Xenopus Care Questions

Hi,

Some useful websites I found:

http://aquaticfrogs.tripod.com/id9.html

http://www.clawedfrogs.com/

http://www.xlaevis.com/

hope this helps,

Bruce.

Don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but Xenopus are known carriers of chytrid. They are immune to it, but most likely your other frogs are not. Good news is chytrid is easily destroyed. Wash your hands and anything else that comes in contact with the clawed frog or its enclosure. Alcohol can be used on your hands and a bleach and water solution on equipment. Rinse thoroughly before coming contact with any amphibian after that. The temperature can also be raised to 37 C for about 16 hours according to an article I saw. If your other frogs do become infected they can be treated with itraconazole.

I had a fire salamander die of chytridiomycosis about 2 months ago, so I have been very aware of the disease and paranoid about its spread.

For more info see - http://www.amphibianark.org/chytrid.htm

OK, now a much more positive response to your inquiry. African clawed frogs, Xenopus laevis are easy to care for. The are totally aquatic and will eat anything that will fit in there mouths. So be very careful what or who you put in with them. I had one choke on one of it's roommates, a Corydoras julii. They will eat all varieties of tropical fish food, small fish, crickets, mealworms, smaller frogs, basically anything that they can fit into their mouths. You can keep them like tropical fish. Keep the water clean and keep the pH from going into any extreme ranges and it should do fine.
If you hear it calling that doesn't necessarily mean you have a male, as both genders call in this species. The call sounds like the winding of a wrist watch, at least to me it does, and is rather loud considering that the frog is underwater when its calling.

Thanks for all the tips, I have another question though...I know for a fact that one of the frogs is a male and the other a female. Can they be housed safely in the habitat?

Originally Posted by Beatlesbabe97

Thanks for all the tips, I have another question though...I know for a fact that one of the frogs is a male and the other a female. Can they be housed safely in the habitat?

You're welcome. They can be housed together no problem as long as they are close in size. Breeding is said to be easy. I know someone that has bred them and he said he was getting so many eggs from them that he ended up throwing fist-fulls away.

fist fulls of frogs? or eggs? people who raise snails flush the eggs.

Eggs.

I have my two frogs now. From the time I took them home last night and all through the night they were both very vocal. I was wondering if anyone knows of a good website to listen to sample Xenopus calls because I would like to know which noise is coming from which frog, and possibly what they mean.

I not sure you will be able to tell which one is making all the noise, unless you were to seperate them, putting them in different rooms. Unlike most frog species both genders call. I don't know of any web site that has sound files of Xenopus laevis calls. You may have to Google for it. I had one a few years ago that called all the time. It sounded like a winding wrist watch only much louder.

Never mind I googled it. Here's the link - http://www.californiaherps.com/frogs...is.sounds.html

Thanks, I listened to those clips and they sound similar to one of the noises that I heard. Not exactly the same, but I just assumed that each frog would have a slightly different sound. I usually hear that ticking type noise then that noise is usually followed by a noise that I would describe as a tapping noise. I was just guessing that the first call was the male, and the second call was the females response to the male. Is this a likely assumption?

Originally Posted by Beatlesbabe97

I was just guessing that the first call was the male, and the second call was the females response to the male. Is this a likely assumption?

I think that could be a safe assumption, but I can't say for sure.