Aquatic Frogs Question?

[jay2jay99]

Ijust bought four little baby frogs at the lfs and they were labelled as Aquatic frogs, I asked the lady if they were one of the african frogs and she said no, of course I'm dubious so I thought I'd post on here and get your opinions on what they are. Here's a couple of pics I just managed to take, they're only 12mm long.

 

[soritan]

Looks like a African Dwarf Frog, to me, note the webbing in the front feet.

Dwarf Clawed Frogs have no webbing, just claws.

 

[jay2jay99]

They also said they can be taught to feed on catfish pellets instead pf bloodworm, is this true? If so, how would I go about it?

 

[Inchworm]

Hi jay2jay99

Yes, they look like African Dwarf Frogs to me too.

I wouldn't try giving them catfish food since the pellets would be way too big and a lot will go to waste in the tank. There is a food made for tiny frogs called HBH Frog and Tadpole Bites that is good for them. If possible give them some bloodworms at least some of the time too.

With these little frogs you must make sure that there are no openings at the top of your tank that they can jump out of. They are surprisingly good jumpers for their size and will try to escape if they can.

Did you see this thread which talks about both them and the much larger African Clawed Frogs?

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=18252

 

[soritan]

The consensus seems to be that frogs don't care for pelleted food, in general. However, I've read of it occuring in situations where the bottom of the tank or bowl is either mostly empty, or entirely empty.

Frogs prefer frozen (thawed) or live, wormy foods. They have fairly odd eyesight, in that they can see things that wiggle about 1-2 inches away from their little faces, but if something falls on their head, they're oblivious. They also have a very good sense of smell. A little bit of bloodworm juice in the water and they come dashing to the front of the tank (where I feed), and fall into 'hunting mode'.

If you want to pellet train your frogs, I think that you'd need to start by making sure that the food itself is sitting in a fairly open place, or take a pair of tweezers and wave it in front of them. That's in my opinion... I tried feeding my frogs HBH Frog and Tadpole bites 3 times just last week, and they didn't notice them at all, floated right past 'em. However, they would definately be the most appropriate pellet out there.


They're really easy care. I totally dig having them in my tank. I feed mine thawed bloodworms, mostly. If I could just get them to recognize the pellets as food, I'd also be feeding them that as well.

If they're juvies, feed them daily. If they're adults, every other day is fine (but daily is still good). Juvies are usually under an inch in length, from snout to rump.

Did you already check out the standard 'flippers and fins' and 'frogland' websites?

 

[jay2jay99]

Inchworm: I did browse over it, I wasn't sure what my frogs were though so I'll have better read now. I'll have a look for that food, cheers.

soritan: Cheers for the info, I haven't seen those sites yet, I will look for them. I've tried the catfish pellets, they did come out, seemed to go looking for it, they come swimming out and go past it and turn around and seem to start eating, as I said before it's hard to tell as their a little bigger than my thumb nail. I read somewhere that they look like their hic-cuping when they're eating, they seem to do that. I have puffers in another tank and their on frozen bloodworm but one block of that is about 5 times the size of the frogs so it's a bit of a hassle. I'm gonna try that HBH Frog and Tadpole bites, as the frogs seem to be taking these pellets, they'll probably take them.

Have to say they're absolutely adorable!!!!

 

[soritan]

http/allaboutfrogs.org/info/mypets/dwarfs.html
http/davidcecere.pipidae.org/
http/flippersandfins.net/

Note that, on the 'flippers' site, there's 3 seperate areas you should check out (badly designed site). The 'care sheet', and the 'articles' area. 2 areas to check on 'articles' are 'freshwater' and 'frogs'. There is also a fairly nice forum there, the only big problem with it is that it's EZboards... which is a fairly shoddy forum script, if you ask me.

PetFish.Net also has an 'amphibians' forum.

I know there was one other site out there, but I can't remember the url for that site, and didn't have the good sense to bookmark it when I found it.

 

[jay2jay99]

Ah cool cheers for doing that. Looks like I've got plenty of reading to do!

 

[soritan]

If you find more sites than that, do share. ADF sites are hard to find.

On the bright side, they seem to be quite forgiving little pets, and are fun to keep, since they're so active.

The only 'problem' with them, is people tend to associate them with the budweiser frogs (bullfrogs), who ribbit and sit on lilly pads on TV. To solve this, I made a tiny little 4mb movie of them swimming about and being themselves. First comment I get on that movie is usually, "they're so small! "

 

[Inchworm]

Hi jay2jay99

It seems to me that they will eat food from the ground, if they miss it the first time around. I usually feed mine live blackworms, and the ones he doesn't get when I first put them in go into the gravel. When I don't have any, he finds and eats these.

I have never actually seen him eat the HBH pellets, but they never seem to foul the water, so I think he does eat them at some point.