Cleaning Fire Belly toad tank.

[gazingm42]

All,

My son got 2 new fire belly toads last week. We setup a 10 gallon tank which is 30 land
and 70% water. The water is about 3inches deep with larger small rocks, about 3/8" in size. I have placed several flat rocks in the 10 gallon tank for the toads to jump on etc.
I have a small filter in the tank which seems to be doing a good job to keep it clean.

The toads seem to be happy and now eating smaller crickets.

I read that you should only replace 25% - 50% of your water at a time.

What is the best way to clean the water without upsetting the toads too much?
How often should it be clean?
How often do you clean the entire tank including the rocks etc?

Thanks

[tylototriton]

My favorite way to change water areas like that is a turkey baster. Yeah, it's low tech and not that flashy, but its cheap and allows you to be discriminatory where you suck water from. You should probably do a partial water chance about weekly. Its important to remove any spoiled food (dead crickets) from the water as soon as you see them, but you are also changing the water to remove the ammonia and other wastes that frogs release. When these toxins build up they can easily kill your frogs, so it is better to err on the side of caution and change the water more regularly. Most literature will say to clean the tank monthly. If it is easy to do, I recommend it, however, it's not the end of the world if you don't. Just remember to stay on top of the water changes and removing any obvious waste and you can get away with cleaning the tank less often (ever 2 or 3 months).

Hope that helps!

Alex

[Jace]

Fire belly toads are some of the most relaxed guys out there. Once they get used to you, there will be very little you could do that will outright disturb them. I agree with Alex on the water changes. These toads can be quite messy so to keep things looking neat and tidy, I would do it at least once a week or once every two weeks. You can either use a suction tube, or a turkey baster...just don't use it for the turkey come Thanksgiving...bleh!