FBT set up suggestions and advice needed.

[Joshm17]

Hello everyone! I posted something similar in the Terrariums and Vivariums section a while ago, but no one responded. Anyways, I got my first FBT ever a little over a month ago. I set up his tank like this (I'll attach photos): I got extremely lucky and found a 20 gallon long reptile tank at a garage sale for $10. At the time I had a gourami in a 5.5 gallon tank at home, but I wasn't very good at taking care of fish, In my opinion, it's a ton of work and little reward. Back on topic, I took it home washed it out good and set it up with a 25 pound bag of gravel that I sloped up, then I mixed in some larger river pebbles. I bought this basking platform and partially buried in in the slope. My fish died, so I used its log hide in the FBT tank, I also used some aquarium plants through out the tank. Next I bought the Decorative Reptofilter (it's been doing a great job). Last night, I used some fake silk plants to make a vine like structure to go over the hide, and like most things for this tank I researched if it was ok, and I followed the suggested steps and it's been fine. I currently have only 1 toad, but I definitely plan on getting more. Now on my fish tank, I just went in headfirst not really knowing that much, but I want things to be different this time. I really would like to hear and questions, suggestions, and advice you all have. Thank you so much, sorry for the lengthy post. What do you think of my set up?

[Joshm17]

I forgot to mention that I feed him 2 small crickets every other day. Is that good, too much, too little? Also, is anyone even on this forum?

[Hill111]

I think your enclosure looks awesome! I've been wanting to do something similar with mine for a while now, just haven't gotten around to it yet. I think in a 20 gallon tank you can comfortable fit 3-4 frogs, I have 3 in my 20 gallon tank and they seem perfectly content. Your guy looks like a healthy weight so I would say 2 crickets every other day is fine. If you notice he starts to look to skinny or too fat you can adjust based on that. Do you dust your crickets at all? You should be dusting with a calcium + D3 and a multivitamin, I have a Repashy calcium plus that is a combined calcium and multivitamin that I use once a week. The only thing I would mention is that sometimes the frogs can eat a piece of the gravel when trying to eat food and get impacted. You may want to consider putting some coco fiber on the land part just to help prevent the frog from accidentally eating a piece of gravel. My tank has gravel around the water dish and then the land part is coco fiber with gravel underneath, however my frogs really only come out onto the land part to eat.

[Joshm17]

Hey, I'm sorry for replying so late. Hopefully you see this. Anyways, thank you for the compliments, I've worked hard on it, and I'm still improving. About the gravel, I make sure to watch him eat to make sure he's fine, but I'm still coming up with ideas for his cage. Eventually, I will add moss and real plants to make it easier and cozier. 2 crickets every other day is exactly what I've been doing so far. I don't know how old he is, but his weight looks pretty good. I don't dust the crickets, should I? I feed the crickets raisins, lettuce, potatoes, carrots, and crackers. I also put the Fluker's calcium jello cube things. Should I be giving a better diet to my crickets? Anyways thanks for answering, hopefully you can answer a little more!

[Laker80]

I think it looks great. I have two FBT's in my kids 20l and it's been smooth sailing for a few months now. Does the wet gravel start to smell after awhile? I did a divider in our tank because I was worried it might smell musty. I change my water every other week and it's not smelly... at least not enough to invoke the ire of my wife.

[Hill111]

So you know I was just thinking about this earlier today actually. I'm a dietitian (nutritionist) and one thing that we tell patients and clients is that you shouldn't really need to take supplements as long as you are eating a healthy diet. The human body absorbs nutrients better from food than we do from supplements anyway, so getting most of our nutrients from food is better for us. In the wild frogs don't eat dusted insects, so my question really is why do we need to supplement the insects we give them in captivity? I've read things that say in the wild frogs eat a more varied diet than they do in captivity, which can be true if you don't feed a variety of insects, and also that frogs like Pacman eat larger animals with bones such as baby rodents or birds which provides more calcium. Anyway, sorry about the rant it was just funny that I happened to see this today after having this thought so I thought I'd share . So to answer your question everyone says you are supposed to dust your insects so I do a Repashy calcium plus dusting every other week and it seems to be working fine. The Repashy calcium plus has calcium, vitamin D3, and a multivitamin. The difference is that some people do a calcium + vitamin D3 dusting and then a multivitamin dusting separately because people think that when they're combined they are not absorbed as well. However, again I think this is kind of silly because if you are gut loading your insects, which you are with those veggies, the crickets should be providing plenty of vitamins and minerals without the dusting. The other thing about combining vitamins and calcium is that they are combined naturally in a ton of foods like spinach and kale for example so I don't see a problem with it. I would suggest doing your own research though, I'm just using my judgement based on what I've learned in the many years of school and practice I've had with nutrition and the human body. I guess frogs may be different?