new to fire bellied toads

[alane]

I'm unsure why so much condensation.
My water temperature (74F) is above my room air temperature and there's not much ventilation. I'm also sort of over-oxygenating and over-filtering the water. And the artificial fern is serving as a big evaporation surface area.
I figure the frogs like it that way and I should just squeegee it down when i want photos.
or maybe some folks have some suggestions as to how to reduce condensation.

[edit] i 'cracked' the hood and offset it so that there's a little 1/8" gap now. The condensation is going away it seems. Or it's an atmospheric thing that comes and goes; time will tell.

[Froggie85]

I would actually like to have a little bit of condensation .. I don't have any I bought an aquairium heater to warm up the water some and its only went up 1 degree by tank is reading at 71 but I am super afraid to turn it up more cause I dont want to cook them .. I also but a regular house bulb thats 40 watts thats says it only uses 29 watts for basking when I turn it on in the morning with there UVB light they seem more active , but they dont hunt or eat much still so its a little frustrating one frog gets about 2 or 3 which ismy oldest frogs my little ones seem to only get one and then the rest drown in the water I hate it but idk what else to do to fix live and learn I guess ..

[alane]

Overnight, i'd say that cracking the lid by just a little bit got rid of 2/3rds of my condensation. It's still plenty moist but now I can take clearer photos.

71F is pretty far below the 'never exceed temperature' for this frog. I've heard it's range is 68F to 78F and that they don't really want a top-warmed basking spot. They want a 'rivers edge'. Wikipedia says that the oriental is found as high as 3000m.

I use Repashy Calcium Plus which allegedly gets me out of any sort of UVB requirement. Cold white LED lighting.

I got sang to last night by at least two of them, so I guess they are getting happier every day with the new enclosure. Bark bark bark.

[Froggie85]

I just started using Repashy calcium plus yesterday .. Because of a man names Jason up above. my pet store is stupid and gave me the wrong kind so they have onlybeen getting calcium and no vitamins . but yesterday they at least got one with the supplement . mine dont go all crazy for them so by the time they eat one its fell in the water and washed most the supplement of which annoys me to the fullest.. Today is tank cleaning day and I will move the bar up a little more on my thermometer to see if I can get it to 75 thats where I myself would like it to be .. and yes mine bark all the time doesnt matter them temp they go back and forth with each other . Then one will hop on one and they will make that other noise like get off me its so fun to hear!

[Froggie85]

THIS IS MY 4 YEAR OLD

upload an image

AND THIS IS MY TWO YOUNGER ONES THAT ARE SMALLER ONE OF THESE GUYS I NEVER SEE EAT.

upload pic

[alane]

today, i cleaned up the bottom of the tank and i picked up four tiny little stones that were the shape and size of a frog poo, but were rocks. Those didn't come from me. Those came from the store. they have little rocks in their media.

that gives me an idea of how long it takes for stuff to go through their system. although they are constantly eating and pooing, those rocks took 48-72 hours to pass.

i hope they feel better now. i would hate to have to **** a boulder, myself.

[Froggie85]

Wow that is stinky .. Ya I am not sure what is wrong with one of my FBTS he started getting fat but would still eat and his color was great he would move around then he had these spasm just for a few hours straight and then he was better but still acts drunk and moves his head side to side looking up in the air.. I got him from someone I have no idea how they had the tank set up for him. but he seems to do fine but thats what I am wondering if he has swallowed something and cant pass it idk.. I have big pebble rocks in there as big as there head and bigger so I know it couldnt come from me . My husband told me maybe hes just old and I just laughed lol

[jasonm96]

Oriental fire-bellied toads will bask at temps as high as 85F. A lot of keepers and breeders believe a basking spot is essential, but many have been kept without so long as daytime temps are at least 72F. Any cooler than that for too long will probably impair digestion unless a basking spot if provided. However, night time lows of 65F are fine and cooler temps in winter along with reduced feeding.

Calcium plus does have vitamin D3 in it, but whether dietary D3 is enough alone depends on the species. Since fire-bellied toads are cathermal, bask and mainly insectivores, they probably would use sun for most of the vit D needs or at least be exposed to UVB. If we look at another frog, such as a pacman frog, it is entirely nocturnal, burrows most of the time and feeds mainly on frogs, but also on whatever passes. This frog would most likely get its vit D3 from the diet as whole vertebrate prey contain this vitamin, but insects don't and so would do better with dietary D3 rather than UVB.

Here's a recent study on Oriental fire-bellied toads, one of the few on UVB with amphibians. I can't find the full text for free access anymore, but you can see the summary. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...+inconvenience.

This is also a good article to read

http://www.jzar.org/jzar/article/view/150/89

[alane]

I have an old "eprom eraser". Basically a bare 4W germicidal bulb. One of those blue-glowing UVB mercury fluorescent lights.

Do you have any idea what sort of intensity the frogs need? 4W is one of the smaller bulbs. is this something i could use maybe by affixing this tube to my hood? this is the sort of light you aren't really supposed to look at; It's 254nm uv. i worry it would erase them or smoething. But maybe using this thing would get me out of buying a light for my frogs.

[jasonm96]

Arcadia has some guidelines http://www.arcadia-reptile.com/wp-co...belly-toad.jpg

Keep in mind these recommendations are when the tube is used inside the tank with a reflector, a tube over mesh loses a lot of potentency, so you go from a 2% minimum inside the tank to a 5% outside and so on, depending on the distance from the light and frogs

[Froggie85]

Trying to send you pictures but your box is to full lol Jason.. Also my frog is spasin again I dont get it and it wasent until I picked him up to put him in the other tank to clean and back into there home other two are fine

[privet01]

Do you have any idea what sort of intensity the frogs need? 4W is one of the smaller bulbs.

Here is another article that might help you......

http://www.amphibianark.org/pdf/Baines_etal_2016_How_much_UV-B.pdf

There are quite a few good articles under the "Husbandry Documents" tab here http://www.amphibianark.org

[alane]

Good lord. Very technical articles. People have studied this stuff a lot.

For me, I guess it means I should replace my LED hood with a Fluorescent hood so that I have access to an array of proper lighting.

I added more 'land' to my tank, both high and low. The frogs love the low spots only. These frogs want to stay close to the water. They'll go to the higher spots to stalk a cricket.

Since my tank and filter are new, it's gonna cycle like an aquarium. It's tests for a small amount of ammonia now, so I add to the mix some goo from my outdoor pond filter, which has been stable for years. The frogs left the water IMMEDIATELY when it got muddy and went back in only after it was clear for a while. I hope it isn't a mistake to cycle water with frogs, but that what I got.

Two of my males are getting real dark. I'm sure that three of the six are males based on calling. The rest, not sure. Most make the 'release' sound, but one does not and just struggles. It's not clear to me if an unreceptive female makes a release sound or not. The internet is full of conflicting information.

They like to 'squish'. I try to avoid any traps in the aquarium that might pin a frog. But I find that these fellows now and then want to cram themselves in between a pair of rocks. When they swim around, if they are given a choice between open water and squishing through something, they always squish through. So I set a rock close to the glass wall of the aquarium and when they want to cram themselves into a crevice, I can see it. They don't seem to want a shelter as much as fully body contact with rocks. Probably to prevent another frog from getting on their back.

I've watched one 'periodically spasm' and when I looked closely in the water, I could see that it was shedding.

Antics. Now I have to figure out the best way to get videos of them; they are very small subjects.