Apologies for any noobish mistakes, but I am both new to this forum and new to keeping aquatic clawed frogs; I'm more of a poison dart frog guy myself.
Yesterday I bought a pair of Hymenochirus curtipes from a store that was keeping them in tiny "Eco-aquariums", which were less than one gallon, had a gravel substrate, and one plastic plant.
They were being kept in pairs, and I bought two of them. I brought them home and decided to keep them in the tiny aquarium until a bigger aquarium was complete.
This morning I found one of them bloated, floating on its back, and unresponsive. I figured it was dead until it started moving around.
A few hours later, it was laying in the corner, completely unmoving and has not moved for over 10 hours. I am now more or less certain it was dead.
I did a bit of investigation and found that it seems to have some form of bloat.
I pulled the surviving frog and put it in a bowl with clean spring water, the way I would treat a small fish. The dead frog is still in the tiny aquarium.
I have a few questions. Did this frog have bloat? Is it contagious? Should I keep the surviving frog isolated? Is it fine in its current QT, or should I move it?
What do I do here?
Here are some images, if they help:
The frog yesterday:
The dead frog:
The survivor in the bowl which I am using as a temporary QT:
P.S.
Once again, I apologize for any stupid mistakes I may have made. Maybe I was so excited to start collecting ADFs that I didn't notice that the frog or frogs weren't healthy.
If i'm an idiot, don't criticize me, just tell me if I'm doing anything wrong.
It looks like the poor frog was bloated when you bought her, probably from bad water conditions in the store. However, I believe there are some circumstances in which bloat can be contagious. Your remaining frog looks okay, but I would isolate it from other aquatic life for a week or two.
I would do a 25% water change on the new frog weekly, perhaps more if you aren't using a filter. It should be in at least 1 gallon temporarily and then a bit larger for a permanent home. Since you only have the one remaining frog you might as well set it up in the tank you were going to use. Just make sure to thoroughly clean it first (no soap of course).
I'm sorry that your first venture with clawed frogs didn't work out too well. Best of luck with the remaining frog and it's future friend(s).
Thanks for the advice. The one survivor seems to be doing allright. He's responsive and moving around. How often should I feed him (I have those little pellets called 'frog bites')?
**UPDATE**
Just completed the new aquarium. Keeping the surviving frog isolated until about this time next week.
I've added a small group of clawed frogs to the aquarium and am preparing to release them.
The one frog has eaten and is still moving around. We'll just see how he does.
The clawed frogs and the dwarf cannot co-habitate. In time the claweds will make a meal out of the dwarf.
You can keep both species, but in completely different tanks and use different cleaning tools and nets. This is to reduce the risk of spreading disease from one species to the other. All new frogs should be quarantined for a minimum of 30 days before any interaction with current frogs.
72 Gallon Bow - ACF and GF tank.
26 Gallon Bow - ACF tank.
20 Gallon Long - ACF tank.
"If there were an invisible cat in that chair, the chair would look empty. But the chair does look empty; therefore there is an invisible cat in it." C.S. Lewis, Four Loves, 1958
Technically ADFs are clawed frogs because they're xenopine pipids. They're all H. curtipes.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)