# ADF questions



## Leopardfire (Sep 23, 2012)

I am moving my female from her 1.5 gallon to a 10 gallon lightly planted tank. I want to get a frog, so I was thinking of getting an ADF to live with her. I know frogs are bad eaters, but since the frog pellets are too big for my female's tiny mouth, I think the frog would be able to sift them up without a problem. So, here are my questions:

1) Can ADFs live on small gravel? I don't want the frog to ingest it while sifting for food and die. Should I do a bare bottom tank instead?

2) Is there a risk of Chystrid fungus? I know one member on here had an ADF with chystrid fungus and said it was common on frogs from local pet stores. I was thinking of getting one from Petsmart or Petco, but is there a risk they could be infected?

3) Should I get a snail to help clean up the frog's uneaten food? I know frogs are messy so I was thinking about getting a mystery snail to help clean up. Would this overload they biofilter or cause the frog to starve?

I don't know much about ADFs so these are the basic questions that came up when I considered getting one. Please add anything else that is important to know about them. I have kept an aquatic frog before, but it wasn't an ADF.


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## Leopardfire (Sep 23, 2012)

Also, is there a risk the ADF could be aggressive toward my female? She's only 1in long so do you think she could get hurt?


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## katydidmischief (Aug 19, 2012)

Honestly, I tried feeding my frogs the pellets and neither one was interested in them. I tong-feed bloodworms and other frozen thawed like beefheart and brine shrimp; they go batty for beefheart.

As for gravel, my guys are on gravel and I haven't had a problem with them ingesting any of it. And the fungus--ask the stores if either of them carry African Clawed Frogs. I did that at all three of the stores I was looking at, one of which did and I was able to immediately cross it off the list. If you're still concerned, you can do a 3-month quarantine.

I haven't had any issue with my frogs going after my fish or the fish going after the frogs. There's been a couple of times where Toothless or Stormfly dashed up for a breath of air and bumped into the fish but no scuffles.

I'm not sure about the snail, but you can use aqadvisor.com to put in all your parameters and check the bioload.

And there's a great thread here: http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?t=84033 with a TON of information on ADFs and their care.


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## Leopardfire (Sep 23, 2012)

Thanks for the info! Could you describe your feeding in more detail though. I don't want my ADF to starve! 
How much do you feed each thing? Is it like bloodworms 3 days a week, brine shrimp 2 days, and so on? 
Also, do you just hold the tongs above their heads with the food and they eat it? That's what I trained my last frog to do and it worked pretty well. 
Finally, do you have to restrain your betta during feeding. I'm thinking of getting a divider and putting it during feeding to keep my female out of the way.


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## katydidmischief (Aug 19, 2012)

I don't have a schedule set up; it's more like okay, today we have bloodworms, tomorrow, the same, then some beefheart, then bloodworms again. I keep two packages at all times--bloodworms and something else--and just go between them at random intervals.

Yup, I hold the tong over their head and when they leap for the bloodworm/beefheart/brine shrimp, I open the tongs and they slurp down their food.  I actually had taught them to come to a small ceramic bowl I'd had in the tank (Terrarium dish from Zilla) for meals for a while, until I decided to tong-feed them.

It depends--I've had three different bettas in with them at different times and one had to be cupped or he'd actually try to steal the food right out of the frogs' mouths. The others were/are no problem; if it'll be easier to keep her away during feedings, then by all means--sometimes I wish I had a divider to isolate the frogs from the fish.


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## Leopardfire (Sep 23, 2012)

Ok thanks for the feeding help! I can't wait to get my ADFs, they sound like so much fun! Did you get yours at Petco or Petsmart or from another store? I'm trying to see where most healthy frogs come from.


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## LadyVictorian (Nov 23, 2011)

I got mine from a local LFS however from what I have seen at my petco the ADF's are very fat and healthy there. When I get my second for the 10 gallon I'm going there.


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## Olympia (Aug 25, 2011)

I would go to Petsmart. People on here have been in contact with them and they do vigorous testing against chytrid to keep it away from their frogs there (this came as a surprise to me). I'm not sure if Petco does the same thing. I got mine from an LFS and I guess I just lucked out with them. Cases do seem to be on a downward trend however.


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## skepkat (Aug 23, 2012)

I got 3 from Petco a little over a week ago. They were skinny and 2 are missing their left hand.


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## Leopardfire (Sep 23, 2012)

I think I'll get mine from Petsmart. From what I've heard, they try to prevent the fungus so their frogs have the least chance of getting it. Do you think I should get 1 ADF or 2? Will 2 overstock the tank or cause them to be more aggressive towards my betta?


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## Gizmothefreaky (Apr 10, 2011)

In a ten gallon you can do one betta and two frogs, I would not get a mystery snail. If you want a snail then get a nerite or something small like rams horn or pond snails, though you will have to watch their population, I hope you aren't squeamish about culling snails.


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## Leopardfire (Sep 23, 2012)

I don't think I'll go with snails because I wouldn't like killing any if the population got big. I might get 2 ADFs though since I went on an aquarium calculator and it said that would be fine. It also said that ADFs will eat anything that fits in their mouths so do you think there's a small possibility they would try to eat my betta? She's a tiny female, only about 1 inch long with her tail.


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## Gizmothefreaky (Apr 10, 2011)

The only way they would eat her is if she was like the size of a guppy fry. I wouldn't worry about it.


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## Leopardfire (Sep 23, 2012)

So I heard that ADFs need a 3 month QT. Is this true, even if the pet store where going them at says they aren't with ACFs? I'm not sure if my dad would put up with more QT tanks around the house. He's already really fed up with all my fish.


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## Gizmothefreaky (Apr 10, 2011)

If you get them from the same place at the same time, you can introduce them right into the tank. The fungus is not contagious to fish.


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## Steph211 (Feb 16, 2011)

I definitely recommend Petsmart over Petco. I've had great luck with ADF's from Petsmart. Bought one at Petco, he was small, but otherwise appeared fine. He lasted maybe 3 weeks? Then a couple of weeks later, my other 3 ADFs died during a two day period! It was so sad. I will never buy live fish/frogs from Petco again.

My ADFs have all been fine with gravel. I keep them in a 20g with a male betta and about 6-8 cardinal tetras. I am thinking of adding a pleco as I've been having more algae lately and the tank glass is getting a little cloudy from it. Anyone kept a pleco with ADFs before?


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## lakemalawifish (Nov 24, 2012)

We have raised many ADFrogs and I think sand is easier for them because when they go up to the surface for air and plop back down they nose dive pretty fast and just seems like sand is softer for their not so graceful landing. Also, when they start shedding their skin they trash around a lot and I did not want mine to knock into anything that could be sharp to their newly developed skin. They will eat their skin after they shed it so don't freak out. Ours actually laid eggs on the tank glass many times but they never got fertilized so maybe we just had females, not sure. I placed a terra cotta pot bottom (the part that catches water) in one corner of the tank and they knew where to find their food. Also be sure they don't have to struggle too much to make it to the top for air, they are not great swimmers. You can drop the water level a tad to help that. They do need a heater, filter and other things that you normally do for fish, water changes, etc. Hope some of this helps


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## Leopardfire (Sep 23, 2012)

Thanks for the advice. I'm debating between adding ecocomplete substrate from carribsea or white gravel from petsmart since I have both of these at my house. Also is there a chance that if I got 2 frogs they would have babies that would hatch? I don't want any babies, so I was hoping that my betta would eat the eggs.


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## Steph211 (Feb 16, 2011)

If you have a male and a female frog they will mate. Male frogs have small a small whitish yellow bump on their sides behind their front legs. Their front legs are also a bit thicker than females' front legs. Also males will "sing." It sounds like a buzzing, chirping noise. My ADFs mated and I would often find eggs in the tank. Your frogs and any other fish in the tank will eat the eggs. Once, I noticed that some of my frog eggs changed into tadpoles. I bought a breeder net and isolated the tadpoles and some eggs in it. It was very cool to watch the transformation. I had about 10 egg/tadpoles and one made it to an adult frog. So cool to watch! However, I'm sure, had I not isolated those eggs, they wouldn't have made it.


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