pacman frog trouble please help

[jasonm96]

What works well is to use a heat bulb during the day, which will provide viewing light and heat in a natural way, and then use a thermostat controlled heat mat on the bottom at night if temps drop below the 70s F, which would micmick heat retained from during the day and offer a place to warm up if too cool. This is how I keep my bullfrog and so far so well. I'm not keen on red bulbs, as now it's thought that the animals can see the light and in my experience I would say this is true because for every animal I've used with would freeze and be more active when it was switched off. Ceramics are good for large tanks, but drying and also very hot so moving the fixtures for access into the tank can be risky, so unless you have one with front access or a way of suspending the heater, it's a pain. I would not cover more than half of the screen top or ventilation will be poor and could cause infections since pacmans produce a lot of waste.

[Cory pacman]

Thanks for the heads up ill fix the cover now , what type of heat bulb do you use and would a thermostat be necessary with my heat mat seeing as its not getting the right temperature for me now I would guess the temperature its raising the enclosure to would be a good night time temp

[jasonm96]

I use the zoomed daylight bulbs and with 12" tanks normally the 40w does the job. Check the temperature underneath the substrate for the mat with a digital thermometer. Mats produce mostly contact heat so don't want the air much and so it's easy to get a wrong temp reading from them, especially with analogue thermometers. Depending on make, an unstatted heat mat can reach temps as high as 100F so double check temps, it's most likely warm enough. I do prefer to use them at night as during the day the frog would burrow to cool down

[monster]

Your frog is albino so i wouldnt recommend useing the day light blue bulb, it may be to bright for him. I use a 5 watt led from walmart with my albino and before that i just used the room light because it lit up the whole tank. I started useing the led just for my viewing pretty much. If your going to use a matt on the bottom i wouldnt use it during the day as suggested and just maybe say at night when hes above ground. They burrow to get cool not warm, and any heat the ground retains when the sun goes down doesn't last that long and the sun doesnt actually heat up underneath the top layer of soil or dirt that much. There is actually a very big difference in temp from the top to just an inch or so down. Im not saying dont use it if need be its just not the best option. I went out side about 20 mins ago to conduct a little experiment and here is the pics. Right now were i live it is 32C and feels like almost 40 with the humidity, so thats 89.6F and 104F with the humidity. So i went outside with my infrared thermometer and checked what the temp of the ground was right out in the sun and then dug a hole directly under were i took the first reading and took it again, you would be amazed the difference. I also only dug about an inch and a half were as a pacman would burrow further down then that more then likely. And this was right out the in the dead of heat like mentioned and they would rather be in a shaded area if possible which wouldnt be alot but would be a couple degrees difference.

[monster]

Heres the first one, I couldn't get it in the first shot.

[Cory pacman]

I used a digital thermometer with a probe to get a reading under the substrate it got to around 85 just before the glass bottom. . My pacman will only fully bury itself after I move it so I can clean the tank or if I have to give a bath to help the frog poop usually the next day its heads above the substrate again looking for food , it never really changes where its burrowed until I have to give it a bath again , when I first got it I was using 2 inchs of substrate but I was afraid it wasnt enough because of the heat mat underneath so I start using between 3 and 4 inches would using less help ?

[monster]

Your frog doesn't completely burrow more then likely because its to warm underneath him so he chooses to sit at the top. If its 85 just before the glass the glass is going to be even hotter then that which is making him not want to touch it. For the burrowing after you give him a bath he does this because they don't like being picked up very much so he buries to make himself feel secure. Its not a matter of using less fibre because if its to hot in the substrate he is not going to want to completely burrow. I have 3 of these guys and during the day I never see them they are all underground, sometimes you can here them rubbing on the glass to try and get further down. At night the lights go out the temp drops a few degrees and they are usually out with in an hour ready to eat. Next morning lights go back on the temps go up and they disappear again. This is whats natural for them, all though they live somewhere its so hot they aren't the biggest fans of extreme heat. Again I know its recommended in books but IMO this would be the last option for heating if you couldn't get your temps a different way, so I'm not saying don't do it if this is your only option.