Keeping my dwarf frog fed.

[JesseKyle420]

Currently in my tank there are 3 platies, 1 dwarf gourami and 1 african dwarf frog. A problem i seem to be having is that my fish will eat up all of the food before it can settle near him or before he can detect/find it.
I've begun to use a turkey baster to shoot food towards him but the fish still come and nom it all down in front of him, while he locates and eats a single flake.

How much do african dwarf frogs need to eat? Is he simply not that hungry, or just slow? Anybody share the same problem?

 

[OrangeCones]

Target feeding it the best to do if you house fish with the frog. Since the fish have learned that the turkey baster contains food, you might want to try a temporary barrier in the tank to keep the fish away from the frog at feeding time. I had to do this with saltwater fish that were housed with seahorses. Seahorses are slow feeders and the faster fish would outcompete them if they were not seperated while feeding.

 

[lauraf]

My ADFs are really slow to go to the corner of the tank where I place their food, but if I wiggle bloodworms in tweezers right in front of their faces, they will leap immediately and gobble up a good mouthful. Maybe instead of 'shooting' food at the frog with a baster, where the food will kind of float all around and get gobbled up by the fish, try the tweezer route to ensure he's getting his share???

 

[riseabovethesun]

You could always stick two turkey basters in there as well, that's an option. Either use one as a trick to distract the fish or just put food in both.

I noticed when I fed my fish too little they'd eat my ADFs food, but if I fed them an amount they needed they wouldn't even bother him or scavenge on the bottom. So maybe alter the amounts?

I also think with flakes the frogs aren't going to quickly jump for it, kind of like a betta, sure they can adapt to eating flakes but frozen bloodworms or brine shrimp or something might be a better route, plus I imagine it has a stronger smell which those frogs go by.

 

[JesseKyle420]

My ADFs are really slow to go to the corner of the tank where I place their food, but if I wiggle bloodworms in tweezers right in front of their faces, they will leap immediately and gobble up a good mouthful. Maybe instead of 'shooting' food at the frog with a baster, where the food will kind of float all around and get gobbled up by the fish, try the tweezer route to ensure he's getting his share???

I have frozen blood worms and would do that, but I also heard bloodworms don't have the right (enough, too much?) nutrients and should only be used as a treat. Do you always feed your ADF's bloodworms?

 

[riseabovethesun]

It does have a low source of protein and shouldn't be used as the staple food, but I've never had any issues with mine.., I feed a mix of brine shrimp, blood worms, and flakes to the inhabitants where the ADFs are, among them eating random debris possible throughout the jungle of a tank.

So it might not be good as a staple food because of that, but it is still better than no food. There are also pellet foods you could try.

Here I found this: "Bloodworms are often suggested to owners as a DAFs main food source. This is a very bad idea for a DAF as this food source is low in protein and lacks many essential amino acids it requires to live. Feed bloodworm sparingly. Variety is the key." http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/African_Dwarf_Frog#Feeding_regime

So maybe like my method, the variety of it all is what keeps them healthy. That site has some pretty good information and also suggests to not feed fish flakes, but you can feed a variety of fish (like salmon, tuna, etc.)

 

[unwritten law]

they sell ADF food at petco. its basically crushed sinking pellets instead of flakes.

 

[ValRasbora]

you can distract the fish with floating flakes while you hand-feed the frog using tweezers\turket baster. Bloodworms are great for froggies

 

[JesseKyle420]

Thanks for all of your help :] I'm going to continue using a combination of all of your advice to see which works best. Also as for now, I tapped the flakes to break them up in to a bunch of tiny pieces and presented them to my frog with the baster, since theres so many little bits, a lot of it hits the gravel and a lot of it goes in the water, leaving my dwarf frog with a platter of small bits to eat instead of just individual large flakes that could quickly be stolen by other fish, it works a bit better.

Also, as far as live treats... do ADF enjoy earth worms or wax worms or anything? I figure I could give him certain types of bait but don't want to just go ahead and try before knowing.

 

[riseabovethesun]

You can feed them earthworms, I'm not familiar with wax worms. I think the best way to think about it, is a typical frog maybe in a pond or a swamp they are going to eat some juicy grubs and crunchy insects -- of course it's a bit different since it's in your home, submerged into the aquatic underworld so you need to make the food easily available into the right size pieces like you're doing

 

[ValRasbora]

An easy way to chop earthworms is with scissors. Waxworms are very tough and aren't even good for really big lizards because they have trouble with digestion, so I certainly wouldn't feed it to an itty bitty frog.