Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey all amphibian lovers...could i please have alist of what i need to successfully raise a pacman frog... i have both a 10 and 20 gal tanks at my discresion..i just need to no the reccomended equip besides the tank thx

Yo watup ?

Welcome to the pacman society XD

Alright, listen to my directions, i have a pacman, and i know my stuff, so pay attention.

Your tank is good. Get a cover for it. If you don't, soon fruit flies will start "invading" your home. They spawn like crazy in frog tanks, but they aren't in any way harmful to your frogs, but they are a nuisance during the summer. The cover will also keep the humidity. You need lighting. If you keep it by a window... then no matter. LIghting will just make the whole thing seem natural, and appeals to the eye... who wants a dark unappealing tank? You have to buy substrate. NEVER BUY SAND... i don't know any single person who has successfully raised a pacman without dying with sand. Sand is irritating, and when the paccys flick their clumsy tongues, they will get a gob of sand. Go to the petstore and buy reptibark, or more preferably, expandable coconut based soil. Never go to gardening stores, their soils OBVIOUSLY have fertilizers and MANY MANY MANY MANY parasites. If you don't believe me, take some soil from the gardening store, leave it inside your house in a jar, and wait. Soon, you'll be seeing creepy crawlies. EVEN IF THE SOIL IS ORGANIC< "PEST FREE" or watever. I mean come on.... are frogs plants???? Then you need plants... preferably real because plants appeal to the eye, keep humidity, suck up nutrients, make the tank stink less, and the frog will love how natural his environment is. Now you need a water bowl. This can be anything... a cottage cheese tub, dog bowl... but if you want something that looks good, go to the petstore and get one that will look good, while supportin your frog. No matter how runty a pacman may be, they will always get big. Use spring water, or dechlorinated water. OR get wat i have, reptisafe dechlorinator by Zoomed. This water purifier for amphi/rept will dechlorinate, add electrolytes, calcium, and all the good stuff. Now get a source of heat. If you get a heat pad, never put it on the bottom of the tank. I have tried, and the bottom gets hot enough to burn your hand. Thats why all companies now decreased pad powers, and recommend you to put it on the side of the tank (only get the adhesive ones). OR you can get what i have, a couple rock heaters which are eye appealing. Get something like coconut home or log home. You can get a spray bottle for misting and thermometer gauge.

If you already have the tank, you'll only need to spend about 100$ for all these. If you are unfortunately on a budget, but plan on getting stuff later (you should get most of the things i recommended.... trust me, these paccies are not suppose to be here in north america, there supposed to be in south america, but we humans selffishly take them here for our own likings)... respect your pet. Anyways, THE MUST are substrate, cover, lighting, water dish (they are frogs.... frogs=water), and heat source.

You must plan on spending about 3 bucks on food every month at the least. You can get vitamins for it (powder), but i found it really makes no difference if you have that special water-dechlorinator (Zoomed) because the zoomed thing adds the electrolytes and calcium into the water that your frog shoudl soak in daily.

Pacmans are lazy except when they feed and soak water. They are ambush predators. When you get your paccy, it takes about 5 days until it will start eating. It would probably be in shock because of its new surroundings, and it probably ate back at the dealer or petstore.

What it eats: not really crickets unless its young (baby), mealworms, waxworms, pinkies(baby mice.... really small one... half the size of your pinky) you get them at petco or somewhere, nightcrawlers, goldfish. I can't really think of anything else they would eat. If it doesn't eat, its either not hungry, or sick. The thing is, choose the healthiest, fattest, and largest paccy you can find at the dealer. Chances are that that one is the healthiest. You should preferably buy a juvenile paccy (2-3 inches in diameter, they are so fat, they're circular). Baby pacmans are really weak, and prone to metabolic bone diseaes and other crap. I learned it the hard way

If you have any questions, email me at bassmaster360@msn.com

If i get any prank messages, i will track you down because i am "good" with computers... and you'll never know what i'll do to yours *ahem*

while most of that information was adequate, the bit about getting heatrocks is just plain WRONG. heatrocks will easily burn a pacman frog, and shouldnt be used for any amphibians, or even reptiles. crickets, while gutloaded, are also a good food source for pacmen. roaches are good too. gold fish are alright, but they are quite fatty. livebearing fish like platies and mollies are much better for the frogs. don't believe everything you read on these forums. get a book on pacmen and take the information in there as correct.

snip ". get a book on pacmen and take the information in there as correct."endsnip

Except some of the books also contain errors... It is important to get more than one information source and compare the information..

Ed

would you say that typically, books written by an expert contains a better ratio of true:false information than your everyday faceless schmuck on the internet, with zero credentials and an indeterminate amount of experience?

snip "would you say that typically, books written by an expert contains a better ratio of true:false information than your everyday faceless schmuck on the internet, with zero credentials and an indeterminate amount of experience?"endsnip

Given that I have been collecting herp books for 30 years, I have to say that to a fair extent, it is often the same. Often the information that ends up being the most circulated by the "nameless" people on the net tends to be stuff that was collected out of a book at one point and never checked for accuracy. In some cases the information was the best available at that time or from a site that has never been updated....
For example, a large portion of the misinformation about rodent diets and frogs can be traced back to a few books such as (at least older editions of) The Horned Frog Family and African Bullfrogs. The information about not feeding rodents to Horned frogs was due to some preliminary ideas from Dr. Kevin Wright (Amphibian Medicine and Captive Husbandry) that later information did not support (and was changed for Amphibian Medicine and Captive Husbandry) yet this idea is firmly entrenched among the average hobbyist.. (you can search this forum going back at least three years for repeated discussions over this topic).

With many of the books, particuarly some of the less expensive series, the authors are not experts in those animals but are simply contracted to write the books..... There is no requirement that they be an expert in an animal or animals or even have to have worked with a species to write about it...

I will end this with one positive point, IN GENERAL, the quality of information that is becoming available today is often much better than it was 20 or 30 years ago...

Ed

snip "Get a cover for it. If you don't, soon fruit flies will start "invading" your home."endsnip

These are not fruit flies but are either fungus gnats (which are harmless and feed on the fungi that grow on the organic substrates), moth flies or phorid (humpback flies) the last two indicate that the enclosure is not being kept clean enough. All three of these will not be stopped by a standard screen lid as they can fit through the screening. You would need something finer...

snip " The cover will also keep the humidity. You need lighting. If you keep it by a window... then no matter."endsnip

If you keep it by the window with a lid tight enough to keep in the humidity you will run the risk of cooking the frog. Think of a closed car in the summer.

snip "You have to buy substrate."endsnip

Not necessarily, many people kept thier frogs in enclosurs with nothing but a shallow layer of water in the late 1980s and early 1990s with no problems.

snip "Never go to gardening stores, their soils OBVIOUSLY have fertilizers"endsnip

Organic topsoils that do not contain manure or wetting agents can be used as a good substrate.

snip " and MANY MANY MANY MANY parasites. If you don't believe me, take some soil from the gardening store, leave it inside your house in a jar, and wait. Soon, you'll be seeing creepy crawlies."endsnip

This doesn't make them parasites and in addition, the bacterial levels in clean soil can process ammonia waste much more efficiently than even the best filters. If you can see them, then they are in all probability not parasites but harmless freeliving organisms.
The bacteria levels have to become established in enclosures that use a fine shredded bark substrate or compressed ground up cocofiber.

snip " This water purifier for amphi/rept will dechlorinate, add electrolytes, calcium, and all the good stuff."endsnip

If you are not using RO/distilled water why would you want to add more stuff to the water. Depending on the dissolved material in the water, you can cause osmotic imbalances in the frog...

snip "Now get a source of heat."endsnip

Actually if the area where you keep the frog stays in the 70s F you do not need any heat at all (and the frogs actually are fine down to about 65 F, they just go torpid and stop feeding). They just eat less and grow a little more slowly.

snip "You must plan on spending about 3 bucks on food every month at the least. You can get vitamins for it (powder), but i found it really makes no difference if you have that special water-dechlorinator (Zoomed) because the zoomed thing adds the electrolytes and calcium into the water that your frog shoudl soak in daily. "endsnip

The frog will be at risk of calcium deficiency if there isn't a source of D3 in the diet. Exposure to a window is not sufficient as the glass prevents a sufficient level of UVB from penetrating the glass. The use of water additives as a source of vitamins and minerals is very suspect as studies with other animals has shown that this method of supplementing often does not provide sufficient required nutrients, degrades water quality and increases bacterial growth in the water through the addition of other nutrients.

snip " Baby pacmans are really weak, and prone to metabolic bone diseaes and other crap. I learned it the hard way "endsnip

This is only the case if they are improperly fed and/or improperly supplemented.

Ed

so what your saying is...all i need is a basic incandesent heat bulb and a uv light? substrate frog and water dish along with food?

Dude, nickbachman

are you that guy with those huge pacmans, elton and jabba, who puts those sweet videos in Youtube. Talk!

I have questions 4 u

yes, that's me. ask away.

whats your'e pacman setup?

Alright, so, my pacman, TANK, has gotten pretty big now. He's bigger than a golfball, and a bit smaller than a tennis ball. He has been on a staple diet on crickets. I have bought bigger ones as he growed, but now he rejects them. So i am beggining to feed him giant mealworms(just bought 100 today), waxworms, and nightcrawlers. I don't want to feed him fish because he doesn't seem to accept them as food. Ok, so now i want to feed him pinkies or fuzzies, and i was wondering how i can do that. I have researched, but info is too vague, and i need an "expert" like you to tell me

- AZN dude

urokeeper:
i keep my 3 big frogs in a plastic 3-drawer cabinet type thing that i got for 17 bucks. i keep them on coconut fibre, and i use a big heat lamp, aimed towards the middle/bottom of the enclosure and that keeps the temps correct and doesnt dry out the drawers. and of course, they all have water dishes. i light them with one of those plant/aquarium flourescent lights and natural light from the window.

azn:
before i started making my videos, i was occassionally feeding my pyxie frozen pinkies, and the pacmen were getting crickets. Jabba didn't like to eat much of anything at all though, he was scared of my tongs, so i couldn't dangle fish, frozen mice, mealworms or anything in front of him to get his attention, and he just wasnt interested in catching crickets, so i tried giving him a live fuzzy because it moved on its own, and was nutrient dense, because he hadnt been eating enough and needed a boost for sure. same story with Elton, pretty much, though he wasn't as afraid of tongs, he just didnt like to take food from them often. and of course, my pyxie will eat anything.
so, that's how i got my frogs to eat mice, i gave them live ones. if you have access to live pinkies and fuzzies, give it a shot. it sounds like Tank is big enough to take a pinky.

I've tried to feed my pac frozen mice, but no matter how much I wiggle it he knows that its dead and will not accept it. So I just drop a big live mouse in there and watch him to make sure he bites it good. If he bites it bad (like he did in the video I've linked below) I terminate the mouse myself (somewhat cruel I know, but I like my frog more than mice...).

Kraid broadsides mouse

That mouse looks way too big for that frog...
-----
1.0 savannah monitor
0.4 leopard geckos
2.2.5 crested geckos 2 eggs
1.1 bearded dragons
0.1 common boas (BCI)
1.0 ball python
0.0.1 western hognose
0.1 kenyan sand boa
0.0.1 golden tree frog
0.0.1 fire belly toad
0.0.1 Sulcata tortoise
0.0.1 desert hairy scorpion
0.0.1 texas millipede
1.2 sugar gliders 2 joeys in pouch
0.1 chinchilla
2.0 cats
0.0.1 African Giant Black Millipede
0.0.1 Pac Man frog
A few fish
LOTS of roaches

Matt Smith

That mouse does look big, I'd say that's about the limit. If he had swallowed that thing sideways he/she would probably be in trouble.

Are you able to determine sex of the Pacman Frog; we have a full grown one and don't know what to look for. Also do you know of any good book that includes this species or a magazine article that you could recommend for information about this species? Appreciate your time in responding. Sandra