# Frogs & Toads > Frogs >  Spring Peeper Care

## sharkfin1999

Hello everyone, 
New to the forum, so apologies if this is posted in the wrong area.
I have many seasonal ponds in my forested property and they are full of tadpoles, shrimp, crayfish, And other similar species. I have had Great success raising fairy Shrimp, spring peeper and bullfrog tadpoles, and salamanders. Every year I collect around 25 young spring peeper tadpoles from the ponds and raise them to froglets and release them back to the pond once they Fully absorb their tails. I usually lose about 5 but the remaining 20 survive and are released. I am aware of how small the chances of captivity raised froglets surviving in the wild are, so this year I was thinking of raising a few to adulthood and keeping as pets. After many hours of research I still have a few questions. I was wondering if anyone with experience with peepers or similar species  could help me out with these questions?

1) I have an aquarium that is about 3x2 feet and about 2 feet high. I also Have one maybe half the size. Will either of these be acceptable for raising adult peepers?
2) I have raised black cricket colonies before so I Am hoping those can be used as food? I have easy access to the entire forest and pools so are there better food options I can get out there?
3) the peepers live in the forest once they are mature so would I be better Off to try to recreate the forest floor in the tank or use artificial bottom? 
4) I have heard that it is Good for the frogs to be cooled into a mock hibernation period to copy what would happen in the wild. What exactly is needed to do this? Do they need to be fed and cared for as usual in this state, or do you leave them alone during this period? 

Thank you very much for any information or answers you can provide   :Smile:

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## elly

3.) Not sure what you're asking. By artificial bottom do you mean the kind of turf mats sold at pet stores? That can be a little abrasive sometimes and there's a kind of fake moss with loops in it that I've heard of frogs getting their feet stuck in. Either way should generally be okay though. 

4)It's natural but not necessarily healthy. Some frogs won't mate if they don't get to hibernate.  But even in the wild, some frogs die during hibernation. I think some may even need to hibernate (Budgett's?) I don't know about Spring Peepers in particular but other tree frogs can live to a ripe old age without hibernating once.

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## Fingolfin

If you are talking about using egg crate or LECA as a dranage layer as your artificial bottom, yes, you can, as long as you use another substrate  (eco earth, plantation soil, ABG mix, etc.) On top. Either of the tanks you mentioned would work size wize, but size is the depending factor on how many you can keep in that tank. As elly mentioned, hibernation is not nessasary, unless you want to breed them. 

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## elly

Also I didn't answer 1 or 2 because I'm not familiar with peepers. But:
1. I'd go with the larger one, tree frogs like to have space to climb.
2. If peepers are large enough to eat those crickets, yeah, probably after a generation or two raised in clean conditions the bugs might be less likely to have parasites. Those can be a problem in closed tanks where parasites build up in the environment and keep infecting the same frogs.

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## AAron

> Hello everyone, 
> New to the forum, so apologies if this is posted in the wrong area.
> I have many seasonal ponds in my forested property and they are full of tadpoles, shrimp, crayfish, And other similar species. I have had Great success raising fairy Shrimp, spring peeper and bullfrog tadpoles, and salamanders. Every year I collect around 25 young spring peeper tadpoles from the ponds and raise them to froglets and release them back to the pond once they Fully absorb their tails. I usually lose about 5 but the remaining 20 survive and are released. I am aware of how small the chances of captivity raised froglets surviving in the wild are, so this year I was thinking of raising a few to adulthood and keeping as pets. After many hours of research I still have a few questions. I was wondering if anyone with experience with peepers or similar species  could help me out with these questions?
> 
> 1) I have an aquarium that is about 3x2 feet and about 2 feet high. I also Have one maybe half the size. Will either of these be acceptable for raising adult peepers?
> 2) I have raised black cricket colonies before so I Am hoping those can be used as food? I have easy access to the entire forest and pools so are there better food options I can get out there?
> 3) the peepers live in the forest once they are mature so would I be better Off to try to recreate the forest floor in the tank or use artificial bottom? 
> 4) I have heard that it is Good for the frogs to be cooled into a mock hibernation period to copy what would happen in the wild. What exactly is needed to do this? Do they need to be fed and cared for as usual in this state, or do you leave them alone during this period? 
> 
> Thank you very much for any information or answers you can provide


The larger tank would be best. You might want to recreate a habitat similar to the peepers. Look at Ferns, they are very hardy and Dragon's Tail Ferns are small enough and will last all year. I've not thought about hibernation for them, if you wish to breed them then you should consider hibernation. How did you keep the crickets? How long did the colony you had last? please pm me this! 


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