Talk to me about ADF.

[Theplatymaster]

After seeing the serpa design video on these frogs it got my curious/wanting one or two, can anyone tell me about these frogs. Wondering about Feeding, Tankmates,and Breeding.

@Patrick_G

[Patrick_G]

My wife is the ADF fan in the family but I’ve been helping out with the tadpoles and learning more along the way. 

Here’s some basics: 

-A somewhat shallow tank. I’m thinking nothing deeper than a 10 gallon. They’re aquatic but need to come up for air. 
-Ours eat mostly frozen foods. They prefer bloodworms but recently I’ve learned that is sometimes linked to bloating. We’re experimenting with mysis shrimp and spirulina brine as an alternative. We also add protein rich Hikari algae wafers and they seem to enjoy those. 
-They are escape artists! You’ll want to cover any gaps in the tank’s lid with plastic wrap. 
-Ours live with Otocinclus and snails, that seems to work great. They were very shy when they lived with a Betta, even though he was entirely unaggressive. 

 

[bryanisag]

They do great with Corry's loaches and guppy's in my experience. It's really funny to watch kuhli loaches and ADF fighting to hide under the same leaf. ADF are very fun to keep but they are terrible eaters. Anything that eats quickly will out complete them for food. I have 1 ADF currently in a 10 gallon with 6 Corry's that I'm trying to spawn so I'm feeding them heavy and there's always enough for the froggy too. They also do well with my cherry shrimp fyi. 

[Siastia]

  African Dwarf Frogs are great to keep. They are surprisingly personable. I have raised only two from spawn to adulthood, but I have kept about 8-10 in my life.

  I have kept them with snails, guppies, endlers, ember tetras, porkchop rasboras and bettas. Never had an issue with aggression from the frog side of things or the fish side. Even with the bettas I've kept them with I have had no problems. Up to the betta's personality to an extent I would imagine.

I keep mine in a 10 gallon standard, at 76-78 degrees. I have harder water, my ph sits around 6.8ish. I use a little salt in the tank, about 1tbsp per 5 gallons in this tank. Frogs are supposedly sensitive to salt, so I don't really add more, but haven't seen any cons.

  I feed mine live black worms (their favorite, in a shortage right now), frozen blood worms, live or frozen baby brine shrimp. and then whatever my fish don't get to, so Hikari  fancy guppy pellets, Repashy community cubes and Hikari algae wafers. You can also feed them finely shredded chicken breast, but I have only done so a few times when I have been out of other stuff. You need to make sure it is very fine threads of chicken breast.
  They are particularly  - c h i l l -  dudes and don't do much during the day. Mine live in a low-flow tank, with just a sponge filter. They will enjoy shoving themselves under things in their tank, like leaf-litter, rocks, adornments, etc. I always make sure they have a couple cave places to retreat to. Mine have bamboo tubes from my backyard.
  They will also sit at the surface as they are air-breathers. So a plant/plants that reach the surface and allow a nice basking spot [in water] where they can sit and poke their little noggins out of the water. I use anacharis myself, but that may be illegal depending on where you are. Amazon swords work well, Rotala, anything that grows to the surface. I haven't tried lilies but I am sure they would love those too. They are extremely light so they don't need a very sturdy plant. They also seem to enjoy crypts because of the way they spread and fan out, it allows them to hide out under the leaves. Bright light is okay, but they are going to be happier with a few shady spots to retreat to.
  In my experience, they are the most active at night. This is when the males will sing for females, and they will try to engage in  amplexus. That is about the height of the "aggression" that they will display. Really they are just aggressively hugging. The males will let other males know if they've grabbed the wrong frog and will release each other. Males will keep a hold of the females if the females are of breeding capability and they will continue with amplexus if conditions are right.

They are great pets to keep. Just make sure they have access to air, so I wouldn't do anything deeper than a 10 gallon. I have kept them in a 20 gallon long with no trouble. They enjoy company of their own kind and have lots of cute and funny interactions with each other all the time.



First two pics are Baby Frog (M) (2nd gen home-spawned)

 

This is Shoestrap (M)

 

This is Shiny Shoulder (M)

This is Turd (M). He is the oldest, the lumpiest and the slowest ❤️

Edited January 23, 2023 by Siastia