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Thread: Breeding Occidozyga lima

  1. #1

    Cool Breeding Occidozyga lima

    Hello! At last I found this topic after sending submission messages all over the place and for John personally. So, I managed to breed floating frogs more than one time, and I wrote an article about many aspects of the matter. I also got some pictures and for the most curious I have a few very-very bad quality videos on youtube, too - my apologies, I was greatly unprepared for this technologically. Also, sorry if I made some mistakes, English is not my native language.

    "Care and Breeding of the Floating Frog (Occidozyga lima, Gravenhorst 1829)

    Article and Photos by Gábor Molnár

    Maybe because of its simple appearance and relatively inactive lifestyle, this species could not manage to become a popular addition of herp lovers’ collections yet. It is also hard to find decent literature on keeping these frogs, and I have yet to find at least one complete, non-speculative article on the aspect of breeding. For that very reason it was a great experience for me to develope a successful method for the latter.

    Introduction

    Occidozyga lima occurs in large parts of South-East Asia where it inhabits slow-moving and still waters like rice paddies, ditches, ponds with dense aquatic vegetation. The snout-vent lenght is about 4cm; males usually are somewhat shorter. The dorsal side is brown, greenish brown with dark spots and on certain specimens, a thin stripe runs in the middle of the back. The light colored ventral side is sprinkled with darker spots here and there. Males also have some yellowish discoloration at where the throat sac (in this case a single median subgular vocal sack) can be found.
    It is said because of their abundance in their natural habitats local ornamental fish farmers use this frogs among others as live food for large predatory fish, and it is also known that snake keepers feed them to problematic eaters of amphibian specialists as one of the few readily available frog species within its price range. However it seems both the fodder frogs and the ones selected for the international pet trade are usually captured from the wild. Since low price, steady supplies of harvested animals and low demand by the herp communities worldwide, serious westerner breeders did not indulge in keeping them yet. Importers often do not have sufficient experience with them, therefore it is not uncommon for shopkeepers to suggest taking care of these amphibians like clawed frogs. Of course, due to their completely different lifestyle floating frogs require quite different captive environment and nourishment.

    General Care

    Most of the time floating frogs are just floating on the surface, diving only when they are frightened. When this happens, they try to hide quickly, dashing hither and thither on the bottom, wildly bumping to underwater objects and the walls of the tank, just to couch for a few minutes motionless before surfacing again. Therefore water depth has almost no significance, but using bedding and tank furniture pieces with sharp edges is not a wise choice.
    It is important to let them crawl out on a stone or a piece of cork bark, but it is best to provide them with a whole bunch of aquatic plants which reach the surface, so the frogs can rest on the top of them without leaving water. While they can float for quite a time, it is stressful to them if they can not at least anchor themeselves when needed, especially if the current from the filter is not mellowed enough.
    Typically they jump flat, not high to reach water sooner, so it seems safe enough to leave at least 20cm bellow the edge of the tank to place the highest resting site. Nevertheless their tank should be made escape-proof with an adequate cover or at least rims on the edges. They usually jump upwards only when they are cornered on land and trying to break out, or when they notice a bug sitting up on the tank glass. Of course they can jump higher from land than from the water without any supporting object under their feet. For this reason catching them out is also easier and maybe less stressful by using a cup to scoop them out with some water rather than a net or your bare hands.
    Unlike clawed frogs, floating frogs usually do not hunt underwater (however they can be trained to tong-feed even underwater according to the previous owner of some of my animals), but they accept small insects sprinkled over the water surface and tank furniture. I feed them Turkestan cockroach (Shelfordella tartara) nymphs (when they are very hungry, especially females may try and succeed to catch adult ones) and small crickets dusted with vitamin-mineral supplement now and then, but their favourites are flightless house flies. I suspect that the metabolism of the species has been adapted to low-nutrient prey items as after a rich roach meal my adult animals usually suspend eating for quite a long time regarding their size.
    Temperaturewise floating frogs seem tolerant enough. I keep them at room temperature (at least 23°C) most of the time, but they really like it when weather becomes hot and sunny in the summer, and their water temperature reaches 28-30°C.Males call more often on higher temperatures, but they may use a specific chirping sound anytime. One who never heard them croaking before usually thinks that is their call, but actually I do not think chirping is related to sexes and spawning anyhow, as freshly metamorphosed froglets often do it, too, especially during feeding time.

    Breeding

    I got my first trio – a male with two females - in June 2012. Tank parameters: 130l (filled till 2/3rd), built-in biological filter system, no bedding, cork bark pieces for land area, wood and plant imitations made of nylon strips for underwater hiding. The whole purpose was to make the tank easy to clean and clear-cut as possible. Soon the male started calling which sounds like clucking and bashing wooden building blocks together. After a month I found a pair in amplexus, but eventually they parted in the late evening before egg-deposition. I tried to stimulate them by large volume water changes (suddenly cooling the water from 28°C below 25°C) without any success.
    In November I put all the frogs in a plastic tub filled with only a few cm of water. After a starving period of about a week I put them in a tub filled with moist coco-fiber in which they burried themselves almost at once. After I supplied them with a small water dish just in case (changed weekly), I took their tub in the basement, where the temperature stayed between 15-19°C during winter. I tried to imitate the dry season which I am not sure if they ever experienced in their specific natural environment. Still, the previous owner hinted they did bury themselves into the ground of his community frog vivarium for a while, and after waking up they started to spawn.
    In the end of December I brought their clipbox back to room temperature. They refused to come up so after a week I dug them out to check if anything is went wrong during aestivation. Luckily they were in good condition. In the meantime I put together a more natural looking aqua-terrarium with fine sand substrate, lower water level and multiple protruding land areas like wood pieces and ceramic turtle islands (but still only a few nylon plant imitations). I also set up an artificial rain-system in it too, by using a small aquarium pump to circulate water through a pvc tube with holes on it, attached to the ceiling of the enclosure. I switched it on for about 15 minutes on every evening for weeks. I slowly heated up the water with a water-proof heating cable buried in the sand and attached to a thermostat for about 27°C. All efforts seemed wasted as the frogs showed no interest in spawning besides the usual croaking for the time being.
    While taking a trip to a local stream in the end of June 2013, I saw some edible frogs (Rana esculenta) sitting on the shores. Amphibians usually considered to be sensitive to high temperatures and strong light, especially with high UV content. Yet these ones were basking in the Sun in midday just like their tadpoles in a shallow section of the stream without vegetation. Maybe floating frogs need high temperature and natural sunlight, too, I tought! Albeit the previous owner had some breeding success, it was absolutely unintentional (just for the record, the few tadpoles also did not survive), so he did take no notice on the exact parameters needed. Therefore, without clues - except for aestivaton and maybe raining (they lived in the pond of a dart frog tank for a period of time, misted regularly) - I had to try everything which came to my mind.
    I installed a new enclosure again, making use of a plastic rodent cage bottom about half a m2 in size, which I already used many times before for raising african dwarf frog (Hymenochirus sp.) tadpoles and chinese firebelly newt (Hypselotriton orientalis) larvae. I set it up on a table right in front of a large window. The walls had been elongated with segments of fibreboard on all sides but the one nearest to the window as I fitted a glass panel there for letting in as much sunlight as possible. Adhesive tape sections were used on the edges to prevent both frogs and roaches from escape. Large amounts of Myriophyllum were stacked into the ~10 cm deep water, and a few pieces of wood (Mopani and mangrove root) served as small islands. Thanks to all of this changes and the upcoming hot summer weather the male started croaking again, and in addition it did it more often and for longer periods of time both in the daytime and at night.
    It was a bright day on July 4, the water temperature went up to 28°C without any additional heating. While listening to the usual midday croaking, I noticed an unusual tune at the end of the already familiar rythms. After sneaking to their pool in the „frog room” (our living room) I found a pair in amplexus again. They seemed really determined as they stuck together all day long even when disturbed and dived under the aquatic jungle to hide. During a stuffy night with lots of croaking and splashing egg-deposition has happened at last. Though being familiar with similar frog species’ breeding habits and I expected several hundred eggs, I only found about a dozen, scattered on plants and the pool sides underwater. Their diameter is about 1,5mm. Most of them were infertile. 3-4mm long, dark colored tadpoles hatched from the viable eggs after 3-5 days. Later I found a good dozen more, but I was still disappointed in my moderate success. I am going to get back to the matter of raising tadpoles later in this article.
    In the next year I strived to reach much better results while proving that my method is practicable at the same time. However the 5 months long (I thought it would stimulate them better for a good reason) aestivation ended with failure, as the females did not make it this time. The male was in perfect shape again, so I do not think it was the matter of time specifically. I managed to buy six new, but long-term captive, estabilished animals just in time – two females and four males. This gender ratio works nice with this species as males can compete through chorus which may trigger spawning, plus females have the opportunity to chose the most suitable ones.
    The rodent cage bottom was used again, but furnishing got elaborated a bit more. On one half of the water surface I layed a plastic plant carpet (fake leaves built on a plastic mesh). It was supported by protruding wood pieces the way the carpet stayed just on surface level on them and just below it (leaves still protruding) at the sections between them. The other half was also filled with aquatic plants so dense I could hardly see the bottom. Using this method frogs may felt much safer as they could hide quicker, and dived under the false plant carpet to later surface between mesh squares, still partially covered by fake leaves. They could also reach insects climbed to the top of leaves easily as those still short enough to do so. Prey items tend to drown a bit rarer as they can get a hold on this installment. They also could be chased through the surface as they and the frogs too could actually „run” on the top of the wast amount of Myriophyllum.
    Besides natural light a T8 tube fixture with an 18w UVB fluorescent tube (Zoo Med Reptisun 5.0) was installed about 30cm above water level. It was on for 10 hours per day. An other new addition was a high pressure misting system attached to a time switch, programmed to work for 15, later 30 minutes every evening. No filter was used, only weekly partial water changes and the photosynthesis of the plants was supposed to maintain an acceptable level of water quality. This enclosure became a messy looking, hard-to-clean setup, but one the frogs liked as it really must have reminded them to a ditch or flooded meadow where they possibly lived their lives before they got captured. Their chorus tuned up more and more often. Sometimes they started arguing using audibly different sounds, tossing, chasing and grabbing onto each other.
    On July 9, 2014, again, on a bright, hot day, after a partial water change a pair started mating, leaving lots of fertile eggs dispersed on the vegetation and basically everywhere during the night. They may felt the change of atmospheric pressure before a rainy day which helped them to decide to do their stuff, too. It seemed easier to me to let the eggs where they were, and catching out the tadpoles later. In mid July they spawned again, but without the aid of UVB lamp and on a cloudy day this time. I still think warm and strong light was necessary to trigger the process at first in the season. In countries where it is possible, it may be better to keep them in an outdoor enclosure in the summer if breeding is the goal. They layed eggs at least one more time this season, but I concentrated on rearing only the first two batches. The other eggs were left in the adults’ tank (I have never seen them eating the eggs).

    Raising Tadpoles

    The very first time I only noticed four tadpoles which seemed to disappear after a few days, so I gave up on them. I thought they might just died, and since most of the eggs were infertile no tadpoles left in the pool by now. For a long time I did not dare to properly clean the tank as I was afraid to accidentally suck out some offspring when removing detritus, but now I thought it was time to do it. After a month since the last tadpole sighting I removed the frogs and all the plants and wood pieces into a bucket of water, when I noticed motion in the mulm.
    After one by one, tapoles – spectacularly more depeloped since first seen – appeared. I searched through the bottom bit by bit using a stick to stir up the mulm, because when motionless they are almost invisible thanks to their yellowish-brownish, marbled camouflage. It is very easy to mix them with a tiny snail shell or a small piece of rotting leaf particle even when kept on bare glass! With the aid of an artemia net (Hobby brand, very useful) and a plastic spoon I replaced 11 of them to the 130l tank which I kept the adults in when they arrived. As they always couched on the mattenfilter, I switched off the built-in filter system and put a small, air-pump supplied sponge filter in the aquarium. They behaved like that for now no matter what, so I switched back the former one. Aquatic plants, mangrove root pieces and coconut shells were put in the way of the current.
    At that time I did not find any useful literature on the feeding behaviour of the tadpoles of this species, so I assumed they are just like Rana and Bombina tadpoles, which have similar lifestyle to floating frogs. I offered them scalded vegetables and stones overgrown with algae, collected from the stream but I did not see them eating – they did come down from the filter sponge after a while but remained passive towards the food. One day I found a website about the wildlife of Thailand, where natural behaviour of a different Occidozyga species was exposed. It said those tadpoles live in the wet forest floor and hunt for tiny invertebrates on the thin layer of water which covers leaf litter. I did not change the tank setup, but started to decapsulate and incubate Artemia eggs at once.
    Just as expected they swooped on the freshly hatched brineshrimp nauplii. Their belly soon became red from all the nauplii stuffed inside, and their body shape got healthy egg- or pear-like. After a week of rich daily feeding buds of the hind legs appeared on several specimens. Good quality Artemia eggs are hard to find in Hungary, but there is one aquatics shop which sells them constantly by re-packaging large bags into affordably priced packs. Therefore I did not see the need to try out other kinds of live food at the meantime, and I did not want to risk ruining water quality with frozen food (as they are feeding in a slowly, pecking manner and find non-moving fodder harder unlike most fish for example) until I had other choice.
    On August 20, about two weeks after the cleaning of the adults’ pool I found an other 2 tadpoles, from the previous batch according to their size. It was a wise decision not to remove mulm in the end but do only a large volume water change and plant trimming - I calculated upon missing a few ones while searching after them for the first time. Since their relocation they got used to the setup; hided under and climbed a lot on coco shells and plants – the nearer they got to metamorphosis the more time they spent on the plants right under the surface. They still climbed on the mattefilter a lot, obviously to catch nauplii trapped into algae and moss growing on the sponge. They mainly fed on the bottom however.
    At the beginning of September I installed a heater in the tank to keep temperature around 26°C, because the weather became a bit cooler, and room temperature dropped to 23°C. Scouring the frogs’ pool I found some new tadpoles again, the same size as the aquarium-dwellers, but crippled just like the previous two. Maybe it was because of starvation - the native copepod stock occuring in every healthy tank must have been depleted by that time. All the others were in good condition, and had few casualties. But soon a disaster came and I regreted collecting algae covered stones from nature a thousand times.
    Even high concentration salt bath could not prevent the introduction of Hydra, which meant no harm at all until only a few specimens appeared on the aquarium walls. But in a matter of weeks they spread over in the tank, literally not leaving a single uncovered spot for the tadpoles to just sit and recover. These cnidarians are too small to prey upon well developed tadpoles, but large enough not to be alarmed and retract their tentacles when they touch them. And when touching they may sting them, causing great stress. Besides this they actually filtered out most of the Artemia from the water, so the tadpoles became stressed and starved to lose good shape in no time. Raising daily food portion or feeding twice a day was only adding oil to the fire, Hydra just carried on multiplying faster. When rubbed from the glasses they reappeared soon; with tadpoles in the tank I did not dare to use any chemicals or salt against them, and I also could not play with raising temperature freely.
    On September 15 I relocated the 12 survivors into a plastic tub with heater (25°C) and aerating the water. They fed well and got a nice fat, red belly right after their first meal here, and continued developing. Some of the tadpoles ended metamorphosis around this time, 2 months after hatching. The 1cm long froglets sat out on a plastic flower ladder floating on the water surface, hunting for flightless Drosophila hydei covered with vitamin-mineral supplement after their tail has been absorbed. Unfortunately, the capacity of the small sponge filter is nowhere to my built-in one in the aquarium, so water quality deteriorated soon because of the daily – more than enough – Artemia portions. At the beginning of October both tadpoles and froglets started to become sick and die, so again, I had to risk putting the animals back into the 130l tank. Hydra are already vanished because the lack of food, but now they reappeared of course. Luckily they had no time to cumulate as the last tadpoles grew into froglets quickly. However the very last ones became smaller and weaker due to the more limited food supply thanks to our cnidarian friends.
    Froglets became skittish just like the adults. One of them weared its nose down by wildly bumping to the glass all the time it saw me coming. I put them back in the plastic tub with a ceramic turtle island coverd by a section of fake plant carpet this time, where they settled down at last. It must be the positive effect of both the special hiding place and the fact they only saw me above but not through the walls (much more coverage). However they still did not come out under the leaves when seeing me. From this very first batch only 2 specimens are still living. Eating fruitflies, micro – and small crickets and nowadays small tartara roaches they barely grew 2,5cm long during their first year. Therefore floating frogs you see in pet shops must be much older than that I think. Even though it may be possible to make them grow faster by constantly heating their water and feeding them good amounts of appropriately sized roaches or other insects with high nutritional value from the beginning, which I am definitely trying out this year.
    The 2014 offspring enticed me with greater success. Not only I found approximately 150 tadpoles first (I spooned them out one by one, which took a couple of hours), but only after a few weeks the frogs produced a second batch which I did not even count. The former ones were put in the glass tank first, but when I noticed a tiny, single - yes – Hydra hitchhiking a small aquatic snail after a whole year of the incident, I took them out into a large bucket of water at once. The second batch of 2014 got a separate bucket because of the large size difference compered to the first batch members. They did not get heaters this time, the temperature ranged between 24-28°C. I also stopped decapsulating the brineshrimp eggs as I realized unlike firebelly newt larvae these tadpoles either did not eat the empty shells or those did not cumulated in their intestines, causing death.
    With daily partial water changes their uprearing went without trouble this time, eventhough there were casualties at the start due to unknown causes. At one point it seemed serious food problems were coming, as my Artemia egg-stock ran out, and I could not get more from the usual shop because of unprecedented stock-shortage. I also could not get other types of micro-sized live food because different causes, so I wanted to use chopped Tubifex worm. I tried to give whole worms for the larger tadpoles first, and they ate it gladly and with relative ease. The small, few weeks old ones (at around 5mm snout-vent length) also managed to surmount worms much longer than themeselves. So they do can eat larger meals than it seemed first. It was a lucky and very useful observation in the end, because unlike quality Artemia eggs Tubifex is readily available in most pet shops year-round, at least in the capital. It is also very nutritious, the second batch slowly managed to catch up in size with the first. I wish they would have consumed Hydra, too…
    The 2014 offspring have metamorphosed by now, 81 specimens altogether. Because of their large number they got the rodent cage pool, while the adults were put into the aquarium many times mentioned above. The froglets’ home contains the aforementioned fake plant carpet supported with upside-down cups, a heater (on 25°C) and an air stone to help dissolving temperature evently (large surface but only 6cm depth) by moving the water. They are fed with tiny tartara roaches from the start in the hope of quicker growth (compared to a fruitfly-based diet) – it seems it works with daily 1-2 heavy feedings.
    All the methods in this article are based on my personal experiences and are definitely not set in stone. There is room for improvement in many aspects, obviously. However, these observations may help to better understand the needs of this species and arouse more interest towards them."

    And here are those links for the videos:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVc3...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFmC...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a81T...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOF0...G0p1kg&index=4

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVM...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tou...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjOS...G0p1kg&index=7
    Attached Images Attached Images          

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  3. #2
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    Default Re: Breeding Occidozyga lima

    What's the lifespan for these guys?

  4. #3

    Default Re: Breeding Occidozyga lima

    ThreeToed: I usually don't bother with this kind of infos as in my opinion it does not matter for a good owner since any specimens live until their keeper keep them healthy - maximum possible lifespan is not the most common to be reached in reality.

    UPDATE TO THE ARTICLE:
    Juveniles definitely grow quick when the latter feeding schedule is applied, and also start croaking after about half a year. One of the new owners of my juveniles reported they started breeding without any special treatment within their first year! Seems like captive bred animals breed easier.

  5. #4
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    Default Re: Breeding Occidozyga lima

    Hey guys, I think my female Occidozyga layed eggs cause yesterday she was twice bigger than today... how does the eggs look like? I found something looking like eggs, but not sure are they eggs. I have 3 frogs of this species (I bought 7 like 1 year ago but something gone wrong and you know..), keeping them in small tank with a lots of plants and a big piece of wood, where they hide and they can also get out of water on plant leaves and on the top of the wood (it's some kind of root I think). Any advice?

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