Need some African Clawed Frog Advice..

[mpmistr]

Before heading off to work and after not feeding my frog yesterday I decided to give pellets another try. I softened some reptomin pellets in a plastic cup with some of my tanks water in it and then used a skewer to dangle it in front of my frogs mouth. He eventually took a bite of it and ate about half a pellet but he seemed to lose interest after that.. I guess I will try again after work and see if I can try to get him to eat again...

[SailAwayAK]

These frogs are meat eaters. The people I got my first frogs from kept 2 of them in a 10 gallon tank and fed them anything that was around including Reptomin sticks. Just like humans they will eat anything if they are hungry enough. They are massive garbage hogs and live on all kinds of nasty in the wild. That being said, these frogs can eat a pretty varied diet.

I keep worm compost bin. I have my own worms there that I can feed to my frogs. However you will need to "poop" or de poop the worms or the dirt sullies the tank. Gross I know but it can make a difference and add nitrates and such you don't want in your tank. The fun thing is you can train them to come up and take it right from your hands. My first graders love that!

I never do freeze dried unless it has soaked for awhile. Same goes for the dried food pellets. I do use frozen blood worms most often. I found beef heart and brine shrimp make a mess of the tank and filters. And I HATE that.

I don't do feeder fish right from the stores because I never know what bugs they have. I did quarantine a bunch of guppies and let those breed one year but it's a hassle. So back to frozen blood worms I went.

Personally I think the whole thing behind the HBH frog and tadpole stuff is nutty. Just my opinion. When the tads are little it might make some sense to crush them and use them but over all, these critters do just fine on what they like best. Meat.

[mpmistr]

I've had a lot of luck feeding my frogs since I posted this. I came up with a pretty decent method of feeding them. Right now I'm mostly feeding reptomin with the occasional treat of frozen mysis shrimp, which they go pretty crazy for.

Since my frogs are little and it never occurs to them to look 'up' for food (and the water is about a foot deep in my aquarium, it's a 20g tall unfortunately) I soak the reptomin a little bit and then stick them to a wooden skewer and then dip it into the water, (keeps me from having to get my hands in the tank a lot) they go into froggy-attack mode and bite it right off the skewer.. I like this method cause it doesn't make much waste and I can control exactly how much they eat (I feed them about 3 small pellets a day since they're froglets). I do the mysis as a treat but like you said, that stuff clouds the water bad and it's messy.

I stopped with the blood worms, too many horror stories I guess. I was just gonna feed them to my fish instead.. which is too bad cause they sure do go crazy for them!

I actually do have several guppies in my 55 gallon (for breeding eventually), I had not had a chance to really scoop up fry and feed them to the frogs yet, but I would like to do that at some point for treats. Worms sound like a good idea too though! I would assume that earthworms from a bait shop would be good eatin's for these guys? I'd have to cut them up obviously, but I wouldn't mind doing it, since they'd probably gobble them up.

These frogs are meat eaters. The people I got my first frogs from kept 2 of them in a 10 gallon tank and fed them anything that was around including Reptomin sticks. Just like humans they will eat anything if they are hungry enough. They are massive garbage hogs and live on all kinds of nasty in the wild. That being said, these frogs can eat a pretty varied diet.

I keep worm compost bin. I have my own worms there that I can feed to my frogs. However you will need to "poop" or de poop the worms or the dirt sullies the tank. Gross I know but it can make a difference and add nitrates and such you don't want in your tank. The fun thing is you can train them to come up and take it right from your hands. My first graders love that!

I never do freeze dried unless it has soaked for awhile. Same goes for the dried food pellets. I do use frozen blood worms most often. I found beef heart and brine shrimp make a mess of the tank and filters. And I HATE that.

I don't do feeder fish right from the stores because I never know what bugs they have. I did quarantine a bunch of guppies and let those breed one year but it's a hassle. So back to frozen blood worms I went.

Personally I think the whole thing behind the HBH frog and tadpole stuff is nutty. Just my opinion. When the tads are little it might make some sense to crush them and use them but over all, these critters do just fine on what they like best. Meat.

[SailAwayAK]

Once full grown you can use night crawlers. I have trained the frogs to come right up to the top of the tank to get them. Like other animals simple things can teach them to come up top. I tap the top of the tank before each feeding. Over time the frogs will get the idea to come up.

My frogs prefer the worms live. They didn't respond as well or would reject the full worms if they were cut in half. I still find that strange. I kept the bait night crawlers in the fridge and each full grown frog got one every three days or so. If I did it more frequently they didn't seem hungry and wouldn't come to a feeding. With those rear claws, if the worms were to large they would shred the worms to their manageable size. The frogs seemed to stay fat and happy so I was happy. It was always interesting to me to see those worms wiggle around in the bellies of the frogs.

Compost worms are different than other worms. A bit smaller. They do a double duty for me when I feed those in composting all my kitchen scraps and then using to feed the frogs. I would say do some reading on worm keeping if you are interested in that. It can be done pretty easily in a small space with just a few plastic containers. I use two rubbermaid totes right now.

When I had guppies in the tank I floated water sprite in the top of the tank. The baby guppies had a place to hide and, once larger, were a food source. The water sprite was a nice addition and place for the frogs to hide on the surface but it also blocked some of the light shielding the frogs.

I have a 29 tall tank. Previously I had a 17 tall. I have never had an issue for the frogs swimming to the top to get air. I'm not sure what that whole debate is about. I can find no evidence anywhere that says a tall tank is an issue. Mt frogs still get a great amount of water to swim in and seem happy. It does make it a pain to decorate. lol.

oooh this year I did do some pinkies. Some tiny baby mice. Yup. That was interesting! I got some pretty small ones and teased the frogs to the top of the tank. They sucked those down pretty quick. I only did it once. It was a little to traumatic to hear those babies squeaking and then one came up and started swimming around the top of the tank to get away calling out. Nope never again will I do that one. Interesting but gives me shivers.

In my experience the only time I have dealt with bloat is when it comes to over feeding. That can happen with any food source not just blood worms. Remembering we are care takers to confined creatures is the key to all of this. We make the situation a good as can be and that includes feeding a varied diet. I rescued my frogs from teachers who can't be bothered anymore to keep their frogs. I have a huge soap box about that. I had to do my homework and previously had some great sites and forums help me out in some tough beginnings. Now I am happy to share what I have learned.

[mpmistr]

Once full grown you can use night crawlers. I have trained the frogs to come right up to the top of the tank to get them. Like other animals simple things can teach them to come up top. I tap the top of the tank before each feeding. Over time the frogs will get the idea to come up.

That's awesome I am gonna try do that as well. I'd like to get my guys going up for that reptomin eventually!

My frogs prefer the worms live. They didn't respond as well or would reject the full worms if they were cut in half. I still find that strange. I kept the bait night crawlers in the fridge and each full grown frog got one every three days or so. If I did it more frequently they didn't seem hungry and wouldn't come to a feeding. With those rear claws, if the worms were to large they would shred the worms to their manageable size. The frogs seemed to stay fat and happy so I was happy. It was always interesting to me to see those worms wiggle around in the bellies of the frogs.

Compost worms are different than other worms. A bit smaller. They do a double duty for me when I feed those in composting all my kitchen scraps and then using to feed the frogs. I would say do some reading on worm keeping if you are interested in that. It can be done pretty easily in a small space with just a few plastic containers. I use two rubbermaid totes right now.

I was thinking about picking up some red wrigglers (red worms?) from the bait store around here, I imagine they'd be small enough for froglets? Could just cut them in half.

When I had guppies in the tank I floated water sprite in the top of the tank. The baby guppies had a place to hide and, once larger, were a food source. The water sprite was a nice addition and place for the frogs to hide on the surface but it also blocked some of the light shielding the frogs.

Breeding my own guppies for food sounds interesting, I'm really going to give it a shot and see if it becomes a hassle or not..

I have a 29 tall tank. Previously I had a 17 tall. I have never had an issue for the frogs swimming to the top to get air. I'm not sure what that whole debate is about. I can find no evidence anywhere that says a tall tank is an issue. Mt frogs still get a great amount of water to swim in and seem happy. It does make it a pain to decorate. lol.

I have my water about 13 inches deep and honestly they can go from the bottom to the surface in half a second (sometimes mine gently will swim up and take their times, other times if you blink you miss it). I have no idea why people say that either, ACF are seemingly very powerful swimmers. I think that people confuse ADF with ACF as far as water depth is concerned, ADF I can see being likely to drown in deeper water..

oooh this year I did do some pinkies. Some tiny baby mice. Yup. That was interesting! I got some pretty small ones and teased the frogs to the top of the tank. They sucked those down pretty quick. I only did it once. It was a little to traumatic to hear those babies squeaking and then one came up and started swimming around the top of the tank to get away calling out. Nope never again will I do that one. Interesting but gives me shivers.

Can't do it. I'll stick with worms lol..

In my experience the only time I have dealt with bloat is when it comes to over feeding. That can happen with any food source not just blood worms. Remembering we are care takers to confined creatures is the key to all of this. We make the situation a good as can be and that includes feeding a varied diet. I rescued my frogs from teachers who can't be bothered anymore to keep their frogs. I have a huge soap box about that. I had to do my homework and previously had some great sites and forums help me out in some tough beginnings. Now I am happy to share what I have learned.

I have small reptomin pellets, I am feeding my froglets 3 pellets a day.. would you say that is excessive? When I feed mysis shrimp, I feel each half a cube (not that they find ALL of it and mysis is rather 'mushy'). It's hard to judge I guess since these guys will eat all day. When I see a little bulge in the stomach I usually figure that's enough food (I can actually see the reptomin in my albino, ew).

[SailAwayAK]

I had to chuckle when you said you could see the reptomin in your albino.

I think that how much you feed them is different for each frog and their development. I only have adults and it is all I have ever had. At full size they eat 3 or so red wigglers each. Or one or even two floating blood worm tablets. Usually one.

I would start with giving a smaller worm to your frogs and see how they do. Like I said, they will tear it down smaller if they can't handle it. Judge it by seeing how far they get with the bulge you would usually give them. Now the frogs come right to the top to find more if they aren't full. Of course they might do that anyhow the porkers!