He's a year old, but barely grown at all

[GrifTheGreat]

I will add that in the wild the closest thing to R/O and distilled water that they're exposed to is rain, but it does contain minerals once it comes into contact with the ground and plants. Basically condensation is R/O water.

[DVirginiana]

Just adding this in... I work in a lab, and we have to use distilled water for quite a few procedures. It is processed in a sterile bottle, and you open it only when you need something. Even after months of a bottle of distilled water being opened like this for procedures, and coming into contact with the air, it still has mineral content right at zero. The contamination due to air is primarily about encysted bacteria that might be in it. The no-bacteria benefit of distilled goes away within a couple days of exposing it to air; probably less when exposed to solid sources of contamination (like a frog!). I've run experiments on exactly this; when exposed to air, distilled water only takes about 24 hours longer than untreated tap water to begin growing bacteria, and is almost exactly equal to bottled spring water.

In regards to the frog; I really don't see the water being the cause of such a profound growth problem. I may be wrong (really I'm just curious about what's going on here) but I think you would see problems other than just stunted growth if this was conditions-related. Like bone deformity or profound weakness, because the frog's body would still be trying to grow. This frog's body doesn't seem like it's making the attempt to grow.
I'd say make an extra effort with keeping this one eating regularly though. Normally I'd say not to worry about a yearling going under for days at a time, but I imagine this guy's feeding schedule is more like a baby frog?

[locomike1219]

Wow, quite the discussion I started. I'm flattered by the concern Tuck is generating! But thank you all for the ideas.

To clarify a few things he has NOT exclusively been on distilled water. I have been using it for only the past 4-5 months. My reasoning for using it was because the tap water in the two areas I have lived with him is somewhat infamous for being bad, as in heavy metals and putative carcinogens bad. Of course, it isn't THAT bad, since I still drink it every day, but I didn't want my little guy to be exposed to any more bad stuff than he should. Also, a gallon of distilled water is like <$1 at the store, so price was never an issue. Nevertheless, I'll switch to Spring water.

Lija, he is rarely exposed to temps around 70, but I suspect it still happens. I try to keep it around 80, with it being slightly lower at night and slightly higher during the day. I had an UTH installed for a while, but I read that it might do more harm than good since they tend to bury themselves to cool down. Any thoughts on that? Should I move it to the side?

Food: Yes he does eat from tongs, and I'll try to switch his diet. Ive heard mixed things about mealworms and crickets though. My fav local pet store has never mentioned crickets being bad or non-nutritious, and I've also never heard of mealworms potentially causing impaction. Is pacman food a medly or mix that one can buy at a store? or is it a combination of some live stuff? I would prefer that I feed him at least some live stuff so I do not need to hand feed him every day, but if he won't go get himself, I might be SOL there anyway.

Just took these two pics. Had to dig him up again though. I'm sure he just loves me.

[GrifTheGreat]

More than likely it could have been from a deficiency. Genetics can play a huge roll in a stunted frog as well.

[DVirginiana]

You should put the heat mat on the side. But don't re-use the old one, they have very fine wires in them that can easily be broken when you remove it from a tank and can be a serious fire hazard if you re-use it.

Ran into the same thing when I had well water; crazy bacteria and metal content. Just bought several gallons of spring water at a time.

Crickets are fine. They just need to be dusted with a supplement every couple of feedings. I personally don't like them because they bight, chirp, and having to remove the spiny back legs is a pain Sometimes pacs appreciate variety; it might be good to keep a pack of walmart nightcrawlers in your refrigerator. They stay alive for weeks like that, and you can cut pieces off the tail end and put the rest of the worm back into the container.

[Pluke]

You should put the heat mat on the side. But don't re-use the old one, they have very fine wires in them that can easily be broken when you remove it from a tank and can be a serious fire hazard if you re-use it.

Are you talking about Zoomed heat mats..? I've peeled mine off and stuck them to other things a couple times.. I don't see any signs of exposed wires but now you have me concerned. I actually just peeled off a heat mat and stuck it to another container within the last hour, haha. Thanks for making me paranoid.

[Maharg]

Are you talking about Zoomed heat mats..? I've peeled mine off and stuck them to other things a couple times.. I don't see any signs exposed wires but now you have me concerned. I actually just peeled off a heat mat and stuck it to another container within the last hour, haha. Thanks for making me paranoid.

Lol me to. Ive probably re used mine 5 times

[DVirginiana]

I've done it before too lol. But the wires that can break are inside the mat. I was looking up equipment and saw several warnings not to re-use for this reason that looked like they were from reputable sources.

I'm incredibly paranoid. I guess it's contagious

[GrifTheGreat]

Well, your basically saying what I said. Im not arguing, but presenting truth. Just as you are.

Distilled water bad. No. Dont do it.

Over

Edit: And I am helping the OP. If someone makes a false claim that op believes in, it could cause the death of a frog. My "arguing" is correcting false potentially hazardous informatiom.

Im not picking sides. Sometimes it is best to not argue. Otherwise it can cause a lot of confusion for the OP and argueing no matter who is right doesn't get a clear response. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but we prefer that people not get in heated discussions that can escilate into someone being reported and possibly banned.

Keep it civil and clean.

[GrifTheGreat]

Are you talking about Zoomed heat mats..? I've peeled mine off and stuck them to other things a couple times.. I don't see any signs of exposed wires but now you have me concerned. I actually just peeled off a heat mat and stuck it to another container within the last hour, haha. Thanks for making me paranoid.

The wires don't become exposed. They break inside the housing of the mat itself and can either not work at all or possibly cause a fire by overheating.

[Lija]

Food: Yes he does eat from tongs, and I'll try to switch his diet. Ive heard mixed things about mealworms and crickets though. My fav local pet store has never mentioned crickets being bad or non-nutritious, and I've also never heard of mealworms potentially causing impaction. Is pacman food a medly or mix that one can buy at a store? or is it a combination of some live stuff? I would prefer that I feed him at least some live stuff so I do not need to hand feed him every day, but if he won't go get himself, I might be SOL there anyway.

crickets are ok occasionally, once in a while you can do dubia, crickets, hormworms, wax worms, butter worms, mice ( no more then once a month), but keep pac food and nightcrawlers as a staple. pacman food only available for ordering from http://pacmanfood.com/ it is a powder that you need to mix with water

P.S. pet store people don't necessarily know what they're talking about

[Burra]

Oh boy, now I'm paranoid too! I have a 1 time reused heat mat on the side of my frog's enclosure as well! Guess I'll be ripping that off and replacing it with a new one tomorrow!

[DVirginiana]

crickets are ok occasionally, once in a while you can do dubia, crickets, hormworms, wax worms, butter worms, mice ( no more then once a month), but keep pac food and nightcrawlers as a staple. pacman food only available for ordering from =TOP= of PacmanFood.com it is a powder that you need to mix with water

P.S. pet store people don't necessarily know what they're talking about

Crickets and dubia roaches are very commonly used as staple foods. If dusted with a supplement every 2-3 feedings they are fine and present low risk for impaction.
There's nothing wrong with pacman food or nightcrawlers; I use nightcrawlers as the primary food for my pac. But they aren't the only acceptable staple foods.

[DeeDub]

Why in the world would you feed this pacman food? I'll post up in the thread where I saw it mentioned earlier. We are argueing about distilled water when this powdered food is probably worse. Not trolling. Really just want to know why you folks use it? A person on another forum who knows a ton about nutrition for frogs, and appears to have a little more than rudimentary education in chemistry posted about this stuff. I'll post it here for everyone's thoughts and information.

[DeeDub]

This was posted by a user named Ren on another forum.

I personally do not see the merit in a fish-and-potato based food for an animal that eats largely invertebrates and amphibians in the wild; this is my first thought.

Breaking things down a little more: The Ca/P ratio is favorable enough, and it's a high-protein, low fat food . - which is probably why frogs can survive and grow on it. My concern lays less in "can it make a little frog get big fast?" and more "what are the long-term health implications of this diet?" I have never tried it, and I don't have any peer reviewed research on it sitting in front of me. So anything I say is going to be conjecture.

First: it is very high in ash. Ash is any inorganic material in a food - vitamins, minerals, etc. - and while it has long been debunked that the "ash" content of pet foods in and of itself is harmful, I am a little concerned that the %ash in this food is so high - especially since so few of the vitamin and mineral contents are explicitly listed. Looking at other reputable captive amphibian diets on the market, 17% just seems ridiculously high - even among other fish-based diets. Since we are given no insight into anything much outside of calcium and phosphorus, that begs the question: what is this so high in? Salt? Manganese? Fat-soluble vitamins? Can we be assured that none of the content making up this ridiculous ton of ash are ones that stress the kidneys?

We also have "fish meal" as a non-specific/unnamed animal protein. A fish is not a fish is not a fish; we already know from learning about thiaminase that some fish species have nutritional aspects directly harmful to frogs, but assuming this is accounted for by supplementation and/or outweighed by the benefit of omega 3/6 fatty acids in the diet: what kind of fish make up this mix? Bottom-feeding and predatory fish, for example, tend to accumulate heavy metals and pollutants to which frogs are very sensitive. Farm-reared fish are laden with antibiotics. Named animal protein meals are generally considered a higher quality; I would much favor "salmon meal" or "whitefish meal" so that I could at least look into the likelihood of these proteins needlessly exposing my frogs to heavy metals.

I feel like I should have something intelligent to say about the starch/seed meals in the food, but my thought comes down to: these are fillers, and why on earth would a frog need pumpkin seeds in its diet? I don't know that there's been any studies on the effects of these items to frogs, and I'm not saying that they'd be outright unsafe - more just a waste of your money paying for filler. But at end of the day: why? I don't feed my rabbits steak, I don't feed my parrots fish, and I don't feed my frogs veggies and seed. *shrugs*

Ultimately: exotic pets need specialized diets, and if it is too difficult for a person to provide life, whole foods that mimic a frog's natural diet to at least some extent? A frog isn't the right choice of pet for them. I cringe at the thought of "convenience foods" for exotics because frankly, processed pet foods for domestics don't even have a phenomenal track record wrt dietary illness and the like. Exotics nutrition research is still in its infancy, and we're putting the cart before the horse churning out diets like this before we even have a full grasp of their needs, imo.

[lumpbump]

I kinda lost track of any interest in this thread when people started debating distilled water and frog deaths and what certain breeders use ect... anyways I dunno why your frog is so small. I do know that my albino cranwelli has grown 4x size since i got him about 3 or 4 months ago. I made sure he ate every day (night) and gave him calcium and vitamin appropriately. He has had 3 pink to fuzzy rats total. As he got big enough to eat them I would only feed him one at the begining of each month. I feed him dubia as a staple. He started with smalls and now is able to eat adults... The burying himself should be normal enough. Mine stays burried 70 percent of the time. The only time I see him is when he comes out usually 1 to 2 hours after dark. This is when I feed him also. When he pops out I usually rinse him off with treated tap water then tong feed him as much as he will eat in about 20 minutes. Sometimes he pounds em right away while other times not so much. Hope you find what your looking for. GL and btw tucker is uber cute! ::

[DeeDub]

Maybe this stuff is legit, but at this point I wouldn't feed it to my frogs. I love em too much. Sorry to hijack the thread. Grif, if you feel it needs to be in the pacman food thread I don't mind. I just keep reading about this stuff and had to say something just in case people don't actually know the risks.

[Lija]

Crickets and dubia roaches are very commonly used as staple foods. If dusted with a supplement every 2-3 feedings they are fine and present low risk for impaction.
There's nothing wrong with pacman food or nightcrawlers; I use nightcrawlers as the primary food for my pac. But they aren't the only acceptable staple foods.

that is true for other frogs, my waxys are fed only on crickets because dubia are illegal here, but for adult pacman frog to have crickets as a staple is not going to work.

Lloyd did different food analysis here, you can check this out http://www.frogforum.net/food-feeder...add-water.html


and in general - guys you gotta relax, what is it with this thread is going on, let's focus how to help the little Tucker to become bigger and not to "kill"
each other in a process

[GrifTheGreat]

I've read that read that thread Deedub, but with no hard evidence that the Pac food is actually detrimental to the frog's health then you can't assume that what someone else says on another forum who does not even use the food becayes they are all about treating the animal as if it were in the wild where in reality it is not completely possible to do so. Just because they dont eat that powder food in the wild doesnt mean its bad for them. They also don't have their food brought to them in the wild either and don't eat most of the feeders we offer either.

I will say that I doubt the foods full benefits and that most of what is in it can be overdosed on by the frog. I only use it as a treat.

Now no need for another off topic discussion over something else that isn't fully about the topic at hand please.

Its hsould be offered as a treat preferrably and not a staple in my opinion.

[DeeDub]

Thanks for the reply Grif. I respect that this is off topic and sorry for that, but it would be out of context now if I reply to the other thread. I just read the pacman food "just add water" thread and it was covered there.

To reply to what you just said; Is the hard evidence dead frogs? Ren put it in pretty clear terms based on the physiology of the frogs, as well as the known detrimental effects of some of the ingredients based on the biological makeup and capability of the digestive tract. It hasn't been scientifically proven either way, I guess that is lacking in hard evidence. Just seems like a unhealthy way to 'power feed' the frogs. I'll stick with whole prey items, even for treats and not conduct that test.

I would love for this to be a legitimate staple diet, but won't put my frogs at risk for convenience. From a breeder standpoint, considering the bottom line and running a business, it ultimately makes perfect sense to use this stuff. The frogs are a business investment and the quicker you can get them to breeding condition the better. I understand and respect that. P. Vasjoli talks about this some in his books. Breeders have to look at thier frogs differently. You can't afford to treat them as pets.

As this was offered as advice to the OP as a diet for the small frog, it is on topic. Unfortunately I don't have anything to offer that hasn't already been said. You guys covered it.