Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I almost have everything worked out for my Pacman's cage. I am hoping to pick one up over the next few days, but I have one more question. I am using a 10 gallong tank that I already had that has an under tank heater on one side. It is controlled by a thermostat with a probe that sits under the substrate, on top of the glass. It works very well, but when I set the thermostat to 83 degrees, the glass gets to 83, but the tank is still in the mid 60s. If I turn up the heater more, won't I risk burning the frog? How are other people getting the temps up in their tanks? Will the frog know it is warm in that area and burrow down over the heater, or does the entire tank need to be warmer?

Thanks again to everyone for their help with my questions.

NG

if it is in the 60s you need a heat lamp. it should be 75-80 in the tank. yes it could burn him if the glass gets too hot and he burrows down too far, although some people seem to think that UTHs are too cool and couldnt burn something, but i have had them get hot enough to not be able to keep my hand on them, and if i cant keep my hand on it, it is too hot for a pacman to sit on. i would just use a heat lamp, but since you already have the UTH you could use a lower wattaged heat lamp and see how that does. what type of thermometer are you using to watch the tamp of the tank? i like the electronic digital ones by coralife/exo-terra. they are really good, a little expensive (~$8-10) but worth it.

Thanks for the response.

I used an infrared heat gun to check the temps of the actual glass surface as well as the bedding. I also have a thermometer on the back of the tank just to keep an eye on the temps as I walk by.

I have several domed fixtures. I can put one of the small 5" ones on the tank and see how well that works with the existing thermostat. If it seems to work ok, I may switch to a ceramic heat emmiter because I tend to blow bulbs pretty quickly. I may turn the thermostat down a bit and put both the lamp and the UTH on it and see what that does to the temps. Another idea I had is to put some one inch rigid foam on the back of the tank to help hold the heat in. that worked great on my 65 gallon terrarium I use for my ball python.