more frog feeding questions

[Geoff]

1. I've read it's bad to feed them just bloodworms with tweezers but when I put pellets in they don't touch them. The pellets are really small so I'm not sure they can find them. Is reptomin larger so that perhaps they can find them.

Personally, I would never consider feeding pelleted or other dry foods to Hymenochirus frogs and never Reptomin. Some people may do it but I'm not convinced that it's a realistic long-term feeding regime. The best food for these frogs is live aquatic animals such as bloodworm, tubifex worms, Daphnia, Artemia and so on. Failing that, the same animals frozen (not freeze-dried). It's true that a lot of people advise against bloodworms but I've never experienced any problems with them.

2. How many bloodworms should a frog eat at one time?, I feed them every other day. My smaller one eats a few and then sometimes falls backwards and lays on his back. He never does that that I see except after eating the worms. I assume he can flip himself back over but it scares me so I always give him a push with the tweezers. He loves the worms so maybe he's getting too many at one time and it's making him heavy?

Ideally, young frogs should always have access to food. That's one of the advantages of using live foods because you can put plenty in the tank and they won't pollute the water the same way that pellets or dead animals will. Some Hymenochirus frogs do occasionally fall on their backs and stay there for a long time for no apparent reason. It's a bit disturbing to observe but nothing to be worried about. It's just weird.

3. How long can I keep frozen bloodworms in the refridgerator after thawing them out? The little squares have a lot in there and I only have 2 frogs so if I get a new one out every time I would waste a lot so I try to use it a few times before throwing out the rest but I don't want to make my froggies sick with bad food.

Are you using frozen cubes? If you are, the best thing to do is get a cube and a small, sharp kitchen knife then just slice a portion of the size you want off the cube in order to avoid thawing the whole cube out and wasting most of it.

4. Has anyone fed their frogs daphnia? I'm wondering if they will be able to find them. Thinking of culturing some that I can use in a couple tanks as I want to get some bumblebee gobys and I hear they really don't like to eat things that aren't moving.

Yes, they'll eat Daphnia without difficulty.

The answers above are based on my own experience of keeping, breeding and rearing Hymenochirus frogs over 24 years.

[mpmistr]

Could try live black worms too. However when I fed my Xenopus live black worms I wound up with leeches in my aquarium... (which the frogs ate as well lol).

[musiclvr272]

Thank You!

I do use frozen cubes currently. I tried cutting them into pieces but I ended up with little pieces of bloodworms then. Those are hard to feed with tweezers and my frogs don't seem able to find food on thier own.

I think I will definitely look into the daphnia, just gotta get myself a starter culture. It should be fun to watch them try to catch live food

[musiclvr272]

Will they stop eating when they are full if they have live food floating around. I can see that they have bulgy bellies after 3-4 worms but they still beg for more, I just won't give it to them after that.