Care Sheet: African Dwarf Frog

[Sandy Bear]

Jen, they are your frogs, you can feed and decorate however you want, but the ingredients that they use in those pellets are complete garbage. I am not a fan of premade pet foods, and there are so many better alternatives out there.

I won't use sand substrate with my frogs, they could accidentally eat it, but I'm more concerned with it trapping waste or uneaten food. This causes a build up of bacteria, which can be harmful to the frogs. I have met far too many people that own either frogs or fish, and they don't own an aquarium vacuum/python. The ones that do, don't know how to use it properly, and will change the water, but not clean their substrate, or they will wait until the water has evaporated before they will top up the tank.
The worst I've ever seen was a 75 gallon tank that I bought off of Craig's List, the tank came with Piranhas. Every bucket of water I took out of that tank was black, because I was cleaning the gravel with my aquarium vacuum while I emptied the tank.

[Bombina Bob]

great care sheet sandy, do i have to worry if i feed dried bloodworms?
ive heard theories that feeding these can cause bloating in ADFs.

[Sandy Bear]

I've been told that the freeze drying process removes all the nutrition out of the blood worms, and that the frogs will starve to death if fed those as a staple diet.
I don't really see the harm in using them as a treat though. The freeze dried bloodworms cost about the same as the frozen stuff, so I don't see the point in buying the freeze dried kind.

I have also read posts on forums about bloodworms causing frogs to get sick, I can't remember if it was bloat, but that sounds like one of the issues I've read about. Variety is always best though, and if your pet shop doesn't carry something, ask them about ordering it in, if they won't then look elsewhere, there are lots of places that will ship out feeders

[Mentat]

Hi Sandy! From another thread Michael wrote:

...
Also, "does your tank have a proper lid to prevent escape" is another good once. Many frogs are lost due to escape and dehydration....

So was wondering, if we could add a note about lid requirement to the section discussing enclosure size. Thank you !

[Sandy Bear]

I can't edit the above care sheet, otherwise I would. There is apparently only a 3 hour window to fix posts.

Should I repost it on this thread with the additional information?

[XDragonFrogX]

What about salmon pellets? I know a newt/salamander breeder feeds those to newts and sals, so I was just curious about feeding them to ADF's

[Sandy Bear]

I am not sure which brand of pellets that you are referring to, but convenience pet foods are chalked full of inappropriate ingredients, dyes and fillers.

Salmon pellets sound like a fish food to me, and that is on my list of foods not to feed amphibians.
Fish is also not the best choice in protein as far as amphibians go.

There are so many better, more natural healthy options that you can be feeding your pet. Your pet and your pet's health will thank you for feeding them food that is actually good for them. This care sheet has a list of "good foods", why not pick some things off of that list to offer.

There is unfortunately a lot of people that choose to feed their pets lower quality foods, doesn't mean you have to. Our pets are ultimately the ones that suffer from feeding cheap convenience foods. Read the lables in them sometime, and keep in mind that convenience pets foods are largely made up of "not for human consumption" grade ingredients. I know that I don't want my animals to be eating that.