African Dwarf Frog (Hymenochirus boettgeri)

Gezza

This was a great pet to keep. Once as I was cleaning it out, the frog jumped out of my hand and on to the floor. It jumped around which I didn't think it was able to do out of water. It also used to float and bloat as I called it, making itself bloated and just float in the water, many a time I thought it was dead and got the net ready, but it just hid away again. Ate bloodworm too. Great to keep but the albino frogs do grow quite big and can be abit of a handful.

frogmanjared

The easiest way to tell if you actually have a dwarf frog is that it will have claws on its front legs. The large, African clawed frog doesn't have claws on its front legs.

bfhslilred93

I don't know why but for some reason I can't keep these things alive for more than a few days. Any ideas why? They were in there own 2 gallon alone (I had 2) and died within a few days so i bought 2 more and put them in my 29 but they also died. My water is perfect and they got food to them in the form of sinking pellets so I don't have a clue.

Mark F.

Newbie - they might have died from turning up their noses at the sinking pellets you fed them. Some individuals of this species will take dry food, but most will only take live food, especially black worms. Their bigger cousins in the Xenopus genus are less finicky (and less gentle!).

columbia

I've had 2 frogs for the past 3 years in my planted 55 gallon aquarium. I hand feed them frozen bloodworms and shrimp from a turkey baster. They would starve if they had to find pellets or flake food.

cwinson85

Ive had one of these little guys for a couple months now. cool addition to any tank! he usually just eats up any blood worms or blk worms that make it down to him. Seems happy as could be with that!

stelci

Bloodworms are great, but my 3 frogs seem fine with flake and dried worms. We feed live worms to 2 of our tanks, but for some reason our frogs seem fine with the flake. Now granted, we feed 3 types of flake and algae wafers, and maybe some frozen worms here and there in the 38 gal., our frogs are fat and happy.

FuulieQ

I have a male-female pair of these little guys and they're just delightful! They've been with me for a little over two months now. The male sings his heart out every night. :) They just gave me a bunch of eggs two days ago that I'm trying to keep alive. Mine learned to eat HBH frog + Tadpole bites some number of weeks go, and they now get those along with their frozen bloodworms to help their diet. You just have to make sure you split up the soft pellets so that they're small enough for the frogs to swallow.

Elliot

Great little addition to any tank. Just watch out for the Chytrid Fungus. Here is a really good ADF site: http://aquafrog.webs.com

ValMM

I've had these before and they died pretty quickly. Turns out if you add salt to their water, it will kill them. I like putting salt in my fish water for illness prevention, so I don't buy them anymore.

Gilllessgirl

I had 1 female and 3 males in my 10g. They got along great with the platys, betta, ghost shrimp, and a cory. They liked to eat my platy's babies but didn't cause trouble otherwise. I fed mine betta pellets and shrimp pellets made for bottom feeders. They would also eat any large flakes they found. I raise fruit flies for my fire belly toads so I also put fly larvae in the tank for the fish and dwarf frogs. They now live in a vivarium and have decided to start a family. Their calls are strange but beautiful.

leeteekyung

lovely, great for aquascape! i have 2 in my tank, they are funny to watch, they can ask for food by going up when i come to the tank. to bad they have very bad eye sight, i have to feed them with my pinset. sometime they fight each other, one of them bite another's hand then the bitten one trying hard to pull his hand out :)) recommended pet.

kamikaziechameleon

Interesting, these guys don't get too big and are not functional predators(my ghost shrimp are not afraid of them) They are a low impact friendly addition to any planted tank. If you seed your substrate with black worms they will hung and forage for the worms its quite entertaining. These are a real great addition to any planted tank, just don't put with aggressive or nippy fish because the frog will loose that fight.

thefishman84

I don't know the clawed comment is correct. The easiest way to tell the difference is these guys have webbed front feet, where the clawed frogs (which get bigger and can eat some smaller fish and potentially the dwarf frogs) do not. Also, if its albino, it is likely to be a clawed frog.

FriendsNotFood

Both dwarf frogs and regular clawed frogs (Xenopus) come in albino forms.

zaynab14

Even though there is apparently an albino version of both the African Dwarfs and the African Clawed Frogs most albino African Dwarf frogs sold in pet stores that I have come across are really juvenile African Clawed Frogs, and will become a problem for their unsuspecting owners as they get older.

sarahspins

I have albino ADF's and all you need to check for is the webbing on their front feet - only ADF's have this. If you don't see webbing or you see claws, it's not an ADF.