would probably kill me if I had to buy a bigger tank too.... I've dropped a lot of $$ already for such a small frog lol. The background is coming from Amazon, so I assume as long as I don't use it I can return it easily enough. I might go with a cling, I will just miss that naturalistic background look with depth and places to sort of climb around on.

[Lija]

Tell your DH - happy wife, happy life!

but seriously do you want to try great stuff background, really easy, and not expensive at all

[awelcome]

I watched youtube videos of it, and it doesn't look too hard, but definitely more of a project than I am ready for right now. Since I do plan to stick with this smaller tank at least for now I think I will keep it simple... and save that kind of stuff for an eventual larger tank if I do one.

[awelcome]

just had a thought.... maybe it's dumb I don't know lol.... once I do the build and get some sort of background figured out, whatever I go with, if the sides seem still too open (I am thinking in such a small space I will be putting things to the sides anyway so they may be partially covered just with stuff) maybe I could go through afterwards and make a sort of leaf curtain out of fake leaves to cover the sides partially or fully. I could take my time with that and just attach it to the outside. Not completely ideal since the backside of leaves are lighter but might look nicer than something like paper at least.