Fire Belly Toads Vivarium
The Tank Water
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The Tank Water
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From Breeding to Tadpoles
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They should be kept around 64 to 75 % temperature and provided distilled water. Using tap water you should let it stand for at least three days, a week at the most to eliminate the chlorine and few other impurities that will irritate the frog. Frogs are very, very sensitive to the environment of water, tadpoles require their water to be even more neutralized to survive. You can use bottled water from the store, but you'll still have to let it sit for a couple of days or it will get gummy, making a clear slime nothing can breath in. You can use chlorine removing drops for aquarium fish tanks with the tap water but it will make the water gummy too. Personally, I don't like the stuff, and few things survive the gumminess without a further 'Ick/Fungus Clear'. You only have to save a few gallon jugs off somewhere anyway and you can store tap water or even rain water as long as it's not green.

For just a few frogs in an ample sized tank, bombina's only need the water change once a month. Because of their toxicity build up, it should be sooner for more frogs with less space, every two weeks. The water should also be changed much sooner (immediately) if it is above 85 degrees, cluttered, smelly, foamy, murky, slimy, feeder deaths have been left standing, or they have laid eggs. Not only do the eggs need to be taken out once they start to show they're viable, the water needs to be changed within the next few days for the cleanliness as well as prompting them to want to breed again.

In a normal water change, without adding more water to the naturally shrinking level in the tank within the month, up to just one to two inches less than it was. Using a syphoning hose, I syphon out almost all of it. I may fill it up halfway and drain it again if things are looking particularly dirty. Then, finally, add the distilled water up to the original, normal level, including an extra bit by half an inch just to suppose a bit of a flooding.

You'll want an aquarium hose that is slightly larger than the gravel or a long piece of an outdoor water hose, because there's really nothing more irritating in the process than having gravel clog the hose. Using a turkey baster for the suction can be a little tricky at times but is a far better option in getting the hose started. Nothing is really more gross than even the idea of accidentally getting frog water in your mouth from sucking on the hose. I haven't found any better of a solution, and still get the water out without causing allot of disturbance for the frogs and the gravel itself.

I also hold the bottle of water I'm adding, higher than the tank and syphon this in, just to save me the bother of pouring water in straight from the bottle that'll move the gravel around and stir up clutter. The sorta flood will suppose the rain season and things will be cooler for an hour or two. Even if you aren't thinking of them breeding or just have one toad, they like the arrangement and might chirp about it if they're male. It's kinda like getting a bath for a dog in a way. All this warm, kinda getting irritating and maybe even a bit smelly water, suddenly flooding up fresh, clean and cool.

As far as the waste build up in the gravel, I've never really had to completely clean out a tank, where you move the frog, take everything out and rinse the gravel. If you deem it necessary you can do it at least once a year, but I think adding activated aquarium carbon into or beneath the tank gravel is enough, like any fish tank. The main thing active carbon does is break down organic materials like waste more quickly and neutralize most of the ammonia build up. If you do not have over crowding, leaving it this way shouldn't be a problem.

Bottom waste also acts as nutrients for the plants like a Japanese moss ball to help algae reduction or my toads really like the nymphaea zenkeri water plant which are also good for keeping water oxygenated.

I keep land primarily made up of sphagnum moss, with peat moss and perlite for a soil basis if any. Neutral and very absorbent, sphagnum moss is also acidic, good for the water and the toads. You can get away with growing vivarium land plants in the sphagnum moss. Instead of removal, you can place more sphagnum moss on top once it has flattened out to near nothing.