need help - guppies and ADF

[DebSills]

So... I am inheriting a few guppies and a couple of african dwarf frogs (just found this out today and they are on their way shortly) I have not seen them yet and don't know the status of their tank, but want to do the right thing by my new pets. I have never had ADFs and I haven't had guppies for a long time - what do people suggest for my tank setup in terms of plants, decorations, etc?

I currently have a cycled sponge filter, a heater, some floating water sprite and a rock from my display tank in there with a thin layer of fine gravel - plus whatever shows up in their existing tank...

Any suggestions on what I should put in the tank for plants/decorations as well as food recommendations would be greatly appreciated. My LFS has a decent plant supply and frozen foods, so I can pick up anything I should have tomorrow or Monday (depending on how/where/when Henri arrives)

Thanks in advance!

Edited August 21, 2021 by DebSills

[Patrick_G]

My wife is a ADF enthusiast. She keeps them in a tank planted with Java Fern, Anubias, Ludwigia and Bacopa. The tank mates are a couple of Otocinclus and a Betta. They’ll eat any fish that will fit in their mouth, we learned the hard way. They eat a variety of flake and frozen foods. 

[Guppysnail]

I have no adf knowledge. but hikari fancy guppy first bites for fry zoomed spirulina 20 omega one flakes mixed together do good. Frozen bloodworm maybe 2x a month fresh baby brine everyday for fry maybe 1-2x/week adults.  I also feed random microgranules. Guppies love all plants and fry love sprite floating. Mine eat frogbit so it dies on me 🤷‍♀️ 

[Patrick_G]

I guess most importantly the ADF live near the bottom but need to breath from the surface so the tank shouldn’t be to high. 

[DebSills]

Well, I'm down to one ADF, I don't think they were being fed properly (all they had was Tetra color flakes) so I'll try to get some blood worms and try to fatten my last guy up...pretty sure the Guppies are all males, so should be ok there...I'll try to post some pics once I get them settled in...thanks for all the suggestions!!! Really not something I had planned on doing, but...here we go 🙂 

[BlueLineAquaticsSC]

If you get some female guppies your groggy friend will help with the fry. I haven’t kept them since I was a little kid (and they never lasted very long) but I believe most people just go with sinking pellets. I’m sure blood worms will be a welcome good source

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I wanted to weigh in. I got 2 ADF for my Mum for mother's day and set up a tank for her. Since she's had them she feeds every other day and target feeds- with angled aquarium tweezers. We've discovered bloodworms (from frozen) and freeze dried tubifex worms as their favorite. Target feeding makes sure the ADF is getting food and how much, especially if they're in tanks where they have to compete with faster animals. 

[DebSills]

@xXInkedPhoenixX thanks so much for the suggestion, I will definitely try that!

[DebSills]

Here's some pics of my new rescues - two guppies (black+white one is definitely a bit of a bully, but we'll see), an endler and my new (and first ever) ADF 🙂 I got them a couple of anubias for the tank and got froggy some blood worms and brine shrimp and some sinking pellets the LFS recommended...fingers crossed I can keep him alive...hubby (who was not the biggest supporter of my first tank) has already "committed" to a ADF specific tank so he can have some froggy friends in the future, but I want to make sure he survives and we learn how to take care of him first 🙂 (but tank #3 may be on the way)

[Guppy Guy]

Don’t know much about ADFs, but as for guppies and really anything(I’m quoting @Cory on this), you can’t go wrong with crypts.

Nice guppies by the way. I haven’t seen white ones in awhile.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Guppy Guy

[DebSills]

I may add some crypts in the future...I do love them, but I don't have enough gravel (only about 1/2 inch)...more gravel on the way

Anyone have any idea whether ADF is male or female? 

On 8/22/2021 at 2:39 PM, Guppy Guy said:

Nice guppies by the way. I haven’t seen white ones in awhile.

Yeah, he is really pretty - starting to look almost pinkish and in certain light he has some blueish tones - almost iridescent, not as flowy of a tail as the black one, but really interesting coloring 🙂 

@xXInkedPhoenixX thanks so much, target feeding definitely worked! I don't know if he's (or she) has ever really had a good meal, so taking it slow and just trying to make sure he gets at least a few worms each feeding

Edited August 22, 2021 by DebSills

[GameCzar]

Gorgeous guppies!   My guppies love hornwort, water wisteria, and guppy grass a lot so far.  

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@DebSills I'm really glad it worked for you. It doesn't take a lot of effort and it's kinda fun. My Mum actually doesn't have to do it that way but it's better to make sure the ADF are eating, how much, and it keeps the tank cleaner. Her ADF didn't like any of the pellets we've tried to give them so far despite all the glowing reviews they had. So go figure. Her pair almost fight over it- so even though they don't have other animals to compete with they certainly compete with each other so I think it was a good route to go- after feeding they are buddies (we think it's a boy and a girl). In your case poor little one probably didn't get much food as evidenced by your loss. ADF only tanks are super fun, they are really cool to watch.  

[DebSills]

@xXInkedPhoenixX yeah, when we rescued them, they were in a divided tank with the Guppies and the side where the frogs were had just a ton of food (flakes) in the gravel and the tank had that awful smell of a poor maintenance tank...I can only imagine the water parameters in there with that much food waste ☹ poor things...not something I planned, but I couldn't let them just be tossed in these people's back yard to suffer and die...honestly who does that!?

[Taco Playz]

The only thing I would worry about is if you have endlers or if you have fry because I have heard stories of ADF eating fry and small endlers but I wouldn’t worry. I would definetly feed those sinking pellets that your lfs recommended. Happy fish keeping!

[DebSills]

The ender seems ok so far and all the fish are male, so no fry to worry about...I will probably look to do a ADF only tank at some point, but I am out of cycled filters for now so I need to wait a couple weeks at least (have another sponge filter in my main tank)

Edited August 23, 2021 by DebSills

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

@DebSills only terrible heartless human beings do that kind of lame stuff. They probably weren't eating at all then- they aren't really good at getting food out of substrate. If you do feed them without tweezers I would highly, highly recommend you put a bowl in their tank they can sit in and eat. This is a cute ADF video I watched on youtube while researching for my Mum's tank: 

 

[Stacy Z]

Guppies are easy to feed. They’ll eat anything. African Drawf Frog have to be feed 1 by 1 both with live blackworms and frozen bloodworms. I enjoy watching them grab for the food.

[DebSills]

just picked up a couple options for a feeding dish for the ADF (hoping to try to get her to figure out that's where the food is...even if I still have to feed her with tweezers)...I have two different resin options which are actually turtle/reptile water dishes or terra cotta saucers...any ADF folks out there have a recommendation on which would work better? I know I've seen tanks with terra cotta pots in them, so I figured they would be safe, but got the resin as a backup

she seems to be doing ok so far...she really likes to chill under the sponge filter which I think is pretty funny 🙂 hoping we can keep her going and then get her a buddy or two and their own tank 🙂

guppies are also doing well...the more details I get the more I am amazed that any of these guys made it...I'm pretty sure they never had their water changed after the tank was set up, all they did was add food to the tank...purchased mid July and I rescued on Saturday 😲😠😢

[skipper]

I’d suggest some buddies... they are social with their own from what I’ve read.

Mine eat a variety, frozen blood worms and brine shrimp, omega frog pellets, hikari sinking wafers.  I’ve also seen them eat soilent green repashy and peas I dropped in for mystery snails. That one was surprising. They also LOVE freeze fried tubifex worms... I take the cubes and split them up and stick them to the sides of the tank near the substrate. It is super entertaining to watch them pull at them 🙂. I’m sure they must pick off baby ramshorn snails, though I haven’t seen it, it’s my only tank where they aren’t out of control 😂🙈 (possibly something to do with the cories too). They also poach freeze dried blood worms floating on the surface. That might be worth trying as a treat since they are sadly accustomed to flake food 😡.

I don’t have a separate food dish for them. I used to and the food always was around it and the substrate was always in it. I added cories to shark their plentiful leftovers 😂 

As far as plants/decor... they like to hang out on anubias leaves as well as a betta leaf hammock (the suction cup one, top right in the pic).  They also like to lounge across elodea near the top, snuggle under Marimo moss balls, and sprawl below red root floaters. They have goofy and entertaining lounge poses (top left 😂😂).

Here’s my set up, by no means a professional. The driftwood is newly added growing quite the cushion of biofilm.

I will note that I have relocated the mystery snails as the frogs would attack/rip off their antennae (likely because they looked like food/worms).

I don’t have guppies, but will second the suggestion for hikari fancy guppy. My mollies (different tank) love it. Sorry this is long, I hope it’s helpful. 

 

[DebSills]

@skipper thanks for all the suggestions, I welcome all information on the ADF as I am a complete novice...I do have some repashy, so I may try her with some of that, but so far the blood worms were a hit and going to feed her some brine shrimp tomorrow (I don't think she ate much before, so I don't want to over feed her too soon) I need to get some tubifex worms to give some more variety...

So far the guppies eat everything I am feeding my main tank (Frozen BBS, Frozen cyclops, Bug Bites, Hikari micro pellets and Omega One veggie pellets)

Here's a pic of the set up so far...waiting on some more gravel and want to add some more plants once I have the deeper substrate (probably some Crypts 🙂 )

[skipper]

@DebSills I’m sure anything you do/feed will be much appreciated! Everyone must be loving that clean water. I absolutely agree underfeeding is always better than overfeeding.

I don’t know if feeding repashy is necessarily “good” for them, it’s just one of many things I’ve seen them go for. Here’s a link from the co-op on ADFs if you haven’t seen it. I have never seen black worms for sale by me, so I’ve never tried it and can’t weigh in. 

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/caring-african-dwarf-frogs

i love your anubias! Crypts sound like a splendid addition. I hope she acclimates to her new home and has a happy healthy life with you!

 

[DebSills]

so...I was worried about the ADF when I brought these guys home, but she seems to be doing pretty well

the guppies/endler...not as good - the two guppies were always chasing each other, but didn't seem to inflict any damage, until I caught the white one going after the black one's back...I had set up an 8.75g tank hoping to set up a betta tank, but since we don't have a betta yet, in goes the black guppy...well...now the black guppy hangs out on the gravel for most of the day, and the white guppy seems to surf the glass a bit more than I like (not all the time, but several times a day will just surf up and down the glass on one side of the tank...the endler just seems to follow the white guppy around (and the black one when he was in there) like an annoying little brother or something ("hey...can I play with you...can I can I?")

so...my question for you guppy experts - I have a 10g with the ADF, the white guppy and the endler, and an 8.75 with the black guppy - how should I arrange these tanks? should I get more fish to disperse the aggression? should I get some females and leave them in the tank with the ADF to "let nature take its course" so I don't end up with a totally overstocked 10g? should I move the ADF to the smaller tank (give her some hiding spots...since its a bit sparse now) and get more male guppies for the 10g? 

looking for advice and suggestions...I would not have chosen 2 male guppies and a male endler as tankmates, but that's who I rescued, so kind of trying to backtrack and figure out a good stocking configuration since what we have now doesn't seem to be working...

[PineSong]

On 9/3/2021 at 6:07 PM, DebSills said:

so...I was worried about the ADF when I brought these guys home, but she seems to be doing pretty well

the guppies/endler...not as good - the two guppies were always chasing each other, but didn't seem to inflict any damage, until I caught the white one going after the black one's back...I had set up an 8.75g tank hoping to set up a betta tank, but since we don't have a betta yet, in goes the black guppy...well...now the black guppy hangs out on the gravel for most of the day, and the white guppy seems to surf the glass a bit more than I like (not all the time, but several times a day will just surf up and down the glass on one side of the tank...the endler just seems to follow the white guppy around (and the black one when he was in there) like an annoying little brother or something ("hey...can I play with you...can I can I?")

so...my question for you guppy experts - I have a 10g with the ADF, the white guppy and the endler, and an 8.75 with the black guppy - how should I arrange these tanks? should I get more fish to disperse the aggression? should I get some females and leave them in the tank with the ADF to "let nature take its course" so I don't end up with a totally overstocked 10g? should I move the ADF to the smaller tank (give her some hiding spots...since its a bit sparse now) and get more male guppies for the 10g? 

looking for advice and suggestions...I would not have chosen 2 male guppies and a male endler as tankmates, but that's who I rescued, so kind of trying to backtrack and figure out a good stocking configuration since what we have now doesn't seem to be working...

I know nothing about ADFs but it was only a month or so ago that I was posting about my two male guppies being aggressive with each other... so I can tell you what worked for me after mine each took a big bite out of each other's tail while living in my main tank with male platies and endlers. They were not just harassing each other--they were bothering eveyrone in the tank.

As a temporary measure, I would leave one guppy in my breeder box (which I floated in the main tank) during the day while I was at work and I let him out for supper and lights out. After a couple of days of this, they stopped the constant harassment. A week or so later, it started up again and I put the biggest bully of the two in an empty tank I had in another room. I added more fish from my QT tank to the main tank. When the big bully guppy went back into the main tank a couple of days later, there were 5 new white clouds, 3 mollies and a betta in addition to the original fish. No more guppy aggression. 

 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Hi @DebSills I came back to check on this thread, glad to see the froggie is still with you. Wish I could help with the Guppies. 

As @skipper has experienced bowls are not always necessary. But what I can say is that if you can train your frog (as you can with tweezers) that their food is in the bowl you can make sure they are eating and how much. I've had resin and ceramic bowls but nowadays I've got a favorite vendor on etsy for small handmade bowls that blend nicely in my aquariums. All my fish and snails eat from bowls in all my tanks. Keeps the tank cleaner too.