Fire Bellied Toad Care Sheet

Fire-Bellied Toads are a colourful interesting choice for an amphibian. They are not actually True Toads; they do have tubercles, which give them a toad-like appearance. They also feature bright green and black on the top and black and orange/red underneath this two-toned frog.

Fire-bellied toads do well with a glass terrarium as their enclosure. This is because glass is great at allowing heat to escape ensuring that the enclosure stays cool enough. Other enclosures such as wooden vivariums are far too efficient at retaining heat.

The fire-bellied toad's vivarium should be at least 450mm in length and 300mm in height. The fire-bellied toad is going to grow to around 1-2" so they need a space large enough for them to move around i

Fire-bellied toads require a near constant air temperature of 75°F. This is best achieved by sticking a heatmat on one side of the glass enclosure. This heatmat is regulated using a thermostat to make sure the temperature stays constant.

As the glass is only being heated on one side this also creates a small temperature gradient within the enclosure allowing the toad to warm itself up or move away to cool down.

If the enclosure is not able to get up to temperature with the heat mat alone a small basking bulb may be implemented in the canopy as long as the temperatures do not exceed 75-80°F.

Fire-Bellied Toads will be in partial shade, but naturally, UVB is still available throughout most of the day. UVB lighting used to be considered an optional extra but we now know a lot more about the species and their natural habitat and understand that it should always be provided.

The terrarium has a mesh lid, which will reduce the strength of UVB being put into the enclosure so we would recommend a wide covering of 5% UVB or a smaller covering of 6-7% UVB. Terrarium canopies are currently available in 2 forms: compact top canopies or T5 canopies. Compact top canopies typically hold E27 screw-fit lamps and can be matched with compact UVB lamps or low-wattage basking lamps.

T5 canopies are a newer solution and will normally hold a single T5 UVB tube.The effectiveness of the lamp can vary by manufacturer but in general, compact lamps have a range of around 9-12 inches and must be replaced on average every 6 months or so. T5 UVB tubes have a range of around 24 inches and must be replaced once per year.

Whichever lamp you choose, we would advise mounting it above the terrarium towards the front or back of the enclosure. This should provide a nice UV gradient from the back of the enclosure towards the front. In this configuration, we achieve a temperature gradient along the length and a UV gradient along the width meaning that whatever the frog's requirements, they can find the perfect position within the enclosure.

Fire-bellied toads are an aquatic toad and should be allowed areas to swim in. These should be deep enough for the frog to fully sumberge but should include shallow areas for the frog to rest and climb out.

Some areas can be raised up above the water level as long as they remain moist. Pebbles and moss are great for creating raised areas that remain saturated.

The toads vivarium can be decorated with artificial plants for a more natural look. Natural wood ornaments look very effective and also provide further perches for the toads. Trailing plants are very good at disguising electrical wires and equipment, as well as providing cover for young amphibians.

Fire-bellied toads are carnivorous and have a diet consisting of mainly livefoods. The core of the livefood diet should be high in protein and relatively easy to digest. We have found that brown crickets are the most readily accepted, but you can also use black crickets or locusts (hoppers). On occasion, for variation, you can offer other bugs such as mealworms, waxworms or calciworms.

nutrient-richTo provide the fire-bellied toad with optimal nutrition and to keep them in the best of health, they will require dietary supplementation in the form of calcium, vitamins and minerals. These are most commonly available as powders

Any livefood for the toad should be 'gut-loaded' with an insect food. This basically involves feeding the livefood a nutrient rich diet before they are fed to the fire-bellied toad. Our livefood is delivered to you already gut-loaded but this should be continued at home.

If you keep a male and female together, they may breed. You do not need to do anything to encourage this. As long as they are healthy and the conditions are good, it will happen naturally. You need to consider whether you want this to happen before introducing the pair.

Fire-bellied Toads as with most pets, require a clean environment to thrive. We recommend a spot clean as often as possible (every day) and a full clean every 4 weeks or so. If you are keeping the gecko in a bio-active enclosure, you can spot clean and monitor the enclosure. It may still be a good item to change out the bedding a few times per year.

When cleaning the enclosure, you should remove your animal, all decorations and all of the bedding. Once the enclosure is clear you can spray it all over with a reptile-friendly disinfectant. These usually work very quickly and only need to be left for around 30 seconds, instructions can normally be found on the disinfectant's packaging.

Once the disinfectant has done its work it can be wiped away from the surfaces with a paper towel. In some cases you might want to repeat this process a second time to ensure that the enclosure is thoroughly cleaned.Your decorations can be cleaned in a similar method, simply spray them down with the disinfectant and rinse thoroughly with water before drying them off and putting them back into the enclosure.