Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I would like to hear some peoples opions and remarks and suggestuions about my care sheet for horned/pac-man frogs, located here http://joshmilliken.tripod.com/id23.html also if anyone is looking for a ceratophrys cranwelli call I have a recording, e-mail me at josh_milliken2001@yahoo.com and ask for it and I will e-mail it to you.
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http://joshmilliken.tripod.com/

It's a good rudimentary guide. Nice work.

I like, very good
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CokeOfMan

i think its good also, but i have been under the understanding that the heat form bulbs is bad for the frogs as it will dry out the tank and them fast, too use the undertank heater just put some reptile carpit over the glass then but in your substrate

I have never heard of that, and you don't have to have high heat from your bulbs to get your temperatures up to that, and that's another erason why you mist your tank on a regular basis to make sure it's not drying out.
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http://joshmilliken.tripod.com/

Yeah I heard if you mist it shouldnt dry your frog out. I mist and I don't even have a heat lamp. This might be a dumb question, but how do set up a heat lamp??? at the store they only sell bulbs, and my tanks are too small for a light mounting hood. Can I just plug it into a desk lamp or something?

I use a dome clamp lamp, you can get these at any hardware store for around $6.00, if you get one at a pet shop you'll end up paying at least double. I sit the dome lamp right on top of my lid on my tank, it's a standard screen lid for aquariums.
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http://joshmilliken.tripod.com/

So in lamemen's terms, you take the big silver cone with a light in it, and place it light-down directly on top of the screen? That's what I was thinking of doing, But I wasn't sure if it would melt the screen or anything. What wattage do you recomend?

Depending on what temperatures are in my room at the time of the year I use between no ligt and 60 watts. You just have to find out what wattage works for the temperature you're trying to maintain at that particular time of year.
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http://joshmilliken.tripod.com/

You should not set up a heat lamp for your pac man. This will dry it out. You should use an under tank heating pad.

i am using an undertank heating pad but it doesn't cut it in the cold winters we have here. Even with the heating pad in full effect during the day, the in tank air temp is just under 70. I have two set ups: one has a pad on the side and one has it on the bottom. Which do you think is better, and how can I make it warmer w/o a light? (two heating pads?)

You could get a ceramic heat emitter, these will warm your tank without generating light.
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http://joshmilliken.tripod.com/

A heat pad will dry out a tank just as much as a heat lamp will, if not more so, it just evaporates the water from teh bottom first so you can't tell as well. And using a heat pad for horned frogs is asking for an injured or dead frog, in case you didn't already realize it they burrow a lot, they stay burrowed most of the time, and they burrow to escape the heat, they will burrow to escape the heat and get overheated or burned on a heat pad, heat pads also creat hot spots, which are even more likely to cause burns. Some species of frogs you can use a heat pad with, but most it's either ineffective or just plain bad to use for them.
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http://joshmilliken.tripod.com/

The temperature range doesn't need to be kept that high, an acceptable range for the frogs can run as low as 70 F.
With the soils you might also suggest keeping an eye out for wetting agents and organic (usually manure) additions.

RO/distilled doesn't leach out (a passive diffusion) ions from the frogs, they are lost by active transport as the frog tries to maintain its osmotic balance.

With respect to feeder fish: it is thiaminase (degrades thiamine) and this is only a factor with respect to frozen thawed fish or fish that have been dead for awhile. Parasites, earthworms carry large numbers of parasites also and I did not see this mentioned there. In addition herp parasites can frequently be culutured from animals fed solely on cultured insects like crickets as these are not raised in sterile conditions and often are contaminated by "feral" insects.
Where did you get the information that dusting feeder fish could lead to over supplementation of calcium? For this to occur, calcium needs to be in excess of phosphorus by a ratio of greater than 2 to 1 and/or 2.5% of the diet.

With respect to mice: The fat is not hard for the frog to digest. This is a unsupported myth that keeps makeing the rounds. Do you have any citations backing up the kidney damage assertion? Horned frogs in the wild are vertebrate specialists and are known to capture and consume birds and rodents as part of the diet. The frequency is not a problem as rodents are calorically much denser and it is easy for the herpetoculturist to overfeed them. Same comments on the calcium supplementation as for fish. A better recommendation would to not feed out obese ex-breeder mice.
Pinks same comments as for mice. The comments you have made are not supported by any of the literature (except for Bartlett's book and he made those comments based on a discussion with a vet who made the recommendations based on incomplete data.)
I would suggest not cooling the frog for 10-14 days post feeding to prevent putrification of the food in the digestive tract.

I would suggest including that the tadpoles are carnivorous and can be fed on blackworms. Otherwise you may have people trying to feed them flake food and algae like dart frog and bullfrog tadpoles.

Some comments and suggestions.

Ed

Thanks for the info EdK, I'll see to it over the next week or so that I get the info that needs updated changed, the fats from mice thing did come from the book by R.D. Bartlett, I'm not sure if I did hear it elsewhere or not. And the thyaminise(sp?) informtaion came from cochicine(sp?), then everyone began attacking me for feeding my frogs feeder goldfish, and a few other people began spreading it around more and more(that was the point when I left this forum several months ago). And the breeding section is as far as I got with them since my female drowned while in amplexus and seeping eggs, so I hadn't got around to doing a section for the tadpoles yet. And I didin't realize that earthworms carried such a high load of parasites, but it makes sense since they eat decaying matter, and anything else that's in the soil to get to their food.
And temperature wise those are the temperatures I maintained my pair at with no ill effects that I coudl tell anyways (i'll update that to include the lower temperatures as well though), if you can maintain them in the lower to mid 80's and upper 70's a drop into the lower 70's will trigger them to brumate and upper 60's will work when cycling them to breed, at least with the pair I had.
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http://joshmilliken.tripod.com/

Hi Josh,
If you want e-mail me your sheet when you have it updated and I'll read over it and send it back. It might be quicker that way. (here is an example of a sheet I coauthored with another person http://www.caudata.org/cc/species/Amphiuma/Amphiuma.shtml if you want an example). As I'll just be editing all of the credit is yours.
I have access to a few more references than most people due to my work (Lead Keeper in a Reptile House) so I have a slightly different perspective.

Most of the sheet was fine.
The major problem I have with goldfish is that they are high in saturated fat (enough that the nutiritionist at work prefers to feed rodents to animals over goldfish...). (here is big long post on fish I recently made in case you missed it http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=661923,662236)

Ed
T

Hey EDK do you have another extensive guide like that for Pacman frogs (or amphibians in general)? If you didn't write one, what site would u recommend for the most information?

There are two books out there that are pretty good for horned frog info, one is Dick Bartlett's book, and the other is the older Care and Maintenance of Horned frogs in Captivity by Advanced Vivarium Systems.
The care sheet posted above is pretty complete otherwise and is a good starting point.

I do not know of a comparable frog site for Caudata.org (which peer reviews the species accounts) or I would recommend it.

Ed