Hey guys, new member...

[Lija]

Yeah....

first of all welcome to the forums!

Now for your questions and I'm going to disagree with some people here

Yes, if you bought them from petco - most likely they are WC, and the guy from the small store giving you "the look" is very understandable because of the reputation petco has. They are not competition and never will be, nobody would buy any animal from the petco knowing their animal housing and selling practices. Small, specialized stores on the contrarary, care about the animals and their wellbeing and will be definately better source of information and animals too.
I am generalizing here, there are small stores that you better run away and I know nothing about the pet store you have been to. And in any way I'm not blaming you for getting frogs at petco, you care and the fact that you are asking questions shows it! and I very strongly susspect you saved them too.
CB whites are not that common in pet stores in North America, they are appearing from time to time, but still majority on the market WC and unfortunately most of the imports are from Indonesia, where about 20% of whites population are infected with "spargana" ( intermittent form of tapeworm). The is nothing you can do about it without possibly killing the frog, it's not danger to you or any other frog you have, in a year or two you might start to see ulcer looking lesions. And you might not see that, so don't stress out now.
The other parasites are different, but easily treated with panacur. You can contact dr. Frye ( Milan vet. Hospital), he can ship meds to you and explain how to treat.
And yes you don't want to mix WC and CB. After deworming and long time captive care ( at least a year) in theory it should be fine, but personally I would never do it. CB are not being exposed to the stuff WC did, there is always a danger for CB to be in a contact with WC.


Heating - yes infrared lamp or ceramic heaters are better then heat pad, safer too heat pads don't heat up air well. Get the dome with the dimmer so you can control the temps. Or you can get controller, hydrotherm is my personal favourite.
You might want to get a thermometer ( digital) to check on themps.

wild caught food. You DO NOT want to do that! As Jason pointed out they will carry everything and anything that we damp into the nature (Pesticides, chemicals), that stuff travel far and unless you are 100% sure the area ( big area) is free from roads, agriculture, etc you better not do it. I'm not sure though that kind of area exists, unless may be in the mountains after like 2-3h hike
i very highly doubt you want to culture crickets, like really... They stink like no tomorrow, you can minimize that by cleaning, etc, I did, thank you much, I'd rather go buy, and I buy 1000 Crickets every 2 weeks. For 2 frogs, you don't need much, just get some from the pet store, gut load them, keep in a separate container ( tub) until all eaten, then clean the tub and get more.
And if you having 2 frogs and cricket breeding going.... What are you going to do with all the crickets? They produce a lot and there will be escapees too

you our might want to check tree frog subforum, lots of information on whites here as well it would be better to ask in there too, more people will see it.

[jasonm96]

The local small pet shops I've been to have kept their amphibians in mixed vivs with species requiring very different care, without heat or light and basically sell you them without asking any questions ever and if you ask for advice they give you a load of rubbish, so pet shop varies from pet shop. I personally wouldn't use a red lamp, it does seem to disturb any animal I put it on. True infrared that reptiles and amphibians can't see produces no light whatsoever like a ceramic heat emitter. A white heat lamp would be best and you're fine unless temps drop less than 65oF at night. A night time drop is an important part of the D3 cycle, which is sometimes overlooked. Heat pads can be used without any risk of burning the animal, they just need to be used correctly, with a thermostats but for an arboreal herp they don't do much and above heat sources are much better. For the reason Lija pointed out is exactly why I can never be bothered culturing crickets lol but it's still important to keep them in a tank for a short while to gut load them before feeding

[Lija]

define how exactly you see that infrared lamps disturb any animal? That is not true and there are studies to back it up, there are no proven reports to say otherwise either.
In fact infrared lamps are my preferred choice over ceramic heaters, they warm up and cool off faster that makes them to be able to fine tune temps when plugged into controllers faster that is very important for some very temperature sensitive species, whites are not one of them, so doesn't really matter

heat at pads can burn any animal if it is sitting on it directly, it is not the case when the pad is attached to the bottom and you have non borrowing species and substrate on the bottom, but if you do that the air is not heating up much, making it pretty useless and if you attach it to the wall of the tank and you have a tree frog that might decide to sleep there you most likely have a problem.

small stores are not all the same and I'm sure there is a difference between UK stores, Canadian stores and US, but chances you get better information are way higher there then in a stores like Petco, Petlands, etc. But like with any information it is the best to look for multiple sources of information and pick up what makes the most sense to you and not to rely on information coming from the sellers unless they are reputable breeders.

with any subject there are lots of opinions, probably the most argued about topic being UVB usage. I say when you look for a care sheet and read different sources, compare what you are reading to how frogs live in a wild. Reseach their natural habitat! There is a care sheet for litoria cearulea in a sticky thread in tree frog subforum too.

[jasonm96]

With my animals they won't come out or show differences in behaviour when they're used. Reptiles at least can see a wide variety of colours, more than us so the likelihood of that they can't see red is small. Not sure on amphibians. However, red lights do not produce the full spectrum of light which stimulate daylight, so are 'less disturbing'. At the same time is there any studies out there showing that reptiles can't see red light? At least with ceramics, however you are 100% sure no visible light is produced and they also last longer, bulbs wear out from being moved or dimmed. With beardies and chameleons hobbyists usually disagree on red bulbs, saying that they will keep the animals up. Not saying I'm an expert on this subject and that red lights will actually cause problems but I prefer not to use them myself, I have seen differences and play it safe so I don't worry, by leaving no lights on at night. Just LED lights for a while if I wanna view my herps.

No, they really can't. If you put the thermostat probe directly on the mat or glass heated, then it will stay at the temperature set. Any burns would come from wet burn, when animals are kept in unhygeinic conditions. So it's bad husbandry and heat mats used without stats that would cause burns.

With UVB... Vitamin d3 in the form of supplements is fat soluble and effects some species more severely than others and Treefrogs have been noted to be sensitive. They also sleep exposed in the wild or at the least get reflected UVB. Comes down on how much of a natural and safe environment the keepers wants to create.

[Lija]

Jason, I don't think you treated enough burned by heat mats animals it is not fun for anyone involved, these burns are difficult to treat, usually there is big area affected and because of that the survival rates are not that high, especially in amphibians. that is not the place or time to argue about it and why would you put the probe directly on UTH? the idea is to use any source of heat the way it creates the gradient similar to such in a wild. You want to place your probe in a dead centre where animal lives, that is where we measure temps. It will be hotter closer to the heat source and colder further away. Not talking about snakes/beardies, etc here.
Anyhow lets focus on helping OP to have happy frogs that would live long by providing advise on safe and effective ways of doing things.

Oh there was also the question of UTH malfunctioning. They rarely malfunction if used properly and they are single use ( the ones that stick on). You can't reposition UTH once it is attached, otherwise you risk damaging it, malfunctioning and possibly fire.

[jasonm96]

I can understand it's not nice and I'm sorry to hear but this not the mats fault but rather the use of it and unfortunately some of the instructions that come with the mats are not in depth enough to prevent this... at least some mats provide good instructions and forums come in handy for discussing their use. You're right with the thermal gradients and heat mats can make these but not the same as a heat lamp or ceramic, they only create a hot spot, which must be controlled by a thermostat. So you keep the species at the room temp suitable for the cool end or apply additional overhead heat sources to warm the air and cool end and then the mat is used to create a warm spot. If you were using a heater that warms the ambient air as well, then you can move the thermostat probe to the middle or cool end, depending on what you wish to control but mats must be controlled directly. I prefer to buy the mats that don't have adhesive and they're the carbon clothes ones, which as far as I know have never malfunctioned but the printed ones have. I've stopped using mats for these reasons and much prefer overhead heating.

Anyway, yes let's focus on that. Haha!