Beware of African Dwarf Frogs!! (gross pictures)

[yvez9]

We have a nice little 5 gallon hex tank so my girlfriend decided to put a trio of frogs in there. I made sure she bought african dwarf frogs, not the clawed ones, and so it was a cute little tank. Then we felt it needed color so we bought 5 lamp eye tetras. One was missing by morning so we figured it died from stress or something as water specs were fine.

Then the 4 tetras became 3 in a few days so we got another 5. By the next morning, we had 7 happy tetras.

Algea started overcrowding the tank so we got 3 otos. 1 died by morning again.

Water speces fine (ammonia and nitrite at 0, nitrate around 30)
So now we have 3 frogs, 7 tetras and 2 otos.

We find a head that seems to have belonged to a tetra at some point on the bottom, no body, 6 tetras left

the next morning, one lonely tetra swimming alone in the 5 gallon tank! So we moved it as we figured the frogs were eating the tetras.

then last night, we find an oto stuck in a frog's mouth. We tried to free him but the frog wouldn't let go. I figured this was a natural behavior so we let it go. Today, I found the frog dead with a dead oto still stuck in it's mouth.

Now i thought ADF weren't supposed to eat fish like this... I guess we learned our lesson!

 

[Kopix Nation]

what the heck?! Poor fish!!!!

claire

 

[ferrikins]

My opinion would be, you overstocked the tank to quickly, and the fish died of that and the frogs ate them after they where dead.

I know Otto's can be very senitive fish, and underfed at the store.

I have 5 ADF's that life in my fry tank, never had one eat my fish alife.

 

[guppymonkey]

Its not an everyday event but ADFs will eat basically anything that will fit in their mouth and try to eat things that won't. I have seen them try to eat other ADFs sometimes. Its possible that you just got a psycho frog that couldn't help stuffing itself.

I guess its warning to future frog keepers, beware and be watchful.

 

[fish_keeper2]

i had one once. when ever my guppies had babies i would try to rescue them and my frog got so smart he would watch me and then he would get the fry rather then me getting them in my net.

btw thank you im eating chili right now

 

[yvez9]

i didn't overstock too quickly
and 4 tetras don't just look healthy one evening and then are gone by morning...

The oto was still alive when the frog had its head in its mouth so i doubt the oto got sick, plus he's been there for over a month.

Just wanted to let people know that frogs can kill!

 

[Synirr]

Wow, that's unusual! Looks like what happened to a ACF at my LFS, only it was another ACF he had tried to eat. I never knew ADFs would do that... maybe it was a mistake? Knowing how blind mine seem to be I wouldn't put it past them to mistakenly grab something they couldn't spit back out!

 

[JackDemp528]

No it's not unusual. My big ACF grabbed onto my finger once and didn't let go. Talk about an ordeal! After shaking my hand around for a little bit he let go. So now when I'm feeding him something important I have huge tweezers that are pretty long and he grabs onto them instead.

 

[ferrikins]

i didn't overstock too quickly
and 4 tetras don't just look healthy one evening and then are gone by morning...

The oto was still alive when the frog had its head in its mouth so i doubt the oto got sick, plus he's been there for over a month.

Just wanted to let people know that frogs can kill!

[snapback]922645[/snapback]​

well was just a thought.

I realy love my frogs, and they have never killed I do get a little touchy when people make them out to be murderers.

 

[Ethos]

Thats a bizzar little story..

 

[Bloo]

Bizarre but not unhead of. Though a massacre on such a scale I've not heard of.

 

[chishnfips]

Thats a grim story .

I know it's not funny but I cant help chuckling at the second picture, It just looks surreal and funny.

 

[flips]

i find this interesting as i've had my frogs for a few days now and they refuse to eat ANYTHING: i've tried freeze dried blood worms, sinking tablets, frozen bloodworms, betta pellets - even fish food flakes !!! i thought for SURE they'd want the frozen bloodworms.... but nope. i can't get anything live around here. every store i've been to looks at me like "yeah right... live food ?!?!"



maybe i should feed them fish.... ha ha

j/k

 

[RandomWiktor]

It does sound a little overstocked to me... you had 3 frogs and 9 fish in a 5 gallon tank, correct? Unless those fish are only about 1/2 inch long each at adulthood (and if I am thinking of the right ones, lamp eyes grow to close to 3 inches and must be in groups of 6 fish minimum), even the fish alone would overstock a 5 gallon tank. I don't know what kind of waste producers the frogs are, but I assume they count towards stocking too. Perhaps the fish either died or were weakened, and the frogs ate them?

Oh well, regardless of what happened - good for posting it! People often buy them with the idea that they are harmless, but clearly small fish can sometimes be eaten by them. Might be a consideration for people keeping them in with guppies and the like, since they produce nice, small, bite-sized fry.