Pacman enclosure and light questions

[aferland66]

Hi, I have just acquired 10 pacman frog juveniles to try my hand at breeding them. FYI I have been breeding reptiles for 7 years, but I am new at pacman frogs. I have 3 ornates, 3 sunburst, 3 tangerine, and 1 albino.

I have read multiple care sheets including Josh's, but I still have questions because of the specifics of my setup.

1- I have not seen any information on the need for any specific lighting, is that because pacman frogs don't require any UV light at all ?

2- Can you keep a pacman in a bin/rack setup with no direct lighting except for the lights from my chams on the opposite wall?

3- Right now my frogs are young and growing so I feed them every other day with pinkies, and the other days I give 4-5 crickets or a night-crawler. They are nice and chubby and never refuse to eat. Is this a good feeding choice for young growing frogs?

4- I have them on fine coco with a cypress mulch layer at the bottom, is that good?

5- I only have a small water dish from the bottom of clay pots, is that enough?



TY for your comments, and I would really like to hear from ppl that keep dozens of these guys, breeders hopefully.

André
AJ Reptiles

[Lija]

Hi and welcome to the forum!
For your questions. Ornates is a different species of pacman frog then the other frogs you got, based on colours you mentioned you have c.cranwelli., but if you post their pics we can better ID them.

1. No, pacman frog dont need UVB in fact it is very dangerous for any albino morphs to be exposed to it. They need dim light only to distinguish day and night.
2. Yes, they can be kept like that, but each individually in a separate bin. Be careful if you are using snake racks, the heat tape cant be on a bottom, only on a side.
3. Mice can be fed as a treat only, no more then one a month. I dont feed mice at all unless one of my snakes refuses, then it goes to fat frogs best staple is nightcrawlers that you need to cut in chunks as a distance between the eyes, crickets are not the best food out there, but good enough for the babies, just remember to dust 2xweek with ca/vit d3 and once a week multivitamin powder. Use only treated water. Check out this care sheet Frog Forum - Pacman and Horned Frogs - Ceratophrys - Care and Breeding
as a treat you can use hormworms, silkworms, but stay away from lots of chitin containing mealworms and superworms.
4. You dont need cypress mulch, if a frog dig down it may cause skin injury. Use plan fine coconut fiber, expanded with treated water., make sure you have shallow water bowl, change your water every day and completely change your substrate once a month.
5 i covered that, yes these clay dishes are awesome.

[aferland66]

Ty for the info, here are pics of my bins and the frogs.

More info: they are in a unheated rack in my reptile room that is kept at 27C (80.6F). I have an 4 stages RO water filter, so they only get RO water.

Bin setup:




Albino


Ornate #1


Ornate #2



Ornate #3


Sunburst #1



Sunburst #2


Sunburst #3


Tangerine #1


Tangerine #2


Tangerine #3

[Lija]

Yep, ornates are C. Ornata,
the rest C. Cranwelli, everybody are albino ( no uvb!) just different morphs.

No RO water, it is very "clean" and not suitable for frogs. They need these minerals that are in a tap water, but you need water conditioner to make it safe for them. You can use any fish tank conditioner, i use prime by seachem, cheap and lasts for a very long time.

Check this up http://www.frogforum.net/vivarium-te...hing-else.html

and yes about the substrate, do you see these big chunks in there, if ingested it may end up badly ( impaction), and if not it will irritate their skin. Go for plain fine coconut fibre, but it had to be wet, but not mud like, in sone of the pics substrate is a bit too dry

they all are so pretty! And you can probably sex the bigger ones, they are about or over 2,5- 3", am i right?

[aferland66]

The ornates are between 1.5" and 2", the others are between 2" and 2.5". Not sure how old that makes them.