ADF Not Eating 8 Days After ingesting Betta pellet

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Cam2020

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Malaki Issue

Our female ADF has not eaten for eight days after eating a saturated Betta pellet. She otherwise appears healthy. We adopted her nearly 6 months ago and she has always been our biggest frog and our best eater. My daughter feeds her ADFs primarily frozen blood worms by hand with tweezers every evening and they eagerly wait by the glass every night for their feedings.



Environment

We have a 10 gallon freshwater tank with filter, heater, and aerator stone. We have two male and two female ADF frogs, separated now by a mesh screen to prevent mating. We also have two black Kuhli Loaches in the tank. Levels are good. We have fake plants and a couple of moss balls.

Malaki Timeline

7/19 set up tank and introduced first two frogs (Malaki and Leo) without letting tank cycle for a month. We did not know this was a mistake. The second month of set up was spent trying to control ammonia levels with 2x weekly water testings and daily water changing.



9/28 All water levels tested good and purchased API freshwater master test kit to maintain good levels. Aquarium established, no stress and all fish had been introduced.



10/12 separated fish

Discovered not all frogs were male as we had thought. Put a mesh screen divider in tank to separate two boys from two girls. Do not want mating and eggs.



12/23 blue back

Her back suddenly turned blue. There also appears to be a small hump on it now. There is one small blue structure in the tank but it doesn’t appear to be positioned where it would discolor her back. The color appears to be fading more than one week later.



12/24 saw her striking at a Kuhli pellet. She appears to be eating small bites of it (Hikari Sinking Wafers). Still ate blood worms.



12/25 Betta pellet

She ate a Betta pellet that got in the wrong tank by mistake. Shekept opening her mouth and there was an expanded pellet in her mouth that she appeared to be trying to get out (Aqueon Betta Food). She still managed to eat a bloodworm after that but was having trouble eating.
12/26 not eating

For the first three days she would not strike or eat anything and would physically turn and crawl away from the food. On day four of not eating she struck at the blood worms but did not eat one and did not strike again. On day five she struck at the blood worms and ate a very small one and then would not strike again. all days after she turns and crawls away from the food. we placed blood worms on the floor near her in case she wants to eat later but we never see her do so. We assume she must be eating something because she’s not pale and no flaking skin.
1/3 saw her floating on the top of the tank. Panicked and went to remove her but she swam down to the bottom. She did not dart but she still is appearing healthy (aside from the temporary floating and not eating) and did not want to stress her by removing her from the tank so we added a half dose of API Melafix to tank (2.5 LM). I hope this was not a mistake. To this day we have only added small infrequent doses of API Stress Coat .

is it too late to help?
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I'm sorry I dont know how to help :( I love dwarf frogs, good luck!
 
ADFs are very social creatures and live in large groups, separating them in the same tank with mesh probably stresses them out more than the food. If they do breed and are kept with fish the eggs or tadpoles will quickly be eaten by the fish.
ADFs are also prone to bloat so the betta pellet it ate could lead to that, usually they swell up and have difficulty sinking. Also depending on what temp your water as such they dont need a heater, they do better in cooler water and tropical temps of 76-82 stress them out. Theyll do fine with room temp and prefer it.
If kept with fish theyll be stressed, they are very shy animals and also slow feeders.

If you want whats best for them remove the mesh and put them together and even add more, like i said they are super social will even chirp to each other given the chance and they normally will sleep together in a big pile as well, drop the temp or get rid of heater and if they are housed with fish separate the frogs and fish from eachother. Also noticed from your pic that you have gravel in your tank they do better on sand as its not only representative of their natural habitat but is easier on their skin and doest trap food in between like gravel. With sand the food sits right on top where the frogs can sniff and find it as they have horrible eyesight but good smell. They are also sensitive to light so if one is growing plants get some floating plants to shade or dim the light, if one has plastic plants then no reason to have a light on at all except to grow unwanted algae. As for water parameters not sure what yours is but like most inverts they prefer alkaline slightly hard water with minimal to zero copper.
Good luck hope this helps.
 
ADFs are very social creatures and live in large groups, separating them in the same tank with mesh probably stresses them out more than the food. If they do breed and are kept with fish the eggs or tadpoles will quickly be eaten by the fish.
ADFs are also prone to bloat so the betta pellet it ate could lead to that, usually they swell up and have difficulty sinking. Also depending on what temp your water as such they dont need a heater, they do better in cooler water and tropical temps of 76-82 stress them out. Theyll do fine with room temp and prefer it.
If kept with fish theyll be stressed, they are very shy animals and also slow feeders.

If you want whats best for them remove the mesh and put them together and even add more, like i said they are super social will even chirp to each other given the chance and they normally will sleep together in a big pile as well, drop the temp or get rid of heater and if they are housed with fish separate the frogs and fish from eachother. Also noticed from your pic that you have gravel in your tank they do better on sand as its not only representative of their natural habitat but is easier on their skin and doest trap food in between like gravel. With sand the food sits right on top where the frogs can sniff and find it as they have horrible eyesight but good smell. They are also sensitive to light so if one is growing plants get some floating plants to shade or dim the light, if one has plastic plants then no reason to have a light on at all except to grow unwanted algae. As for water parameters not sure what yours is but like most inverts they prefer alkaline slightly hard water with minimal to zero copper.
Good luck hope this helps.
@utahfish you are very knowledgeable on ADF. I wish you were around when I had one. He was cute but didn't last long-back then there was very little info on ADF or on many fish in general. :unsure:
 
@utahfish you are very knowledgeable on ADF. I wish you were around when I had one. He was cute but didn't last long-back then there was very little info on ADF or on many fish in general. :unsure:
Yeah i learned by trial and error, but yeah love ADFs its too bad so many stores suggest keeping them with fish because they are so much happier in a species tank
 
I had them years ago..and they did fine. Ate live brine shrimp and live tubifex worms and would spawn...I never got a single tadpole to survive and I think I lost them when they would somehow get out of the aquarium. A night on a carpet dried them out. Make one mistake every few months with the cover...
They were interesting..had that funny "pounce and recoil" eating habit. What were they 2 and half inches full grown? About perfect really.
I've thought about trying them again.
As far as the poor frog in OP? I never had one get bloat. You might try epsom salts..but I would warn you..I'm guessing they are not sensitive to treatment amounts. Or drugs for fish bloat. I did read these frogs can live up to eight years. So,they are not for a few weeks or months.
 

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