Need some African Clawed Frog Advice..

[mpmistr]

Maybe I am being paranoid but I am noticing something amiss with one of my ACF.. he is a darker skinned ACF but around his nostrils there appears to be a slight discoloration, it's a little more 'grey' around there.. also I notice his appetite is not as hearty as my other (albeit a bit larger) ACF.

I am feeding my ACF reptomin still and my Albino ACF will eat forever pretty much but my other ACF will eat 2 mini-pellets and will refuse anything past that.. which I think is unusual since they are generally not fussy eaters..

The last and most disturbing thing I've noticed is that his stool was white.. it looked normal but my other ACF seems to poop black feces.. white stool is making me think he may have a parasite? I've only fed my ACF reptomin and occasionally (as in once a week..) frozen Mysis and at one time frozen Blood Worms (but I stopped with frozen blood worms since everyone says they're bad news).

I did make the mistake, in my opinion of feeding live black worms once from a pet shop but I did not want to risk parasites so I threw them away, and that was before I got the darker ACF so he shouldn't be effected by that..



Other than that he seems very normal and fairly active. I included a picture, and yes they're froglets and not doing the nasty lol..

Oh also I had my water tested and I had 0 Ammonia .. but he didn't have a way to test Nitrites, and I had some Nitrates but he didn't specify how many. He said the water was good and would give me a money back guarantee on any fish I picked up if I chose to so I am assuming the water is OK.. and again my other ACF is very active and healthy so I dunno.. :/

[SwimminSteve]

It's difficult to tell from the pic, but the gray area could be the frog's pinneal organ. It's a "third eye" sort of, they are able to sense light and shadows with it. I only have one frog that this is noticeable on, my x. muelleri. Could you get us a better pick? It could also be shedding skin or an infection from bumping his face on something abrasive. I don't really know about white poop, that is strange. I would invest in a water test kit. I was reluctant to buy one at first, but now I love the thing. API makes a real nice one at a great price. It's about 50% cheaper online: Amazon.com: API FRESHWATER MASTER TEST KIT: Pet Supplies .
Does your frog seem thin?

[mpmistr]

It's difficult to tell from the pic, but the gray area could be the frog's pinneal organ. It's a "third eye" sort of, they are able to sense light and shadows with it. I only have one frog that this is noticeable on, my x. muelleri. Could you get us a better pick? It could also be shedding skin or an infection from bumping his face on something abrasive. I don't really know about white poop, that is strange. I would invest in a water test kit. I was reluctant to buy one at first, but now I love the thing. API makes a real nice one at a great price. It's about 50% cheaper online: Amazon.com: API FRESHWATER MASTER TEST KIT: Pet Supplies .
Does your frog seem thin?

I'll pick up a water test kit ASAP. I know my ammonia was zero my nitrates were good but my LFS didn't have the liquid for nitrites but he assumed they were zero since my nitrates were pretty decent. I do weekly 25% water changes and I run two filters on my 20g aquarium a 30g filter and a 20g filter, it's also way under stocked as the frogs are very small. I would be very surprised if it were the water, I have six ghost shrimp in that tank along with a snail, considering how fragile ghost shrimp are I'd be surprised if it were water.

Now that I think of it I did have some rather coarse rocks in my aquarium, which I've since removed because I saw now 'crash prone' the frogs are..

He is seriously the most camera shy frog I've ever seen. I tried to get a better pic.. did my best but I didn't want to completely stress him further. His nose area skin just looks a little grey and like it's going to peel, he otherwise looks healthy and he's not lethargic at all though he does hide a lot, but I noticed when my other ACF was smaller he was fond of hiding too and has gotten bolder as he's gotten bigger so I don't know.

The fact he will not eat anything past 2 reptomin mini pellets and had white stool has me worried. My other ACF is 100% active, hungry, and healthy. I keep my tank at 70F so I don't think it's a temperature thing. When I present him frozen Mysis he seems to perk up a bit as far as hunger goes, maybe he is bored of reptomin? LOL

[SwimminSteve]

I'd bet that he scraped his nose on something. It's happened to one of my frogs in the past. She healed up fine without treatment. I can still see a bit of a scar where the injury was, but she's fine. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't start to look fuzzy or red/irritated. As far as appetite, I wouldn't worry too too much. Some frogs are voracious, some less so. You're right, he probably isn't a huge fan of reptomin. They can get bored of a boring diet. I feed a lot of frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms. I know there are very mixed opinions, but my frogs have been very healthy and happy for years. Hand-feeding the bloodworms/brine shrimp is so much fun too. They go nuts!
Your frog is probably having trouble getting his food with those rocks. Everything will fall through the cracks. I recommend sand or bare bottom. I have a tank of each and they're easy to maintain with a turkey baster and gravel vac.
Frozen foods now and then aren't going to harm your frog. Buy good quality (hikari) and don't overfeed (any food for that matter) and you should be fine. Remember that you can cut the cubes for smaller portions. I just hold the frozen cube in the water long enough for the worms on the outside to start to thaw and float free. Then I hold it up to my frogs face and hold on while they attack and rip at the cube. They have become so "friendly" from this and will even go after my hand while I clean the tank. I'm able to regulate everyone's portions this way and make sure that minimal food is wasted to prevent a big mess. I think it counts for playtime enrichment too. I can't emphasize enough how much they love it. lol

[mpmistr]

I'd bet that he scraped his nose on something. It's happened to one of my frogs in the past. She healed up fine without treatment. I can still see a bit of a scar where the injury was, but she's fine. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't start to look fuzzy or red/irritated. As far as appetite, I wouldn't worry too too much. Some frogs are voracious, some less so. You're right, he probably isn't a huge fan of reptomin. They can get bored of a boring diet. I feed a lot of frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms. I know there are very mixed opinions, but my frogs have been very healthy and happy for years. Hand-feeding the bloodworms/brine shrimp is so much fun too. They go nuts!
Your frog is probably having trouble getting his food with those rocks. Everything will fall through the cracks. I recommend sand or bare bottom. I have a tank of each and they're easy to maintain with a turkey baster and gravel vac.
Frozen foods now and then aren't going to harm your frog. Buy good quality (hikari) and don't overfeed (any food for that matter) and you should be fine. Remember that you can cut the cubes for smaller portions. I just hold the frozen cube in the water long enough for the worms on the outside to start to thaw and float free. Then I hold it up to my frogs face and hold on while they attack and rip at the cube. They have become so "friendly" from this and will even go after my hand while I clean the tank. I'm able to regulate everyone's portions this way and make sure that minimal food is wasted to prevent a big mess. I think it counts for playtime enrichment too. I can't emphasize enough how much they love it. lol

I was going to replace the pebbles with pool filter sand this weekend. I would go bare bottom but I have a lot of plants in my aquarium and the frogs seem to enjoy them, I think sand is the next best thing to no substrate. I have used pool filter sand in my 55g and it looks pretty nice and the general consensus is it's ACF safe (very fine and smooth silica).

I use the same method for feeding my frogs with frozen food. Whatever they miss I scoop up with a turkey baster and try to make sure it doesn't get wasted. They are definitely more 'aware' of frozen blood worms and shrimp, they go pretty crazy.. poor little guy though just doesn't go as 'crazy' as he used to for food so I'm a little worried still. I'm breeding guppies right now as well for live food.. I've been placing some fry in the tank with my frogs.. so far they've ignored them.. seen the albino lunge at them a few times but his aim is off.. the fry so far are all alive lol..

I have a kind of unusual method with feeding my frogs reptomin, I have some wooden skewers, I soak the reptomin a bit and just stick the reptomin on t he end of the skewer and put the reptomin in front my frogs, my albino (which has endless hunger) seems to enjoy this method since he has now taken to just attacking the skewer the second he sees it whether it has food or not on it.. the little guy with the nose issue, at first he was pretty voracious himself but he just doesn't seem as hungry any more, he will gobble up two pellets and then any thing further he just runs away from it or ignore it, kind of weird. Maybe hitting his nose messed up his sense of locating food? Then again my albino went through a phase of not eating either and he's a beast now when it come to food and he's grow insanely fast (i think he might be a she)..

How long does it take to heal on average? I hope he returns to normal soon. He seems to hide more than my other frog, he's seems fond of jamming himself behind the filter intake on my tank a lot.. ugh.. I'm hoping he gets a bit more outgoing.

[SwimminSteve]

It will probably heal up in a week or so if it doesn't get infected. It will start to look better when the skin sheds off.
I'd worry that the point on the skewer could stab the frog when he lunges for the food. You know how excited they can get. This could have caused the injury as well, they don't always have the best aim. I would try either getting some dull plastic forceps or just doing it with your hand. Yeah your hand will get wet, but it's easier this way. It may take them a feeding or two to stop freaking out when you put your hand in there, but they'll figure out that hand=food pretty fast. Just make sure that you don't have any lotions or soap residue on your hands when you feed them.

He will definitely be more outgoing when he's bigger. Most froglets are just afraid of the world. Can't blame them either lol. Hand-feeding him will get him friendlier too.

[mpmistr]

I cut the tip off the skewers so they're not too sharp lol.. but yeah some very long plastic tweezers or forceps would work better, been trying to find some around here no luck so far.

BTW I ran a little experiment I tossed a small piece frozen blood worms into the aquarium and turned on the moonlights.. both frogs are scouring the bottom of the tank like mad for food and seem eager.. I think my frog has reptomin burn out..

[FrogLover2009]

Also try these for reference:

Can I keep other aquatic life with my ACF?


African Clawed Frog Housing and Feeding


African Clawed Frog Disease and Injury


Disease & Illness

[Chunky Monkey]

What I do if I was gonna feed them floating food is I would get a wooden rod and place it near their head then raise it a bit so they can see it and if they still don't respond I shake it to get their attention. Then I raise the rod to the surface near the food. Sometimes I might gently touch them with the rod to get their attention if needed.