Why Did My Pacman Frog Die? [Probable Reasons & Solutions]

We often see a Pacman frog dies early no matter how well its owner takes care of the frog. Losing a pet Pacman frog is harsh for the owner. It seems to leave a question in the owner’s mind – why did my Pacman frog die? People often ask about the probable reasons and their perfect solutions.

Several reasons can be liable to your Pacman frog’s death. From inadequate coordination of temperature, humidity, or substrate of their terrarium to wrong diet and supplementation – many things can cause death. Besides inappropriate terrarium settings, lack of cleanliness, old age, or diseases may be the reasons.

To find out the details, I’ve conducted some researches. In this article, I’ll describe all potential reasons and solutions for the possibility of your frog’s death. So, if you want to know why your Pacman frog died, do not miss this article. Let’s get started.

Pacman Frog Death Cause: A Study

Before diving into the lesson, I wanted to check what other Pacman frog owners think of their pets’ death. I went into two popular Facebook groups on Pacman frog and posted a poll. Just wanted to check what other thinks about the most common cause of Pacman frog’s death.

Frog group 1, we can see that the most voted cause was ‘Inadequate Temperature’. Some other top voted causes include:

• Unclean water
• Lack of correct information from inexperienced breeders & pet stores
• Weak/Unhealthy babies

From group 2, we can see the most voted cause was lack of humidity followed by Inadequate temperature.

From these two studies, we can certainly assert temperature plays a vital role in Pacman frog’s life and incorrect temperature can lead to its premature death.

I would also like to show a comment from one of the group moderators. I am sure it will help:

10 Probable Reasons Of Pacman Frog Death

After losing your Pacman frog, you might be wondering what I went wrong. If there is any lacking in your maintenance, you’ll get to know from the mentioned potential reasons below.

So, the probable reasons for your Pacman frog death can be-

1. Lack of humidity
2. Inadequate Temperature
3. Lack Of Lighting
4. Improper Diet
5. Lack Of Vitamins
6. Excessive Handling
7. Unclean Water
8. Accidental Ingestion
9. Diseases
10. Old Age

You might have lots of questions in your mind regarding these probable reasons. Thus, I’ll describe the death reasons here in detail, along with their solutions.

1. Lack Of Humidity

It is necessary to ensure a high level of humidity in the Pacman frog terrarium. In their natural habitat of jungle areas, these frogs remain accustomed to a humid environment.

Pacman frogs need at least 60%-80% humidity. They can’t thrive without high humidity because it helps their respiration. Moreover, proper humidity level aids their skin from drying out. Also, it is necessary for their adequate hydration.

So, if the humidity level in the terrarium drops below 60%, it’ll cause severe health effects on your frog. Your Pacman frogs may even die due to lack of adequate humidity.

Solutions

If you don’t want your Pacman frog to die due to lack of humidity, you always have to ensure keeping the ideal humidity level. Hence, I’ve found out some solutions to establish the proper humidity level.

• Keep a shallow water bowl with fresh, clean water.

• Misting the terrarium often. But you must not make the mistake of directly misting over the Pacman frog.

• Use a fogger to let the fog increase the humidity level in the tank. If you are looking for a decent fogger, I’ll recommend the Zoo Med Reptile Fogger. It gets the job done.

• Keeping live plants also helps the terrarium remain moist.

• As Pacman frogs spend most of the time burrowing in the substrate, keeping the substrate moist can help.

• Lastly, if you don’t want to take the hassle of the mentioned ways, you can increase the humidity of the entire room. You just need to add a humidifier for this.

• Not to mention, you should keep a hygrometer to monitor the humidity level in the terrarium. Remember, going below 60% humidity level can cause your frog’s death.

2. Inadequate Temperature

Along with the humidity, the temperature is also a crucial factor to keep your Pacman frog hale and hearty. Inadequate temperature can be another cause of the death of your Pacman frog.

If you’re wondering the reason behind this, let me remind you of their origin.

Pacman frogs hail from such forests of South America where they’re very accustomed to warm temperatures, along with high humidity. Hence, you need to manage the temperature just like their native conditions in their captivity too.

For your convenience, I’ve made an ideal temperature chart of Pacman frogs according to their age.

Pacman frogs	Daytime	Night-time
Baby Pacman Frog	77-82 degrees Fahrenheit	70-75 degrees Fahrenheit
Adult Pacman Frog	75-80 degrees Fahrenheit	65-70 degrees Fahrenheit

The researchers and experienced Pacman frog owners strictly warn not to let the temperature drop below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Adequate temperature helps Pacman frogs remain fit. Also, warm temperature aids to keep good appetite of your frog and develop a strong immunity.

Many owners shared their experiences where their Pacman frogs did not want to eat. Besides, these captive-raised Pacman frogs have a weak immune system.

That’s why we can make inadequate temperature accountable directly or indirectly over these health issues.

If you want to monitor the temperature and humidity of the Pacman frog habitat, I’ll highly recommend this Exo Terra Combometer. With this Combometer, you can measure both in one single device, which is amazingly convenient.

Solutions: How To Keep Pacman Frog Warm?

To keep your Pacman frog warm, you can rely on the heat lamps of low wattage. Among several options for heat lamps, incandescent bulbs or LED bulbs are pretty popular.

People also use the under-tank heater to ensure the ideal temperature in the tank.

Keep in mind that Pacman frogs can not thrive at usual room temperature. If they get cold, they’ll go into estivation. So, it’s necessary to keep a thermometer to monitor whether the temperature drops below the recommended level or not.

3. Lack Of Lighting

The lack of lighting can also be the culprit of your pet frog’s death. A proper amount of lighting not only keeps your frog warm but also fulfills their needs of calcium and vitamin D3.

Moreover, lack of lighting causes metabolic bone disease. As a result, the bones become fragile, and thus, these frogs die easily.

Also, your Pacman frog will lose its appetite for foods. Not to mention, the Pacman frogs will become weak day by day.

Being nocturnal creatures, Pacman frogs do not need sunlight. But, that does not mean that they do not require light at all. Although these frogs can survive without light, adequate lighting is necessary for maintaining their well-being.

If you fail to ensure an adequate amount of lighting, your Pacman frog will not thrive in its captive habitat for so long. It happens because these frogs may not find a healthy natural appearance.

As a result, you might lose your Pacman frog forever.

Solutions

To understand what amount of lighting is adequate, let’s get to know how much light Pacman frogs need. Later, I’ll discuss the types of light which will fulfill the necessity of lighting properly.

How Much Light Do Pacman Frogs Need?

Firstly, you need to understand the proper light cycle of your frog to ensure a perfect environment in captivity.

You can maintain 12 hours of daylight and keep the other 12 hours in darkness.

This light cycle will help mimic the natural environment perfectly.

Do Pacman Frogs Need A UVB Light?

Pacman frogs don’t need UVB lights. You can provide a fluorescent bulb or a LED light.

If the terrarium is more than 10 gallons, it needs more than one bulb. Generally, a fluorescent bulb of 10-15 watt and an LED bulb of 40 watts are perfect for a 10-gallon terrarium.

Also, you should add a night-specific bulb for the nighttime.

4. Improper Diet

Another answer to this question of ‘why did my Pacman frog die’ is improper diet. According to the age of your Pacman frog, their feeding schedules have to be different too.

For example- you can feed your baby Pacman frog daily, but you can give food to an adult Pacman frog only 1-2 times a week.

If you fail to ensure a proper diet, the Pacman frogs will suffer from several kinds of health complexities. Improper diet means lacking nutrition. On the other hand, overfeeding can cause obesity in your Pacman frog.

Eventually, all of these conditions will bring their death.

Solutions

Let’s take a quick look at some suggestions which I’ve found out after researching a while.

• It’s better not to give your Pacman frogs dead insects.
• Some foods are forbidden. For example- wild-caught items, scorpions, red wigglers, giant mealworms, etc.
• Again, you can’t give certain foods like smaller mice, shrimp, etc to your baby Pacman frog too.
• You need to differentiate between their staple foods and occasional foods.
• Get a proper feeding guide for your Pacman frog and apply it.

5. Lack Of Vitamins

If you take a good look at the Pacman frog diet, you’ll notice that only daily foods aren’t sufficient enough. Supplementation is a must to fulfill the necessity of nutrition.

Lack of vitamins means lacking an adequate amount of proper supplements. It results in insufficiency of vitamin D, vitamin A, and calcium.

As Pacman frog bodies can’t produce these vitamins on their own, several health complexities are bound to happen due to lack of vitamins. For example, improper digestion, bone deformities, muscle twitching, droopy lower jaw, metabolic bone disease, etc.

As a result, your Pacman frog might die.

Solutions

Several experienced owners gave some valuable pieces of suggestions for ensuring that your pet gets all nutrients.

These are-

• Before feeding your Pacman frog, always dust the food items with calcium powder.
• Once a week, supplement their food items with multivitamin and mineral dusting.
• In the case of live insects, gut-load them for at least 24 hours before feeding them to Pacman frogs.
• Get a proper supplement guide along with a regular feeding guide of Pacman frogs.

6. Excessive Handling: Do Pacman Frogs Die Easily?

You might have already known that the Pacman frog has pretty sensitive skin. Besides, they breathe through their skin.

If you are going to handle or touch them, there are chances of passing chemicals or several harmful things through their skin from your hands. It’s a kind of poisoning out.

So, these harmful chemicals and toxins passed by handling can cause poisoning and eventually death. Again, frogs usually tend to jump over while being hold. Hence, the sudden jump can cause injuries that may lead to their death.

Not to mention, if you squeeze them in the time of holding, they’ll die immediately.

Moreover, excessive handling makes these frogs so stressed that this harms their health. So, yes! Pacman frogs die easily.

Solutions

The very first thing you need to set in your mind is not to touch your Pacman frog without urgent necessity. Don’t touch your frog with bare hands.

If it is very urgent, put on disposable gloves. Moreover, the experienced owners recommended nitrile or powderless latex gloves.

A small tip is to keep the gloves a little bit wet to make your Pacman frogs feel comfortable.

7. Unclean Water

An interesting fact about Pacman frogs is that they can absorb water through their skin.

So, if you do not provide them fresh and clean water, there are high chances of toxic out syndromes because of the toxins of dirty water. It is a terrible condition.

As a result, your pet frog will feel a lack of energy, spastic extensions of the hind limbs, and so on.

Besides, if the toxins spread to several body organs, there can be several kinds of health complexities, and eventually, death.

Solutions: What Kind Of Water Do Pacman Frogs Need?

You’ve to keep in mind to provide fresh and clean water. Do not use distilled water in the water bowl because it lacks many minerals and salt. But, you can use it for misting the terrarium.

Another significant thing to note down is to provide dechlorinated water. You can also use tap water. But that has to be left for at least 24 hours.

If your frog is already suffering from the toxic out syndrome, change the water every four hours. Finally, consult with a vet and take the necessary medications and steps for your Pacman frog.

8. Accidental Ingestion

When your Pacman frog grabs or eats its food from the ground, the frog might consume a little piece of gravel or other components of the floor. Larger pieces of substrate or stones remain indigestible.

As these materials block the intestine of Pacman frogs, it faces some trouble with constipation. Or, you can say that your pet frog will suffer from impaction.

If your frog suffers from impaction, it’ll lose interest in food. Its poop becomes irregular. Due to less appetite, your frog will become weak.

If you don’t take proper actions immediately, your Pacman frog will die.

Solutions: What Do I Do If My Pacman Frog Is Impacted?

If you notice the signs of impaction in your pet, arrange a warm bath. Keep in mind that the water layer must not be up to your impacted frog’s chin.

Put some honey in the water, and then soak your Pacman frog for at least 20 minutes. After a while, take out your frog. Then, put your frog to get soaked in another warm bath without honey. After that, you can gently massage the sides of your frog to loosen its blockage up in the intestine.

Since their skin absorbs water, the warmth of water with honey aids them to poop.

Lastly, you must add a digestible substrate or surface. Otherwise, keep such a surface that is uneatable or hard to eat. I always recommend to use a mixture of Zilla Moss Bedding and Zoo Med Eco Earth Coconut Fiber. This mixture is safe for most amphibians.

9. Diseases

Chronic diseases can be an answer to your question why did my Pacman frog die. Pacman frogs can get several kinds of parasites, fungal, and bacteria-caused diseases.

As a result, your pet may face many troubles like dry skin cocoon, opaque film over eyes, anemia, lethargy, bleeding from mouth and nose, sores, etc.

Solutions

Your little care can save your frog’s life. From ensuring the cleanliness of the terrarium, substrate, etc to provide food, supplementation, and clean water from trustable sources – everything helps your frog remain free from any bacterial or fungal diseases.

10. Old Age

No living creatures are immortal. Not even your Pacman frog. Usually, Pacman frogs can survive up to 10 years. When your frog dies living a long time without any visible sign of diseases, don’t worry. It means your pet died due to come over its old age. There’s nothing to prevent this.

Do Pacman Frogs Randomly Die?

After explaining above mentioned 10 reasons for Pacman frog death, you can say that Pacman frogs randomly die.

Irregularities in the feeding guide, uncleanliness, insufficiency of necessary humidity, improper lighting, temperature, etc can make several health issues for your Pacman frog which can lead to random death.

Is My Pacman Frog Dead Or Hibernating?

Seeing your Pacman frog condition on winter days can make you confused about their being dead or doing hibernation. But there are some specific signs if they are dead or hibernating.

A common sign of a dead Pacman frog is the growth of fungus on their body. Besides, they may be seen upside-down along with their tongues hanging out outside. You can also gently poke their eyes to see whether they’re alive or not.

Otherwise, the frogs are just hibernating and will come out of hibernation when the temperature becomes optimal.

Can Pacman Frogs Play Dead?

Sometimes people share their experiences where their Pacman frogs neither move nor respond. It seems like they’re dead. Hence, people often ask if the Pacman frog plays dead or why the frogs even do such a thing!

Pacman frogs can play dead. Especially, whenever the frogs feel stressed or threatened, they might play dead as a kind of survival response.

Do not worry. After a while, you’ll see your frogs getting revived again. So, I’d suggest you again not to handle or touch your pet without reason.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to tell if pacman frog is dead?

If you are wondering whether your Pacman frog is dead or alive, there are a few things you can look for to help you determine which it is. If your pacman frog is lying still and its body feels cold to the touch, it is likely dead. Other signs of a dead Pacman frog include closed eyes, not breathing, and loose body. 

What does a dead pacman frog look like?

A dead Pacman frog may appear still and its body may feel cold to the touch. The skin of a dead Pacman frog may also turn white or discolored.

What are the pacman frog toxin out syndromes?

Toxin out syndrome is a condition that can affect Pacman frogs when toxins are absorbed through the skin, resulting in a sick pacman frog.

Symptoms of Pacman Frog Toxin Out Syndrome may include spastic extensions of the hind limbs, cloudy eyes, listlessness, and erratic jumping.

Treatment usually involves placing the frog in a shallow water dish of clean water and replacing the water every 4 hours or so until the symptoms go away.

How to treat an impacted pacman frog?

If you suspect that your Pacman frog is impacted, there are several things you can do to help treat the condition.

One of the first things you can try is fasting your frog, which can help to reduce the blockage.

You can also try giving your frog a warm bath or soaking it in warm water for 10-15 minutes to help stimulate bowel movements. Another option is to add a small amount of vegetable oil or mineral oil to the water to help lubricate the digestive tract.

If the impaction persists, you may need to take your frog to a veterinarian who specializes in reptiles and amphibians for further treatment.

It’s important to note that you should avoid force-feeding your pacman frog or attempting to manually remove the blockage, as this can cause further injury to the pacman frog.

What does pacman frog poop look like?

Pacman frog poop typically looks like a dark brown or black cylindrical substance. However, the color and consistency of the poop can vary depending on the frog’s diet and overall health.

Final Words

Pacman frogs can give you a long accompany if you take the best care of them. For this, you must ensure not doing any mistakes which let your pet frog die early.