Pac man in good shape, just some clarity questions

My frog is about a year old and roughly the size of a fist, he eats EVERYTHING that comes close to his face, and sometimes comes across tha tank after me when I am cleaning.

My question has to do with feeding, I fed him meal worms from the time he was hte size of a quarter to about the size of a half dollar, and I gut loaded them and dusted them.

Once he was about the size of a half dollar (generalized) I started feeding a small pinkie about once a week with a staple diet of super worms, gut loaded and dusted. I dusted the pinkie with vitamins and calcium as well, I know that it is controversial as to whether it is needed, however I figure better safe than sorry.

Now that he is so big, I have been feeding him a diet of daily pinkies and super worms and he seems to maintaining a good build and seems very energetic (as far as horned frogs go). He also get the occasional anole (frozen, a friend of mine feeds them to their corn snake and orders in bulk so I usually get a few from him).

I have read that the mice can be bad for them, but my vet told me that the pinkies have much less fat and with the added vitamins they should be a good staple food as long as there is variety offered as well. She has never worked with horned frogs however, she specializes in exotics, but I am the first one to bring her a horned frog.

I have read that fish can be good for them on occasion, but should not be a staple, and I have read that bigger mice can be bad for them because they are higher in fat.

Is what I am doing okay, or should I change his diet.

I also wanted to know about UV lighting, from what I have seen it is 50-50 on whether or not they need it, some say yes for the same reason as diurnal reptiles, others say no because they hide most of the day and are nocturnal so they don'e get the UV anyway. What is your take on the UV discussion, I use it because I figure better safe than sorry, I just was wondering if it was necessary.

How big should they get, like I said, I have had mine for a year and it went from a little baby about the size of a quarter to the size of my fist, and I have heard a mix of the size of a softball all the way up to the size of a dinner plate.

I had him on a moss substrate, but I have heard horror stories of impaction because of accidental injestion, so I moved him to a fine gravel so that they should not stick, I watch him to make sure he is eating and defacating regularly and everything seems fine. The gravel also stays much cleaner since I can run water through it and filter that water. I put plants in the tank and a fake stump so it he can hide, and he "redecorates" almost daily. Every morning I wake up to a mess where he has moved his entire tank arrangement. I used to move it back, but he would just move it again, so I figured he knows best and let him do it.

I dont know that the gravel would be much better. I kept mine on eco earth, but removed him from the tank to feed. The pinkie mice daily is to much fat. Maybe cut him back to 1 a week which is still a bit but dont want to cut it out completely since he is used to it. Feeder fish, mealies, waxworms, roaches, superworms and night crawlers can be fed.

All animals benefit from UV lightening and wouldnt hurt to give a few hours a day

Softball size is a bit understated. The one we had in the pet supply years ago would sit in a large dog's crock water dish and fill it completely
They get pretty big.

i think that "salad plate" was the size described to me at one point.

And for the moss, I have never heard about impaction problems. The gravel won't stick to him, but is far less digestible if he does happen to swallow it. Have you tried something like jungle bed?



as for his diet, i think you are doing good by varying what he eats. I have heard to feed them feeder fish, like small goldfish, pinkies, worms, crickets, etc...

Thank you guys, I will look into the different bedding, I feed him in bucket, with no substrate. This gives me the chance to give him a good once over every day and be sure that he is eating. I have found that if I put him in warm water just slightly warmer than the water that he is in he will usually defacate. I do this 24 hours after feeding, I do this about once every 7 to ten days to get a fecal and to keep him used to doing it, this way I can make it a lot easier when it is vet time.

Is he in water constantly? I know some people will simply use gravel with water in it as a substrate, but it doesn't work too well if it's too wet. They don't normally live in water constantly, and aren't even good at swimming.

The diet doesn't sound too bad. I usually opt for using crickets or cockroaches as a staple, but these guys have iron stomachs and can handle almost anything. One pinkie a week is probably the max I'd go with. Your vet is right, they do have less fat...less fat than a pig, less fat than a jar of lard, less fat than anything with more fat, lol. They still have a lot of fat.

Fish can be added to the diet, but I'd go with mollies or guppies, rather than goldfish. Goldfish are cheap, and they're worth every penny, because they're crap as far as feeder fish go. Livebearers are MUCH better, and the cheapest of these usually tend to be mollies and guppies, mollies being more appropriately sized for a horned frog.

I wouldn't worry about UVB. As you noticed, they prefer to hide away from sunlight during the day. They're also found on the forest floor, which receives little UV rays. UV exposure can actually be harmful to animals that are designed to avoid it. In many cases an aninal's skin and eyes aren't built to handle much UV exposure, and it will often stress them out (speaking of nocturnal animals in general, not just horned frogs). If his substrate allows for natural burrowing activity and he has plenty of cover, then you could add a UV light, but it would probably be a waste of money since he'd just hide from it.

He is not in water constantly. There is a slope, but there is a coarse gravel base that fines upward so that I can put the water in the deep end and let it soak through, it is good so that I clean it much easier, and he can go in and out of the water. It goes from no water down to just deep enough for him to be able to perch and have his toes touching and his nose out of the water.

I have seen him swim a few times, but he is not a huge fan, I think he does it mostly by accident when he is chasing something. I had guppies in the water, and he used to attack them, he was pretty good with catching them, but they used to cloud the water. How did you feed the fish to the frog, did you put them in water or just set them in front of the frog. I don't feed goldfish, I would only feed the guppies that I breed, I know they are disease free and I know that they come from a well balanced aquarium, most feeder fish have, for lack of a better term, issues.

He can burrow in the gravel, and he usually makes a nice little nest out of the plants, I have fake ivy in there that he canopies over himself, I see him out a lot at night and rearranging is tank.

Thank you guys again, I just wanted to see hoe I was doing.