A diurnal heating question

[jasonm96]

Can become inactive or possibly stressed in some species. You answered the question on number 2. It's all to do with the day and night cycle. I'd turn off the heat lamp unless your room drops below 70F. Leaving the mat on at 75F provides a warm area for the frog to seek of it does become too cool. I'm not keen on using overhead heat for frogs at night because a nocturnal frog comes out at night when the heat is ambient and not direct, and when the humidity is higher. For this reason I would watch with the fogger. It can prevent humidity gradients or flucations. It should generally be lower in humidity during the day and then higher at night, but constant high humidity is not good for most frogs.

[alane]

My house temp drops down to 62F, so frog gets cold air at night, not much I can do about that.

One thing I can do is to set the thermostat back a bit and maybe turn the top heating off at night. I've got a remote sense thermometer so i'll be able to spot check the frog to see if this'll work or not.

I'll run the fogger only as needed. Pretty easy to cycle humidity with heat. I'm also aware that the hand sprayer contains minerals (mineral water) which is good for the water bowl and for spraying the frog directly. I'm still amazed how quickly a drop of water dropped onto a frog soaks right in.

I guess all I have to do is think about this fellow's native environment and I can answer many of my own questions.
Thanks!

He's such a cute little guy. I put him in his 'feeding box' just now. He's patiently looking at me now, awaiting a cricket. But i'm waiting for the poo first. We'll see who wins.

[alane]

froggy won. i broke down and gave him a cricket. my little frog can beg effectively.

[jasonm96]

Oh wow, I thought the struggle was only mine! Although, now I do keep frogs in a heated room.

Yeah, that should do fine or if you dim the bulbs down to 74-75F. You could put the fogger on on a timer to come on at night, when you use the heat lamp, it might spread the heat around the tank and make it more gentle and ambient. Just use handheld sprayer the tank during the day, then allow it to dry out slightly but no lower than 50% humidity. You can place a piece of cork bark over part of the substrate and this will offer a higher humidity retreat and create a gradient or the frog can burrow deeper into the substrate. The frog will then become most active at night when temps are cooler and humidity is higher.

Yep, recreating wild environments is the key! And you won't win, it's just to fun to watch them feed!

[alane]

I rigged the fogger to come on with the heat lamps last night. That seems to have worked well.

During the day, a single 60W daylight lamp is on all the time, a single 60W heat lamp and a 13W of pads under the tank provide the thermostatic control at 84F. The top heating is very gentle and does not overheat the top surfaces up more than a few degrees.

During the night, 160W of heat lamps and a fogger create a warm fog and keeps it at 75F.
160W of heat lamps would normally fry all of the surfaces in this terrarium in a minute. But with the fogger? It heats the fog. No measurable hot spots. Amazing. Allows for rather short heating cycles.

And if I don't use heating, I find my frog, within the course of 20 minutes, falls to 60 degrees. I figure that this lower-than-room temperature is caused by the evaporation of water.

So, connecting the fogger with the heat lights for diffusion of heat was a genius suggestion.

Now we'll see how well it dries out during the day.

Froggy sure is happy. Last nights eating session consisted of the rest of my small crickets, 8 in all. He would have eaten more. Healthy little bugger.

He never did poo though. Tonight I expect a double.

[alane]

well, that got it too wet in the evening, it did not evaporate much during the day.

so more adjustment necessary.

but shifting the temps between 75 and 85 worked well.

i'm amazed how difficult it is to get temp, humidity and light just right in an artificial environment. fortunately my frog is very tolerant of my experiments.

So I guess i'll alternate the days I use the mister to let it dry out more.

[jasonm96]

Interesting! But unfortunate that it didn't dry out during the day.

Since you're using so much wattage anyway, I think the best and easiest thing here is to put the frog in the smallest room of the house and use a small oil-filled radiatior and greenhouse thermostat to raise temps of the room to a more suitable level. If you even set it to 70F it would be good. 60F means at least an increase of 14F of heat is necessary at night alone and that's just so much. The maximum I would go is 10F for day. You'll find it much easier this way to maintain enviromental conditions.

When I kept my frog in a room at 65F and it was just too much of a struggle. Rooms in the 60sF can be good for salamanders and some temperate frogs, but tropical lowlands should generally be kept in warm rooms about 70-75F. Unless a frog is kept in a very large tank, the rule is to only use low-wattage 25-60W bulbs for heat, although I would use 60W for 20-gallons+