Originally Posted by
SwimminSteve
Somehow I feel like sharing my own ACF mishaps might make you feel better. I've owned these guys for around 7 years now. I have 6 frogs at the moment. Sure they are all happy and healthy now, but I promise you that no one is perfect and unfortunately there is a lot of room for error in keeping these guys. My first incident happened just a few days after I moved my frogs into a big new tank. There was a 3/4" gap in the back between the lid and the background of the tank. Sure enough, I come down one morning to find that TWO frogs were missing from the tank. My cat happily pointed out the large female frog on the floor. Luckily she wasn't very dry and recovered quickly. However, I couldn't find the little male that was missing. I tore my house apart, literally looking everywhere at least 3 times. Eventually I gave up because I knew that he wouldn't have made it long before he dried up anyway. I felt sick to my stomach for days. The guilt! I felt awful for that guy, thinking he had suffered a terrible, slow death. Well let me tell you, I walk into the house one day to find my cat playing with this "thing" on the floor. Upon further investigation I see that it was my poor froggies' leg!! After the initial horror of realizing that he had been dead all along-- apparently eaten by the cat, I actually felt a little relieved at knowing that he hadn't died slowly from dessication. I promptly taped up the gap in the lid to ensure this never happened again.
Unfortunately that wasn't my only incident. Luckily at the time I had a roommate that had to be up very early for work. At 5am one morning she woke me up to tell me that one of my frogs was in the kitchen. I race downstairs and low and behold, my 2 gorgeous reticulated albinos were missing. I found one in the kitchen. Luckily she had hopped onto a plastic bag and was making a lot of noise squirming around!! This probably saved her life. I searched for a few hours for her brother, but no luck. Devastated I sat down and tried to take my mind off it. That's when I saw him: smiling at me from inside the filter!!! The little bugger had jumped up the "waterfall" part of my HOB filter and ended up sitting in the well of it. He looked totally content sitting it there too.
Needless to say, I ended up selling that tank in favor of one that could be 110% escape-proof. I have a heavy lid and I seal any questionable areas (like the filter) with packing tape. I've been escape free for over a year now. The moral of the story is that these little frogs are suicidal maniacs. Ok just kidding, but really, you have to take every precaution and then some. We all make mistakes in the beginning. I'm so sorry about Alvin, but you don't have to give up. I know that you can take great care of your new guy!
Guest 
Re: New addition plus near heart attack
