Rated R for violence and gore

[superjalami30]

**If you are easily offended or grossed out easily or simply dont like the fact I feed live fish to my clawed (I think most people do) please do not read.**



I have a 6 inch male clawed frog, remember, the one my cat got after he escaped and scratched and bit both legs?
He's ok, healed up nicely, but for the longest time he stopped eating live fish.
I used to feed him the odd goldie feeder and guppies.
Anyways, I had two "goldie feeders" housed with him since the attack and they've gotten rather big over the last two months.
I figured I'd leave 'em in there to "brighten" up the tank, I didnt think he'd be able to actually eat em.
Well, the other day, after a couple months of hand feeding him everyday he ventured out on his own and ate one of the "rather" large feeders, much to my surprise.

Then this moring, when I got home from a long night of work, I noticed the second was now gone too!
When searching the tank I noticed a head in the corner.
I thought maybe it had died or it was the reguritated remains.
(Anyone ever see they're clawed frog regurgitate something?)

I reached in with my claw thingy and to my horror I discovered it was just the head!

It looked like it was ripped off the fish, clawed dont have teeth thought right?
So I'm trying to think of what heppened and how this head ended up left in the tank.

Ah ha, I says, the clawed frog most likely had the fish in its mouth, the body in its stomach and when it was digested enough the head fell off and so the tale ends.

Anyone else have something like this happen before?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I've never have clawed frogs before but i have heard many storys of them managing to eat fish that would seem far too big for their mouths, i would just remove the fish heads after the frog has finished with them from the tank as otherwise they'll start to rot and cause an ammonia spike or incourage fungus into the tank.

 

[superjalami30]

Haha, no, I thought I should leave the fish heads in there for a decrative look.
LOL
I removed the head, used a net to stir up all the guts and fiberous leftovers and then did a water change of 50%, cleaned the filter and added a wee bit of "cycle".

I use a sand substrate in this tank as well, helps keep the litter, so to say, from getting into the substrate and fouling the water.
Much easier to keep clean.

 

[GuppyDude]

iv also heard clawed frogs will try to eat each other too if their buddy happens to fit in their mouth. this is not teh first horror story i heard. know a guy who had a large tank of medium sized convicts around 6 fish i think, he saw an adult clawed frog and thoght he was neat, so he bought it. after adding it one of the convicts dissapeared. he figured that it had died and was devoured by teh other convicts, but the next day he awoke to a mess. convicted ripped to peices (and i dont mean their fins). the water was pink with blood and the remaining convict was hidieng for his life behind a rock. needless to say he took the lil monster back to the lfs. the remaining convict died later from the amonia spike in teh tank the day after, now all he has is this planted 50g tank with nothing it it.

 

[superjalami30]

Oh for sure.
If another frog of any type is introduced to the tank the clawed frog will eat it, providing it will fit in its mouth.
Mine actually has grabbed onto my finger several times, only to let go as I raised my hand out of the tank.
And they do make quite the mess if the food it eats is large, I wont even get into what I've had to clean up.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi superjalami30

African Clawed Frogs are predators and scavengers, so what they did to your goldfish should not be too surprising.

They use their big back claws to rip their food apart if it is too large to swallow. I find it preferable to provide them with a supply of minnows which they can easily swallow whole. When I had 5 ADFs, they were eating 50 of them a week, and it didn't seem to matter to them if they were alive or dead at the time.

Since they are such big eaters they also produce a lot of waste, which means their tank is probably not healthy for fish - large or small - anyway.

 

[superjalami30]

Heya Inchworm.

Oh, that I know.
They eat anything.
I wasnt surprised he ate the goldie, when he was smaller he eat goldies that were quite large compared to him.
What did surprise me was the fact he didnt catch them for 5, maybe 6 months, then one day decided to catch and eat them.

I've seen messes before, I even watched him regurgitate a large goldie before (very gross) lol
What I wasnt aware of was they use those claws to rip things apart, thats good to know.
95% of the time I feed him guppies and platy's that I breed specifically for him and my crayfish to eat.
Among other less messy things are repto sticks and tubifex cubes.
I have tried earthworms but what a mess!

Thanks for the info!

Btw, what kind of minnows did you feed yours?