You can use a heat mat underneath the tank connected to a thermostat with the probe under the substrate. There are claims that you can burn the frogs this way but this is untrue if you use them properly. The thermostat prevents overheating, it's just that not everyone wants to use one. A lot of people also say not to use mats since the frogs burrow to cool down but since the mat only covers half or less of the enclosure the frog can burrow to cool down if it wants. The problem with a heat mat is that they won't increase the air temperature, so the cool side will be whatever temperature your house is. So in order to use mats, the room has to be at around 22C or more otherwise the frog will spend all of its time on the mat as the unheated side will be too cold. The mat is useless on the wall since they work by conduction and the frog is terrestrial.


Ceramics warm the air but they also dry it out quite fast. You can reduce the drying by connnecting them to a thermostat with a day and night temperature setting, so you can have it cooler at night, so it isn't on full power all the time drying your substrate out. I would only use these in tanks with front access so you never have to touch the hot fixture and so you get easy access for misting the tank. It's even better to use them with a misting machine so you don't have to do it manually. The issue with the ceramics is that horned frogs don't bask and so you can't use a high wattage lamp to comensate for cold rooms. Even if a high-wattage lamp maintains the correct temperature, it is pretty intense and not the same as ambient heat. You could also use a moonlight heat lamp instead of the ceramic so you can view the frog at night.

Both have their pros and cons. Comes down to you. Try get your experiement and get your heating system ready before you get the frog.