Ribbit

Before I left my job at the pet store to become a stay-at-home mom, I made one more purchase. I normally don't buy animals; I don't have any moral issue with it, I just find that the best pets are the ones that find me, not the other way around. However, in this case, I made an exception... we had a White's Dumpy Treefrog that I had grown fond of and I didn't want to leave him for just anyone to walk in and buy.

How do you grow fond of a frog? It was more like he was fond of me. I would go to feed him or clean his tank, he'd hop onto my arm and it would take 10-15 minutes and a helper to get him back off. And how could I resist those little cold amphibian eyes?

I did most of the setup for him beforehand. My secondhand 15 gallon hex tank had been standing empty for several months, and it only needed a little modification. I filled it with a layer of gravel, then covered with a few inches of soil. A dollar-store plastic food container became a water dish -- if you make the top edge level with the soil, it really doesn't look half bad. With a piece of driftwood trailing down into it, most people won't even notice. A few decorations, a heater, and a fluorescent light later, froggy's new home only needed one more thing.

The aquarium hood and light, with its large openings for filtration, had to go. I went to Lowe's and bought some plastic eggcrate. (It's sturdy, somewhat heat-resistant, and the right size; each little square is only about 1/2" on a side. (Lowe's employee; "Oh, you mean a light diffusing panel!"... yeah.) With a little creativity involving a cardboard cutout, a permanent marker, and some wirecutters, I had a hexagonal section of this. Beautiful, I thought. I'm all set.

As it turns out, a 2" long, 1.25" wide frog can actually magically squeeze through a 1/2" square. Don't ask me how. It's some kind of wacky frog magic. The first time he went missing, I thought I must have left the top ajar. We found him in short order, and before the cats did, so no harm done. The second time it took us a few hours to find the little devil, turning the living room upside down in the process... and I was absolutely certain I had closed the lid securely.

Later that night, I found some bits of tulle (it's the very fine mesh you might see on a wedding veil) and actually attached it to my hexagonal eggcrate with needle and thread. It's not the prettiest aspect of the tank, but it keeps him contained.

Of course, if I had just bought a screen top tank in the first place... but we won't go there.