L & H Fish &Frog Journal
African Dwarf Frogs -  Hymenochirus boettgeri
page 10

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7-12-04 To left is the three ADF's in a group snuggle!

Sorry I have been so slack in updating my frog journal. It was a big day of change yesterday. We had been contemplating some new additions to our aquatic family. We'd lost some danios and an oto [midget sucker catfish] a while back. Additionally, I set up an outdoor water container garden / pond in a whiskey barrel. It's very relaxing and quite lovely. I bought and read two books about water gardens; one specifically on water plants and the other on water gardening in containers. My water garden includes water irises, pennyroyal, creeping jenny and duckweed. I put a ready made liner in the whiskey barrel and set up a pump with a ceramic fish ornament spraying water through it's mouth. I repotted the pennyroyal and creeping jenny before adding them. All the plants are still in plastic pots since we rent our house. I need the water garden to be easy to disassemble. We've had it set up for a few weeks and yesterday added three feeder goldfish to it. I've only seen them once since. I'd like to get a feeder ring to train them to come up for food.

We set up one of the previously used small hex 1 to 1 1/2 gallon hex tanks with a small heater, a small fluorescent plant light, and a smallworld filter / pump a few live plants in the bottom, some duckweed at the top, and a lovely fake barnacle type ornament with holes in it.  We added two freshwater pufferfish! Pictured hunting to the left. They're adorable! One seems to be following the snails and hanging out in the plants while the other is moving around the tank foraging. We gave them three snails and some bloodworms. They seem to be nipping at the snails which is good. They've taken some bites of the bloodworms as well. Given time hopefully they'll see us as the source of food be less shy when we come in the room.  They grow to 1 inch long. They like temperatures 72-82 degrees. They eat small snails, blood worms, brine shrimp, and the fins off other fish if you put them with other fish. More info

All but one the feeder fish in the frog tank had been eaten. He didn't look too good so I gave him the big sleep in the freezer. I  gave it a nice spring cleaning. And of course, the frogs got busy last night and we have tons of eggs. The question will now be will we do anything about the eggs and try to raise tadpoles again or not.  We have started growing some brine shrimp for the fish and frogs for a snack later.

Additionally, I took the danios to H's office today.

Oh and there's a frog show! Check it out here

7-14-04 We lost the larger pufferfish last night. The littler one seemed to be nipping at it over food and what looks like an infection seemed to have taken over but it also seemed to be struggling to breathe. Not sure... Hoping I find the receipt so I can bring him back with a water sample. The other one seems fine. The frogs tank is covered in eggs and the frogs seem great.

7-15-04 I spent a bit of time yesterday reading on dwarfpuffers.com. It seems that dwarf puffers are quite terroritial and our tank was too small for two especially if they were both males. Given that I learned they don't have scales where the little one nipped at the bigger one repeatedly was probably the cause of its demise or it was already sick or damaged from the store. Hard to say. But all in all the web site was extremely informative!

I purchased two feeder cones for feeding worms to the frogs and the puffer. I like the way it slowly dispenses worms rather than a clump just falling to the bottom of the tank. The frogs gobbled worms down last night and this morning. I gave just a dozen or so to the puffer this am and she/he was quite an enthusiastic about the worms! Many of the frog eggs have turned white. But I'm sure there'll be more eggs to come as always... I did also pick up a breeder box net to put in with the frogs if we want to try to save any tadpoles. I also made a feeder ring out of air tubing for feeding the water garden goldfish no luck this morning though - they wouldn't come up for me -- patience.

7-17-04 Pufferfish seems to be doing ok. We named him/her Buffy pictured to the left. Buffy's spots look good, round belly, actively hunts, hides some and sleeps in the barnacle ornament.

Moved dozens of tadpoles over to breeder box pictured to the right. Many were freshly hatched no noticeable head. Several had distinctive heads. Hopefully, I didn't damage too many in the move. Feed them some Liquifry drops.

7-19-04 I updated site and added lots of photos! Buffy seems ok eating snails this morning. The tads are noticeable bigger and many have distinct heads swimming around. We're still finding a few in with their parents and transferring them as we can to the nursery. I need to start a new brine shrimp batch. Everyone seems good: tubifex worms are being fed baby food and flake food and rinsed daily. Green water looks greener than did before added some beef blood yesterday morning. Filled in evaporated off water off water garden from some tap water that had been sitting out for over 3 days. I saw one of my goldfish! I'm thrilled to see them and can't really explain why except they hide so much of the time! 

7-20-04 Tadpoles look great! At least 30 or so almost all free swimmers.

7-22-04 I'm very pleased my green water tank is very very green. My daphnia arrived yesterday! I've set up two tanks a small one inside in a windowsill for optimal algae grow [since that's one of the things they eat] and one outside. Both tanks has a bit of water lettuce floating on top adds a nice visual to an otherwise emerald green algae laden tank. We'll see how they do - I'm not sure if I want to set up another green water tank or just feed them the powder food I bought from the live kits web site. I suppose it gives me options. To start my green water, I used tank water from established fish and frog tanks, added flake food & beef blood [just the defrosted water/blood mixture off a steak I thawed], and put it in the sun - within 4 days emerald green water. I carefully suctioned the daphnia out of their shipping container into the tanks with a turkey baster. They're still alive today happily eating and jerkily swimming about!

The brine shrimp kit I have is most excellent. I just unplug the tubing and they sink or swim to the bottom where I catch them in a brine shrimp net and rinse & serve them to my fish & frogs. I use this kit http://www.sfbb.com/products/brine_shrimp_eggs_kits_hatchmix.htm#hatchkit. Here's a good picture on the left http://www.aquariumhobbyist.com/mccainstropicals/images/Brineshrimp3.JPG

The worms I bought last week I've been keeping in the frig in shallow plastic dish with a lid with holes to see how long I keep them alive. They're very alive and active - fairly gross too honestly. I rinse them every morning and fed them some organic baby food or flake food every few days.

Everyone seems to be really enjoying the live food! It doesn't seem like too much work. I just rinse and feed the live food. I think setting everything up seemed like more work. I can set up another green water container by just draining off tank water and putting in the sun and feed that to the daphnia is like a circle.

http://www.aquamaniacs.net/daphnia.html
http://www.aquaculturestore.com/info/bs.html
http://article.discusnews.com/cat-01/freetubifex.shtml

I ordered my daphnia & brine shrimp eggs from http://www.lfscultures.com/kits.html

The tadpoles seem to be feeding on stuff floating on top in the tank. The weather has been really warm 90s yesterday and will continue for a few days. I gave the everyone some brine shrimp yesterday from the new batch gosh the little guys don't take long! I tried to save the run off watered ones in another container but they all perished. It's ok normally I do it over the sink and they would have gone down the drain. I'll try something else at some point in the future.

7-23-04 Daphnia all seem to be doing well in both containers.

7-26-04 We had two days in the 90s and even in the 100s in some places. We spent quite a bit of time trying to keep everyone from overheating floating bottles of ice water or bags of ice in the tanks until the tank temperature was more 84-80. But in the process, we lost all our tadpoles and our batch of brine shrimp. The daphnia seem fine. Everyone else, frogs, puffer, goldfish, tetras & minnows, ottos, and the like made it through. I swear that when portable one room air conditioners drop in price the end of the season we're getting one! whew... it's back in to the 50s at night and 70s during the day thankfully!

More froggie stories to come....