my new pacman! advice on heating/humidity!

[Timeline1357]

Hello! Greetings from Chicago! I just became a memeber!!

I just recently received a new baby pacman frog. I got it from a petstore. I believe its an Ceratophrys Ornata correct me if I am wrong though.,

I had a few questions on my tank setup. I have a 10 gallon tank with a small water dish with T-Rex Jungle Bed and some sphagnum moss. I have some plants in there too..some philodendrons.

My temps during the day are around 70-75 humidity is around 60-70% (I spray it a lot) I have a ZooMed heat pad on the side and a Sun Glo Basking Spot Lamp (correct bulb??) and for some reason I cant get the temp up to 82-85%; my room is a little cold ( being its cold here in Chicago) and I was wondering what I should do to increase the temps.

Should I?
A: put the heat pad under the tank? Will this actually increase it???
B: Get a different bulb?? Also should I get one for night time? I have it currently on a 12 hour cycle with an auto shut off...(no night bulb. temps are low for night time...around 60ish)
C: wrap 3/4 of the tank in plastic wrap? to increase humidity??

I am kinda new and I need a little bit of info on my setup. Id really appreciate it. Thank you so much!!!

Enjoy the photos...names Charlie.

[Megan]

Charlie is quite cute. Have you figured out your heating situation?

Don't PM frogs burrow a bit? That would require some thick areas of bedding, right? I'm currently having similar problems with my White's Tree Frog tank (the heat pad doesn't seem to be enough) and I think I may have the substrate too thick? The heating pads from ZooMed aren't typically very hot on their own and all that bedding has to keep the temp down??? You might try decreasing the amount of bedding over the pad and see if that helps.

Wish I had more to offer but I'm a newb too, so... hope you figure something out and - if you do - please share your result so that perhaps other users like me might benefit.

[Noctoural88]

instead of a 10 gallon aquarium, a sterlite tupperware 5 gallons equivalent or larger is recommended. why? because it holds the heat and humidity much longer. simply get a long one (you can get a long tank with less height so it's actually more roomy than a 10 gallon although it takes up less space, since they dont jump) and drill airholes in the sides near the top. be warned though, it IS harder to get the zoo-med heatpads to stick to the sides, however not impossible (i did it with my pacman). good luck

ps. make sure you are using an appropriate sized heat pad for your terrarium size.

[Teckdragon]

Your set-up looks ideal. You could throw some moss on top, as that would allow him to "burrow" as well as retain more moisture. Your lighting and heating are fine. The most important thing you have to worry about with this species is frequent water changes (and possibly substrate changes) due the high amount of ammonia in their waste that gets reabsorbed into its skin.

[Megan]

I'm SO glad our waste doesn't get reabsorbed by our skin...

[nicofish]

i ran a have a zoo med pad and I have run them before to speed up fruit fly life cycle and make them breed faster (project for bio)

it got the sand I had placed the tubes of flies rather hot. wont a heating pad on my bottom burn my little PM's feet/stomach (yeah hes fat aren't they all? )

right now im not running a pad.... it is summer and the temp is just right for my little buddy nice humid and warm (another thunderstorm is rolling in as we speak)

[Sutekiwa]

I'm totally pleasant with this product. .

[Megan]

About your temp issue (if its still even an issue after all this time), it occurred to me that you should just increase wattage of bulb. If its 60 Watt now, get a 75w. Also, you might try a daylight (DayGlo) bulb instead of a basking bulb. Finally got my day temps correct by doing this to my tank.