Care Sheet: African Dwarf Frog

[Sandy Bear]

Jevon, no one food item should ever be fed to any pet. A varied diet is essential to all creatures. I posted a food list with the care sheet, I will repost it here for you to take a look at. Any food item being offered should be live or frozen/thawed. A good place to start would be bloodworms, Grindal/White worms and very small earthworms.

Good foods to feed are:

• Live Earth Worms: Red Wrigglers, European Night Crawlers, African Night Crawlers
• Live Crickets, less than 1/4" long
• Live Feeder Roach Nymphs (Dubia, Discoid, Red Runners, Lobster, etc...)
• Live or Frozen/Thawed Bloodworms
• Live or Frozen/Thawed Brine Shrimp
• Live Grindal Worms or White Worms
• Live Black Worms
• Frozen/Thawed Glassworms
• Flightless Fruit Flies, D.hydei (1/8") or D.melanogaster (1/16")
• Small Butterworms
• Small Waxworms

[Misti]

Hi Sandy, thank you so much for this write up! I have been learning the hard way about the care of the ADF. I just recently lost one I have had just over a year now. The partner I had in the tank with her is still fine. Although he has this odd non colored mole type thing on his lower snout I guess you can call it. he seems fine, eats and runs around the tank. I did learn real quick to stop feeding the pellets to them. They kept bloating and dying. I have been feeding them a varied diet of frozen critters. I am interested to know more details on feeding them earthworms. I am going to be setting up a worm bin for gardening and would like to know how I would go about giving them some on occasion. I realize this is off topic some but I have Cory Cats at home and they also eat those pellet things. I would love to get them off of those as well. any suggestions for them? or is there somewhere you can refer me?

[Sandy Bear]

Culturing worms is easy to do, I keep four species, Red Wrigglers, European Nightcrawlers, African Nightcrawlers, and Grindal Worms. I would recommend getting the Grindal Worms and Red Wrigglers. Both are very easy to culture.

For my Grindal Worms, I keep them in 16 or 32 oz deli cups, I have a few holes poked in the lid with a pin. I put about half of the deli cup with damp Coco Fiber. I feed them Oatmeal, but you can feed them lots of other things too. I put the food on top of the coco fiber, and once all the food is gone, then I add some more.
Check local fish clubs, you might be able to find someone that can get you a starter colony. You might also be abel to find them from fish breeders, pet shops, or feeder breeders.
Grindal worms are a type of White Worm. I recommend getting the Grindals over the White Worms, unless you have a wine cellar or cold storage you can keep them in. White Worms like to be kept below average room temperature, around 15C, Grindal Worms are much more tolerant of room temperature than White Worms are. The Grindals are smaller though than the White Worms are. Care for both would be the same though, aside from the temperature difference.

The Red Wrigglers, I keep mine in big rubbermaid tubs, and I have some holes drilled in the lid of the tub. The bedding is a "carbon" source, which can be moistened shredded paper, cardborad, newspapers, etc....
The food is a "nitrogen" source, so fruits & veggie scraps, pasta/grains/bread, etc.... Basically you do not want to feed them anything with Meat, Dairy, Salt or anything that is a "sauce/dressing". Make sure you bury the food, otherwise you will get fruit flies. You also want to make sure you put crushed up egg shells in your bins, because that will help neutralize any of the acids in the food which can burn the worms. Worms have delicate skin, just like frogs do.
Red Wrigglers are a type of clean up crew, so basically, the more rotten the food is, the better. Worms have no teeth, so they wait for the food to rot before they eat it.
Check local gardening clubs, you can probably get a starter colony of them from someone. Also check for Vermicomposting breeders/clubs, feeder breeders, etc....
I do not recommend using the worms out of your yard, I've tried to start tubs with them a few times, and they crashed everytime.
To feed your frogs and cory cats, you would pick out the smallest of these worms, or you can probably cut them up too, but that can be more work.

[Misti]

wow! thank you Sandy for sharing this information! I greatly appreciate it.