New Here, old to Horned Frogs

[CarolinaFrogger]

I'm new to this forum but I had a horned frog for a little over 10 years that unfortunately passed away a little over a year ago. I got him as a dorm pet and had him up till I had a kid. His housing was a live planted terrarium with philodendron and spider plants grown in river rock "gravel" that is around 1/2 inch diameter. (The surface has a mix of live moss and fiber so the frog doesn't end up interacting with or ingesting the rock) An aquarium pump filters the water/frog waste contributions to the plant roots and the water gets a 90% change every week.

I use his cage as an office terrarium to add a little life to my windowless office. I just recently got another one that lives in my office. I forgot how small the young frogs. This one is much more vocal than my last one, he sounds off every morning when I first turn on the lights.

It has been interesting reading all of the articles here and reading about the different experiences and opinions.

[elly]

HEy and welcome. (I tried to reply earlier but it didn't post.) Anyhow, there are certainly other horned frog owners here, hopefully you can have some good discussions.

[jasonm96]

Sorry about your frog passing away, ten years is a good age and so you must have gave him/her a good life. It interests me the way you kept the frog, it is very much different to what keepers normally keep them and sounds like a brilliant display. I thought a live planted tank would not work well for horned frogs due to the waste they produce but you've proved that it can. It interests me what size of tank this frog was housed in? I'd love to do something like this in the future.

[CarolinaFrogger]

Start with a 20 gallon tank, use large river rock and/or a ceramic pot to build up one side and back fill with smaller gravel or stone. Home Depot has terrarium stone, just boil it before putting it in the aquarium.

I got a cheapo "turtle tank filter" when I started, but upgraded to a small terrarium waterfall pump I got from an expo years ago. Set the pump in the "deep end" and run the effluent using either vinyl tubing or cpvc to the back of the land side so that it flows from the pool to land. Plant philodendron directly in the gravel against the sides and spider plant in open areas. My pool is about 25% of the tank length and 2.5 "deep, if the frog meanders into it they can still stand on their hind legs well enough to not submerge. They aren't great with swimming. My old guy would float a little but never long before he hopped out onto land.

The land side gravel should be barely above the water line so the stone stays saturated. Put a layer of mesh, I used garden cloth over the land side and back fill with whatever substrate you like, leave a couple gaps near the base of the plants. I planted moss that I got from a friend that grew it in a salamander terrarium, and later grew it from some that I found outside in an area I knew didn't have pesticides.

Before adding substrate other than gravel, let the tank cycle until you see new growth on the plants. You will lose some leaves and it will stress the plants from root washing and planting in a gravel substrate. I have found that philodendron will grow indefinitely, the spider plant will look terrible for weeks, then will start to grow, after a few months, just cut away the bad leaves and the new growth will look great, just less variegated and thinner leaves, but once you hit that stage it will do great. I started the tank to just be a terrarium the frog came later, it is all about patience.

The gravel will act as a particle filer that improves as root growth continues. You may have to clean the impeller of the pump periodically. I spot cleaned the substrate as needed, but found that the frog would almost always take care of business either in or at the edge of the water. I would clean out chunks but the filter broke down soft stuff pretty quick and pumped it in the gravel.

To help with temp regulation input a flexible tank heater, basically a little bigger than a credit card with a cord in the water that was designed to heat a 2-5 gallon tank to 75-78 degrees. I got a glass tank topper with UV bulb.

I change about 90% of the water every 7 to 10 days, it is only about 2 gallons.

I don't have a lot of tanks so I spent a lot of time on this one to make it as self sufficient as possible and I keep up with it religiously.

With no added heat, the fluorescent adds enough heat to raise the temp to the low 80s diluting the day and it dips to the low to mid 70s at night, I have a 12 hour photo period that is regulated by a cheapo timer.

I had blackworms at one time that I threw in there to help with decomposing, but I don't know that they really didnanything. It was more of an experiment. They did live in the gravel and apparently reproduced, I found several after I broke it down after my first frog died and I hadn't added any in several years.

I feed 2 european night crawlers MWF, I dust them once a week. Alternating vitamin mix and calcium. I know technically they don't need to be dusted with calcium, but I figured better safe than sorry. My old frog got an occasional F/T shrimp. I feed can-o-crickets/grasshoppers on occasion. When my old frog got bigger I fed a pinky maybe every other month. I'm not a big fan of crickets, they smell and have questionable nutritional value. I fed roaches if they were available at the local pet shop, but I never cultured them, I live in the south and the thought of anything resembling a palmetto bug gave me the heebee jeebies.

I have had fun with the frogs, any animal that is basically mouth and belly evolved to basically to eat and chill is cool in my book. The philodendron eventually grew out of the tank and makes a nice houseplant that also works to frame the outside of the aquarium or you can just keep cutting it back but it will eventually fill the aquarium if you let it the spider plant roots get HUGE so keep an eye on them. Treat it like a bonsai plant and cut them back periodically. I just clipped the "babies" off a potted plant I had and pulled the one out of the tank once a year and replaced it.

[jasonm96]

Sounds like a brilliant set up and the conditions spot on. Thank you for sharing. Myself and most keepers usually just keep them in basic set ups with coir and fake plants but live plants are always nicer. It's great that it did so well and must have made such a great display pet.