Secretive Banana Reed Frogs - are they okay?

[Jayne Irlam]

I purchased two Banana Reed Frogs (A. fornasini) about two months ago and have read that this species should be quite active at night. However, they do not seem to move much and I have only rarely caught them moving. They spend long periods resting and hiding, and I am wondering if I am doing something wrong, or if this is just the temperament of this frog. I know frogs can be stressed when you first get them but thought they would have settled down by now. They look a decent weight so they must be eating.

The Reed frogs are in a high humidity vivarium kept with a temperature gradient of 70 to 80 F, with heat provided by a combination of a small heatpad and an overhead heat lamp (75 w). I give them 12 hours of 'day' and 12 of 'night'. At night it switches to a blue lamp (50 w) with the heat pad still on. If anyone has any experience with these guys, please could you tell me if the environment is okay or needs to change? I wonder if there is insufficient differentiation between day and night temperatures, or if the heat mat needs to go off at night to encourage them to climb towards the night lamp?

[John]

If they are eating well for you, then I think perhaps there is not enough foliage in the terrarium to give them a sense of security. Just an educated guess.

[Jayne Irlam]

Thanks for that, John. I will try rearranging the terrarium and see if that helps. I was avoiding doing that because I thought it might upset them more. I have noticed with some of my other frogs that when you rearrange their environment, they always seem to notice. Whenever I change the terrarium on my oriental fire bellied toads, they all troop out to examine the changes, as if they are doing a survey, or thinking "I'm sure that wasn't there before".