vitamins and feeding for pacman frog?

[Kekuroo]

Hello everyone, after deciding for a while, i decided to get a pacman frog, as a very young one was available in my area.
right now he's only around 2 inches long. I named him Puck, after the original name for pacman, puckman.

My question is, how many crickets, and vitamins should i feed a small pacman frog of his size?
so far, i've been feeding him when i first turn his lights on in the morning, and right before, or after i turn his lights off at night.
i feed him 2 or 3 small crickets each feeding time, but sometimes he refuses to eat more then one.
I purchased some Rep-Cal Phosphorus-free Calcium with Vit.D3, and at yesterday nights feeding session, i dipped two or three crickets in the powder before giving them to him.
Is one feeding time a week an appropriate amount of vitamins to give him?
i've been keeping the crickets alive by misting their cage with my pacman frog's spray water, and i have carboard, cat food, and a paper towel in their cage.

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

[danfrog]

Calcium d3 dust twice a week, and vitamin dust once a week skip a day in between. Feed all that he can eat in 15 mins daily as a juvinile.

[Kekuroo]

thanks so much. just bought vitamins from the store today. i also got some nightcrawlers so i can mix up his diet from just crickets.

[danfrog]

Word of advice.... Dont vitamin dust the worms. It will turn them into slimy goo. I use gutloaded insects for vitamin dust days.

[jasonm96]

It should take at least 5crickets every other night, I would say. If it won't eat that many then temps probably not warm enough. You should dust all feedings with calcium and multvitamins, especially since it's growing. I use Repashy Calcium+ and this can be used every feeding without running the risk of overdosing, but with any supplement underdosing is more common than overdosing, so I wouldn't skip days of dusting with supplements. Check out Philippe de Vosjoli's book on these frogs, he lays out feeding to size of the frog and also supplementation.

Night crawlers don't need supplementation as their Ca:P ratio is already high. Feed these every few feedings, though, so he gets vitamins from his dusted crickets. Crickets don't need to be sprayed and cat food is probably not a good thing to feed them. Washed veggies are better and also a dry insect feed as well every so often.

[Kekuroo]

thanks so much. I changed my crickets diet from catfood to carrots. that should work, right? oh, and i'll make sure to check out that book.

my temperature is around 78-79 during the day, and around 77 during the night according to the thermometer. my thermometer is located in the center of the tank, and the heat pad is located on the right side of the tank though. should i have one large feeding time a day, or two seperate feeding times? and are you sure about the vitamins? wouldn't want to overdose the little guy. i have rep-cal herptivite, and rep-cal calcium with vit.d3. I planned to give him the herptivite today. i last gave him calcium with d3 on sunday.

[jasonm96]

carrots are good but also some spring greens, apples, romaine lettuce, watercress etc. There are commercial insect diets also available that can be added every few feedings.

i really don't like heat mats on the walls. the problem is that their primary use is to heat the substrate and glass - not the air temperature. in order to get any increase in temperature more than a couple inches away from the glass then they'd probably have to be running full blast and uncontrolled, which means 100 degree+ glass at touch, which could be dangerous should the frog make contact, but more worrying is that the mat may burn out if at full blast constantly. When the frog is burrowed it won't use heat stretching side ways across the tank, so it's not really effective. i tried this method of heating and my frog did not fare well. a heat lamp is better, your heating from top and this will be usuable. in a 10-gallon or similar sized tank it will warm and cool end, so the frog doesn't have to spend all of its time under the heat lamp.

just in one feeding, they take down large prey such as even their siblings, so can handle it. They just need warm temps and time to digest before the next meal. there's more risk of underdosing with supplements, but I like Repashy Calcium Plus above all other supplements, it's designed to be used daily. However, there's probably more supplements on the market with similar design. I've never used the ones you have so would not know their use, but you can email the company and ask what they'd recommend. In any case, with juveniles you always dust every feeding and you can get away with dusting less with adults depending on supplement, diet of your frogs and diet of your insects.

many people use commercial gutloads with their insects, which add a lot of vitamins the same as with a multivitamin supplement and so they may get away with using the supplement dust less. really, gutloading is an alternative to dusting and i personally think combing the two together could be providing too much vitamins. gutloading isn't really just feeding veggies and fruits to the crickets tho, as this does not provide all necessary vitamins. gutloading isfeeding a special made forumala to increase the calcium and vitamin content which dusting would give.

[Kekuroo]

alright, interesting. thanks again. i might consider switching to a heat lamp if i notice my frog not doing too well.


I checked the vitamin retailer's website, and it recommends that both the calcium with d3, and multivitamin be mixed and served in one dosage. i'm assuming once to twice a week, but it does not give any instructions on how often. With that in mind, and everything else you guys have told me, i've came up with this feeding schedule. do you think it will be adequate? any adjustments you would recommend?


feed him around 2-3 PM


DIET:


sunday - none


monday - 5 mixed vitamin crickets


tuesday - none


wednesday - 5 mixed vitamin crickets


thursday - none


friday - one nightcrawler


saturday - 5 crickets

[jasonm96]

i really would recommend switching to a heat bulb, it's best to provide the best right away, when problems happen it can sometimes be too late. i think most member on this form also use heat bulbs rather than mats.

i would dust every time apart from the worms. a lot of people feed fish and pink mice also and they don't need dusted (well the mice do use the calcium), this is something to consider, because in this case you wouldn't need to dust every meal. if you dust once a week i would leave this until the adult stage, they only eat once per week or so anyway and you can rotate something like supplements cricketscrickets, worms, supplements roaches and young mice dipped in ca d3 so you're not always needing to use the supplements once per week.