Pacman not eating.. paranoid owner.

[Sandra]

Hey! I am a total beginner of amphibians and would like to ask for your more experienced help.
I finally got my first pacman frog from a reptile show. (Ceratophrys cranwelli) I named him Packie. I do not know how old Packie's and neither sex of Packie because it is probably too early to see.
But Packie is a Juvenile and I've had him for 15 days. I have him in a 60x30x30 tank. I use tropical terrain compact block as substrait that I was recomended.
I also have a large plastic plant that I intended to replace with a real plant, a hiding place for him and a water bowl. I use repti-safe to clean the water.
The temperature is about 80-84f the day and about 75 f at night. He has 12 hour day and 12 hour night. The humidity is 80 in writing and usually do not rise higher or lower.

To get to the point, he eats nothing .. I've tried crickets, worms, maggots, earthworms and pinkies. (That what the local pet store has in stock) He completely ignores the food except the pinkie that he actually chased and bit into it but never ate it. (I would try pinkies again but they are out of stock..)
I have tried not to push too much food to him because I do not want him getting stressed out and uncomfortable. But a few days ago, I had such a panic when I saw how he had dropped in weight so I googled around and found that I have to pick him up and force-feed him.
So I have force-fed him, but I'm worried that I will do more harm than good for him by doing this? Because I know they should not be handeled. But by the way I have been forcefeeding him, he has started to gain weight (5g) but I thought I would let him alone now for a few days before I try to give him food again.
I also have calcium with vitamin D3 to him when I feed him.
I wonder if it's something I'm doing wrong? If the temperature is wrong and or the humidity? Are there any tips on how I can do so that he will eat on his own? I'm so worried about him and feel like a bad owner that must force down food into him. And I also think he looks a little swollen? When I google the symptoms, I get only even more paranoid, so I send you a picture so you can check it out.
I do not think he is constipated because I have seen him poop.
And sorry for my extremely poor English and spelling (I have serious dyslexia lol..)
And when we are at it, would be nice to know the name of the color of my frog
Best regards, Sandra.

http://i63.tinypic.com/2wrqjj5.jpg
http://i66.tinypic.com/rvm3ko.jpg

[jasonm96]

The conditions you providing are perfect and you've clearly done your research! It may be the frog is just needing time to adjust or settle down from being moved around. A reptile show would be stressful with all the noise. By attaching a background, providing a deep substrate and make sure lights are not too bright unless shaded areas are present, this will make the frog feel more secure. Other things that may make them not want to feed is if food is too small, so try going up a size in crickets, so long as it doesn't exceed the width of the head. Also, because they are nocturnal try feeding at night if you haven't already. If it doesn't feed then you might need to force feed if the frog starts to lose weight, but it's at a good size right now. Sometimes using tongs will get them to eat. Can't help with the morph but someone else may be able to. Jason

[Sandra]

Thank you for your reply! I'll fix a background for him that was a great advice. I've tried feeding him various sizes of crickets before but with no results.. and I feed him at night and uses a tong. I've also tried to just drop the food in the tank for him to hunt on his own but never for a long time due to that i dont want the crickets biting him when I'm not able to stay and watch. Also I wonder if it's possible to leave worms in the tank? Won't they just burrow down in the substrate and become impossible for the frog to find?

I'll also try to get more plants so there more shading areas. Any tips on what types of live plants I could use?

/Sandra

[jasonm96]

No problem. You could try locusts or Dubai roaches if they are available, many of herps I've had prefer them to crickets. You can leave them in for a day and one way to stop the crickets from nibbling on the frog is to put some veggies or fruit in with them. You can also leave worms or Dubias in a deep sided dish sunk into the substrate to prevent them from burrowing away. I've never used live plants with horned frogs but many keepers use pothos, which is quite nice. It's best to leave the plants in their pots rather than plant them into the substrate because may dig them up and they probably produce far too much waste for bio-active set ups to work unless a big tank is used

[monster]

Hi welcome to the forum, also with the live the plants if they are planted in just coco fibre from what I have learned on this site the plant wont really grow due to there is no nutrients in the cocofibre for the plant. This is why people use that abg mix. We cant get it here in cananda you have to make it yourself.

[Pablo 3859]

Hi, Sandra! I have a Pacman too. What I think you should do is to let it rest likr 5 days, no bothering it. It might be stressful so you have to let it in peace some days.

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[Pyru]

I would leave it be for a few days. If you have some cover in there for it and 3 sides are covered it should be fine. Ive never seen a picky cranwelli so I wouldn't stress.

I dont even bother feeding the first couple of days to be honest....unless its a pixie

[monster]

Same with me, never try on the first day. Except for my ornate, he will eat until he explodes if I let him.

[shmush]

I don't have any personal experience with pacmen (now I'm imagining pacman frogs running around in business suits) but a frog blog I check out sometimes is entirely devoted to a smol frog named ciopinno (ciopinno.tumblr.com) and if you go back a few pages (page 3 and 4 by the time I'm writing this) you can see that ciopinno had a similar problem. the owner tried a calcium soak or something like that and it seems to be working. you mentioned that you have calcium, and if it's liquid I'm sure you could do something like that?


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