Juvenile Pacman needs help!

[Mhoyle]

Hey everyone, brand new to this site, I signed up because I’ve been scouring the forums looking for a case similar to mine and haven’t, so I thought I’d post something here and see how it turns out. I have a baby/ juvenile Pacman I got from petsmart 2 weeks ago, he’s about an inch and a half wide and looks very healthy. His green and black coloring is very nice and he is showing no signs of pain or illness. When I first got him I dropped in about 15 crickets and they were mostly gone within a couple days, but I haven’t seen a poop in his tank since the crickets, which hasn’t really worried me.. About 4 days ago I fed him a superworm that was longer than he was, thinking that it’d be okay because of their voracious appetite and ability to eat pretty much anything, but then I read that hard shell insects and super worms/ meal worms especially shouldn’t be fed to Pacman because they can cause impaction. This has really worried me since he hasn’t pooped or eaten since. I’ve been trying to feed him small nightcrawlers to loosen up the digestion if that is the problem, but he is refusing, even when I force feed. I put him in a warm bath yesterday for about 20 minutes and felt his sides/ underside and felt a small bump slightly south of his mouth, I guess where his upper body is. No abnormal shapes or lumps on his sides, which still look normal. Is he just taking a little longer to digest because he had such a big meal? Or are these signs of impaction? It was only one superworm, I would think that it would take a good amount to cause any real problem. He still burrows and does nothing just like any other Pacman, but his refusing to eat or poop is worrying me at this point. Right now he is in a 3.3 gallon acrylic terrarium with a heat pad on the back, Coco fiber substrate, plants, and a small hide out. The temperature in his tank is about 75 consistently but that’s the best I can do as acrylic doesn’t transfer heat like glass, but I have a glass terrarium coming for him Tuesday. Humidity is around 70 consistently and he gets a proper day/ night cycle with the light on top. He is in my room where I have multiple fish tanks, but I can’t see these being any issue towards him. What is happening??

[monster]

He is probably fine just haveing a hard time to digest his food. Those temps are way to cold, you need to get those temps up to the low 80’s. The heat helps them digest and speed up there metabolism and keeping him in such low temps can lead to other health issues like kidney failure. Even if you could just get a 40 watt heat bulb and suspend it over the little tank could work.

[Mhoyle]

He is probably fine just haveing a hard time to digest his food. Those temps are way to cold, you need to get those temps up to the low 80’s. The heat helps them digest and speed up there metabolism and keeping him in such low temps can lead to other health issues like kidney failure. Even if you could just get a 40 watt heat bulb and suspend it over the little tank could work.

Okay that’s good news, thank you. I ordered him an exo Terra repti glow 15 watt lamp for his new terrarium so he could get some UVB, would this not be enough heat? Should I get a 40 watt as well and pair that with the heat pad or would that be overkill? Once the heat pad goes on the new terrarium I feel it would heat things up nicely.

[monster]

It all depends on how warm it is in the room that he is in on how much extra heat he needs, the 15 may honestly not be enough. For the uth once you get a heat bulb you probably won’t need it, or you could use it for nighttime heat. When there on the side unless your room sits somewhere around 75f they really don’t do much, a lot of times you need 2. One on the side and one on the back. I would just stick with a bulb and hook it up to a thermostat or buy a cheap lamp dimmer from wal mart and you can control his temps that way. Remember to that they need a few degrees temp drop at night and if you can’t get ahold of a thermostat a dimmer helps with the lowering of temps a lot.

[Mhoyle]

It all depends on how warm it is in the room that he is in on how much extra heat he needs, the 15 may honestly not be enough. For the uth once you get a heat bulb you probably won’t need it, or you could use it for nighttime heat. When there on the side unless your room sits somewhere around 75f they really don’t do much, a lot of times you need 2. One on the side and one on the back. I would just stick with a bulb and hook it up to a thermostat or buy a cheap lamp dimmer from wal mart and you can control his temps that way. Remember to that they need a few degrees temp drop at night and if you can’t get ahold of a thermostat a dimmer helps with the lowering of temps a lot.

So you’re saying all I need is a 40W with a thermostat or lamp dimmer and he’ll be okay? Because I’ll return the 15W if that’s the case.

[monster]

Ya you should return the 15 watt and get a 40 and that's all you should need. If you get a thermostat get one that has a daytime/nighttime setting and it will do the night time drop for you. Or you can get the dimmer and just manually adjust it yourself. You can get a red bulb and if you need something for daylight if the room he is in is dark you can just use a normal low watt led house bulb for light and just turn it off at night, they cant see the red so that can be left on 24/7. They are a little more drying but they need the heat. Or get a daylight heat bulb like one of those daytime blue bulbs and use the uth on the side for nighttme, 75f isn't bad for night he just cnt be kept like that all the time. And even with 2 uth's on the side a lot of the time you have to build 3 walls around the outside of the tank so the matts are in between the tank and wall to pretty much insulate the tank. Almost like putting the uth's on then putting it on self that just barely fits the tank, its more then a pain in the butt then anything. I used to do it this way and now I just have my frog/reptile room stay at 82f all the time until night then the whole room drops down to 77f, the only animal that gets extra heat is the dragon. you have a few options and its really what works best for you. I'm editing because I just thought of something, if its an albino remember the lights above him cant be too bright.