Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi guys, i have 2 fbts in a half land half water set-up. they seem to be doing great, but my problem is the crickets, they keep drowning on me. i tried putting plants all along the surface to give them something to climb on to. the toads love it, the crickets still drowned. so today i took out the toads and put them in a big rubbermaid tub with 4 crickets (2 each) it worked great(no floaters to clean up) so here is my question, is it o.k. to feed them this way? and if so, is it better to give them 1-2 crickets a day or more every couple of days? is being moved into a seperate container on a steady basis going to stress them? any suggestions? thanks, michele

Hey I would assume that it is not great to be transferring the toads around a lot like that. I understand what you are saying about drowning crickets..it is a pain. At least 10% of my crickets end up drowning too. But I still find it much easier to take out floaters then I would find it transferring my toads back and forth every day or every couple of days. I usually only feed my toads once a week.
I have 12 toads and I give them about 75 crickets once a week in their 50 gallon tank. I know that a lot of them end up jumping into the water, but they usually swim out on their own, and end up climbing into the hanging plants on the sides of my tank, or onto tall objects to get away from the toads. It doesn't work though and over the next few days the toads always find them!!
I don't really know what else to say other then just keep doing what you are doing. Maybe if a cricket gets in the water just fish it out right away.
Good luck!

You don't want to move them back and forth at all. If there in the rubbermaid container and the crickets aren't drowning then you dont haveany water in there for the frogs to even though its a pain feed then in there tank, or try and find something less dunb to feed them.

If you are only feeding a couple toads, try pulling one of the legs off each cricket. A bit of a pain but it slows em down enough.
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Kane

hey guys, thanks for the suggestions. i don't know why, but i think my crickets are suicidal. i lose probably half if not more when i dump them in the tank. and moving the toads is becoming a pain. i was thinking about mabey getting a fish to eat the floaters. what do you guys think?

Just out of curiosity, how is your tank set up? The reason I ask this is because in my tank I have a lot of bushes on the walls and also in the water area and land area as well. I also have some big logs. The crickets I put in like to go hide in the bushes. Maybe this would help with your situation!
Let me know!!

Tanzee

its a 10 gallon with 2 toads. fred 1 and fred 2 (long story) anyway i have large flat rocks stacked up to make "islands" in the water with vines trailing over both land and water sections. i thought the vines would give the crickets a way out of the water, but they climb out once or twice, then five minutes later they are floating. i've cut back feeding and that is working, they get gobbled up the second i put them in the cage now and i only put in 2 at a time. this has been working well for the past 2 days, so i'll probably keep feeding this way, but i still think it would be great to drop a few crickets in once or twice a week and have them live till they became dinner. by the way, i'm just curious what kind of background do you have on your tank?

Sorry it took me so long to answer, I hope you get this message.
The backdrop..I am assuming you mean a paper backing? It is just a strip of scenery pics bought from the pet store where I live. It is just a pic of a bunch of rocks.
I think that getting floater crickets is inevitable..even if you put two in at a time they could still drown.
My personal suggestion to you (and others feel free to disagree) is to just put a bunch of crickets in and if some die, then too bad! Sometimes I see a cricket floating, but it is still alive. If you just grab a fish net and give it a bit of a kick, they usually liven up and if there is a toad nearby they will grab it. Sometimes I even have to lift crickets out of the water, but I usually don't, I find it a waste of time...I can't watch them 24/7!
Hope this helps!

Tanzee