If you own a red-bellied toad (Bombina orientalis) and don't know how to care for it, this is the article for you. Red-bellied toads are popular pets in the US that can live 10-12 years or more if properly cared for. Many cases have been reported of specimens in their thirties. In nature, toads are predominantly aquatic animals, living in warm and humid areas, often in forests. They spend most of their time immersed in shallow waters, among dense vegetation. They eat crickets, but also baby rats. These are frogs, but they look more like toads, due to the skin with many lumps. They are slightly poisonous, so you need to wash your hands after touching one. Try not to touch it, they don't last long.
Steps
Step 1. Choose an active, brightly colored toad
- Look for specimens that jump around when you tap the glass. Since they are probably the healthiest and most active, choose one of the livelier ones.
- Choose the brightest colored specimen, which is typically the healthiest, although the toads can change color at will. Red-bellied toads are bright green but can also be brown on the back, while they have red or orange abdomen, hence their name, and have black spots. However, their color varies throughout their lives based on what they eat and what their prey ate. If you feed the crickets carrot before feeding them to the toad, its colors will likely get brighter.
- Consider getting two toads, because animals often do better in two.
Step 2. Build a suitable habitat
- Keep the toad in an amphibian tank.
- You must provide 60% water and 40% land, both with places for the animal to hide.
- There should be about 4-10 cm of water. For the earth,
- Place some moss (preferably sphagnum) for the toad to burrow into.
- Put some lights on. Do not use a heating device or a heat lamp! Use a low-light fluorescent bulb, as these animals don't like strong light, and place it outside the aquarium, possibly on the side with the water.
Step 3. Feed the toad
- Feed the toad with live food: it must see moving things to understand that there is to eat.
- Typical food includes crickets, beetle larvae, Pyralidae worms or Hermetia Illucens worms.
Step 4. Hermetia Illucens worms are recommended due to their high calcium content
- Give the bugs some gut-load mash and vegetables. The nutrients contained in these foods will in turn pass to your toad.
- When you feed the toad, put the insects in the part of the aquarium with the earth, away from the light! Looking at the light damages the animal's vision.
Step 5. Try not to touch the toad
- The salts of our skin can burn the animal and this can even be lethal.
- Their secretions are mildly toxic and can cause skin rashes.
- Red-bellied toads can get very agitated when touched by humans. They are not used to being touched.
- Only pick up the toad when you need to clean the aquarium. Use latex gloves to lift it and place it in a moist container.
Step 6. Wash the aquarium
- Wash the rocks very well in a sieve.
- Wash the tub. Do not use soap or other chemicals: toads are very sensitive to chemicals (hot water is fine).
- Put the rocks on the bottom of the tub.
- Return the toad to the aquarium.
Advice
- The toad must have a tank of at least 20-25 liters available. If you take two, they could mate and make babies. In most pet stores, small tubs with perforated lids are available at low cost; the larger ones are good for hosting a specimen giving it enough space so that it does not suffer stress.
- ReptiSafe is an effective product for removing chemicals from tap water. Eliminates ammonia and prevents its formation, contains important electrolytes, such as calcium. It also stimulates the production of slime, which provides a protective barrier for amphibians, and reduces the pH of the water.
- Dust the crickets with calcium powder to improve the health of the toad.
- If you keep two or more toads together, they will be more active and watching them will be more fun. You will be able to see them interact with each other by jumping, swimming, climbing, you can give them a name. Furthermore, being together with conspecifics lowers the stress levels of individual subjects because seeing other toads they understand that the environment is peaceful. But make sure they don't start fighting, and remember that some people can be more shy and reserved!
- You can tell if the toad is healthy by looking at how bright its skin color is.
- Do not give the toad dead insects: it rarely learns to identify them as food, because in nature it hunts prey on the go. Either way, toads rarely get brave enough to accept food from your hand, whether it's dead or alive.
- Raise a maximum of three toads per 40 liters of aquarium capacity. 1-3 specimens would be fine in 40 liters, 4-6 in 80 liters.
- Vary your diet
- Use a product to purify the water and get rid of chloramines, which are harmful. This in fact does not evaporate together with the chlorine.
- You can remove chlorine from tap water by leaving it in an open container for 24 to 48 hours. Do not use containers that have contained chemicals of any kind. The quality of the water must be the same as that required for freshwater fish.
Warnings
- The toad has poison glands that, if not used to being touched (as it can happen if you just bought it), secrete a white toxic substance that can cause skin rashes. Wash your hands thoroughly after touching it to prevent this from happening.
- Do not use soap to wash any part of the tub.
- If the toad lays eggs, not all of them will hatch.
- Do not feed the toad grasshoppers - they are difficult to digest and are sometimes poisonous to these animals.
- Loss of appetite, swollen abdomen, apathy (this may be due to food shortages), and cloudy eyes can be symptoms of disease. Clean the aquarium thoroughly and contact an expert if any of these situations occur.
- Make sure the aquarium is always clean. Dirty water can cause disease.
- Avoid feeding the toad insects such as spiders, ants, and cockroaches.
- You can pick him up sometimes, but touch him a little.
- Do not put goldfish or other fish in the aquarium to try to keep the tank clean, as the toads will eat them. Guppies are a good source of food if there are enough of them, but you also need to give the toad crickets regularly. Although not recommended, they can go 2 weeks without eating.
- The aquarium must be covered, otherwise the toads will climb into the corners and escape.
- Do not give mealworms to the toad, as these larvae have a hard shell and the toad would have a hard time digesting them. Many frogs digest small mealworms and sometimes grasshoppers, but they are not recommended foods. Crickets and guppies are the best foods to keep the toad happy and healthy.
- Many say that toads do not need a source of heat, but this is not the case: 22-24 degrees centigrade is ideal; with 25-27 degrees the toads mate. This is not recommended if you don't have another tank to move the parents to, as they eat their young.
