Proper heating technique?

[jasonm96]

Hey

A heat mat under the tank will be warm enough, they get pretty hot. Use a digital thermometer and put it under the substrate on the glass where the mat is attached to, don't measure the ambient or temperature above the substrate, the frog will get heated as it burrows. Make sure the bottom glass does not get too hot, otherwise the frog could burn itself, so always use the thermostat with the probe under the substrate on top of the mat for direct control. The mat should be at one side of the tank, not the middle. If you're using it on the wall they're pretty useless for terrestrial frogs this way, I always use it where the animal will be. Some members say never to use it underneath but as long as you have a hot/cold end and the mat is thermostat controlled, the frog will not burn itself and will still be able to regulate it's body temperature.

With the heat lamp, I'd say 75W will dry out the tank too much, I wouldn't use more than 40 watts on a 10 gallon. As long as you can get it at least 78F during the day, you'll be fine. When using a heat lamp don't have the mat on at the same time, otherwise heat will come in two directions and the frog will get confused. You could use a daylight heat bulb during the day and then switch to the mat at night, this would stop the tank drying out so much.

[jasonm96]

Although a heat mat placed on the wall may supply enough supplemental heat when the room is already within their range at least 75f. They just don't raise the ambient air temperature enough when on the side to supply enough heat in colder rooms. I have a number of frogs and a gecko, so I heat the room to 75f with a portable radiator.

[monster]

Hello, I noticed in your post you mentioned that you have them in a 10 gallon divided by screen. If they can see each other it may stress them out so you may want to use something that isn't see through. And you want the divider to be sturdy and be right down to the bottom of the substrate touching the glass. The guy here at our reptile store use to keep his like this with the divider and it wasn't far enough down one time and the smaller frog buried under the divider and ended up on the bigger pacmans side, well you can probably imagine what ended up happening. The one ate the other. And to be honest the size difference between the 2 wasn't a lot, and I know this happened because I was the one who asked to see the frog that got eaten that day and that's when we put 2 and 2 together. For the UTH's I would have to agree with Jason that unless your frog/reptile room is already at a temp of at least 75f a heat matt on the side isn't going to do much to your ambient air. I use this method and it took me awhile before even getting frogs to get the temps right. Its not worth the headaches, it can be done and there is others that use this method but IMO getting a light or CHE is the easiest and most headache free way. Yes you have to mist abit more often but all and all unless you get a fogger its something your going to have to do anyway.