African Water Frogs

[emberlisa]

I received "African Water Frogs" tadpoles from Insect Lore. I feel silly asking this, but... Are these the same as the "African Claw Frogs" that some people talk about on the forums?

I have 6 tadpoles that seem to be healthy and moving around. How big of a tank do I need to house them all? Is it ok to keep them all together? My dad wants to buy a 10 gallon tank.

[rodsboys]

If they are African Clawed Frog you will eventually need a 40-55 gallon for 6 adults. A 10 gallon is a minimal size for 1 frog. They like to swim and they put out quite the bioload due to messy eating and poo. On the other had if they are dwarf frogs a 10 gallon would be fine if they are the only thing you keep in there. Do you have a pic?
Your blog says Leopard frogs. That is an entirely different section of the forum.

[emberlisa]

Hi. I know my blog says Leopard frogs. I don't know what happened, but Insect Lore sent me African Water Frog tadpoles instead. I currently have 7 tadpoles, another one hatched. I'm pretty sure they aren't dwarfs.

[Jenste]

Can you post as clear of a photo as possible of the tadpoles?

African dwarf frog and african clawed frog tadpoles have completely different dietary needs so knowing which species you have is important.

[emberlisa]

Hi. I hope this picture helps to tell if they are dwarfs or not. I think they are not dwarfs because the paper they came in identifies them as "xenopous laevis" which some websites say are not a dwarf species.

[Jenste]

looks like a clawed to me.
What food did they give you for it?
And yes, Xenopus Laevis is the common clawed frog. Hymenochirus is the dwarf frog.

[emberlisa]

Thank you for letting me know what you think. Just as I suspected! The kit came with a bag that says "Food, pellets 1oz." The instructions say give them 2 or 3 pellets DAILY but even one makes the water cloudy. I haven't changed the water yet, just been adding a slight bit of bottled water every day. They're still all swimming around. The instructions say that they give you so many tadpoles because they predict that some will die because not all the eggs that a frog lays in one sitting can be genetically capable of reaching maturity. Is there any way to predict how many will survive? Is there any signs that a tadpole may have bad genetics? Sorry for all the questions. I'm just very curious about how big of a tank I need to get. my father wants to set me up with a 10 gallon.

[tgampper]

Don't feed your tadpoles until the egg sac is gone. You will cloud the water and suffocate them. When the sac is gone, feed them about twice weekly with tadpole powder.

[Jenste]

Your tadpoles will not be able to eat pellets until they have morphed into a frog. As tadpoles, they are filter feeders and need a very finely ground powder fed into the water that they can "filter" out. Take the pellets they gave you and ground them into a very very fine powder with a mortar and pestle.

[emberlisa]

The instructions from Inseect Lore say that the provided pellets dissolve into the water and the tads absorb the tiny food particles in the water with their gills. they seems to be getting much bigger so they must be absorbing some.