Reptomin Issues

[rodsboys]

Hi,

I use earthworms as a staple for my ACFs. They are usually fed twice a week (all are adult, so I sometimes skip a week when I´m on vacation). The females eat about everything, including pellets; the male is more picky and constantly refuses to take them. As long as it isn´t a problem for you to feed them live food, your frogs will be fine without pellets. While Reptomin pellets seem to provide about everything an ACF needs, it´s no must If you still want your frogs to to eat Reptomin, I would recommend fasting them for about a week and then feed nothing but the pellets until they reliably accept them. As long as they get more appealing food, they probably won´t go crazy about pellets. Possible leftovers should be removed after about an hour.

Agreed, earthworms are sufficient as a staple diet. In fact a lot of zoos and exhibits feed them exclusively with frogs that are over 20 years old. As far as pellets go, Reptomin is not the be all end all food either. In fact there are some ingredients I do not care for. There are a lot of better foods on the market. Reptomin is very convenient though as most stores selling pet food carry it.

[mpmistr]

I agree. Reptomin is actually a low quality pellet though ACF seem to do OK on it. Nightcrawlers with reptomin as a backup is how I feed my frogs now, I mix the reptomin in with frozen fish food I have laying around like daphnia or mysis to make the reptomin more nutricious though (thaw the frozen food, mix with reptomin, roll it into a ball and hand feed it -- messy). Once every few weeks I'll toss some crickets in there and they go crazy trying to hunt them. I'd say my ACF are on a 80% canadian nightcrawler diet now.

I tried tilapia a few times, the frogs really seemed to like it. I worry about it fouling the tank up though so I don't feed it very often. I wish you could get some aquatic crustaceans/insects as feeders, like freshwater gammarus, does not seem like there are many if any in the trade. I tried to find some scuds in the ponds around here and I was probably tresspassing and what I scooped up never contained any lol..

That aside, my male ACF is still not full grown (maybe 2 inches nose to vent) and he will eat reptomin but I usually just toss a nightcrawler in his tank every other day, he's only 2 inches but he's downing full grown canadian nightcrawlers like a champ. I think it's easier to feed worms, drop it in and they eat it immediately, they come up to your hands and take it from you, no mess no pellets to clean up. I find that ACF don't really find reptomin that well. I try to hand feed it, if you drop it in, they miss half of it and you have to clean it up.

It's always best to strive to leave zero leftover food in your tank.