Food Variety

[Katie779]

I've had my ACFs for a little over a year now (someone on craigslist was giving away tadpoles and I raised them up), and I'd like to give them more variety in their diet.
Is there a list of safe foods to feed, or anything anyone would recommend. I'm currently offering them frog and tortoise pellets, blood worms, earth worms and occasionally phoenix worms.
Are there any other staple foods? Are guppies a good staple?

Thanks!!



Oh yeah, I also don't use any substrate at the moment, is that a problem, or is it more of an aesthetics kind of thing? I had been using small pebbles but 1) they got to big and could possibly ingest them and 2) the didn't seem to be able to find their food well on the rocks so I had to keep a plate in with them and drop the food on that.

[mpmistr]

Sounds like you have good variety so far. I would avoid bugs with hard to digest carapaces like Phoenix Worms, but if they're a rare treat I doubt there's any real harm there.

You could treat them with crickets, though their calcium : phosphorus ratio is very poor. I let my frogs eat about 3-4 crickets each every month. It's very exciting because I drop the crickets in and the crickets struggle on the surface of the water, the frogs become very excited and the hunt begins. Usually they can mop up ~12 crickets in less than two minutes.

Guppies are fine so long as they're disease and parasite free. The sad thing about guppies is that they're pretty disease and parasite prone and tend to randomly die often, so if you have to choose between fancy and regular guppies go with the regular guppies, they're genetically speaking, superior. The fancy type guppies are just insanely over-bred and genetically prone to tons of problems. As a staple I think any fish would be rather poor, they only snag fish in the wild on a rare occasion, so again, these are treats.

Krill (possible thiamese risk), Mysis Shrimp (these are rather tiny for adults, go with PE brand as they are larger specimens) are also a good treat. Pre-cooked grocery store (non seasoned) shrimp and raw bits of Tilapia also good treat options. If you can get a hold of live blackworm cultures, these are also good food for them, though they do contain detritus eating leeches which feed off the blackworms. Your ACF will consume both blackworm and leech (they are no harm to frogs or fish I have read).

If you read my other post I am currently looking into culturing 'Scuds' which are small shrimp like crustaceans, they seem like an exciting addition to clawed frog diets but I cannot seem to find anyone selling captive bred Scuds (yet).

If you wanted actual STAPLES. Silkworms are commonly sold but they're hard to culture but are very nutritious. I would wager Dubia Roaches would be awesome for Clawed Frogs, especially freshly molted ones. I would personally go that route, I would love to culture these roaches myself but my girlfriend has pretty much informed me this isn't going to happen (she thinks they're like cockroaches and will infest our home..).

As far as a bare bottom tank? It's really the best option for these frogs. Makes clean up insanely simple. I prefer sand but that's just for my own aesthetic pleasure, the frogs simply do not seem to care either way. No substrate makes it easier to feed them sinking foods like blood worms and mysis shrimp.

[Katie779]

Thank you! I actually breed my own dubia roaches and have never thought (I dont know why!) of feeding them to my ACFs also. I'm not the skittish type girl haha
Those were all good suggestions, and I'm glad a bare bottom is actually best. I was worried they were missing out on something with how I keep them, but they seemed to eat better after I removed the rocks and it is MUCH easier to clean.

Thanks again!

[jelkins]

Mine are also partial to small crayfish.