L & H Frog Journal
African Dwarf Frogs -  Hymenochirus boettgeri
page 1

George & Jim [our original two of African Dwarf Frogs] lived in the tank pictured on the right.  They are pictured close up throughout the first 8 or so pages of our journal. They were purchased at a local pet store in Sept. 2001. This tank is now in L's office with Buffy, our dwarf pufferfish. Jim is now in a much larger tank with Jack & Janet.

Returning from a weekend in San Francisco, I came home to realize George & Jim's tank needed a cleaning [4-29-02]. With the increase in sunshine, their tank had been growing very green. So, I cleaned the tank, moved it out of the very sunny location it had been in, and added a little air pump & filter. It's new location was much colder sometimes below 66 degrees. I noticed the George & Jim started snuggling.  We were quite surprised thinking they needed warmer temperatures. I was fearful for the wellbeing of all the aquatic critters. The tetras had never been very active in either location. They mostly hide from the frogs under the pagoda. With the possibility of eggs and tadpoles, I moved the fish into a tank of the same size in a different part of the house.

I moved the tank with George & Jim again this time to a bit warmer location ranging from 66-72 degrees. After the move, the snuggling has continued off and on. We noticed little black eggs two weeks ago and got quite excited!

I did a bit of research on the breeding of African Dwarf Frogs on the web. My favorite two web sites are listed on the first page. We decided not to go too many lengths in tadpole rearing but to at least have the right kind of food on hand. We ordered infusoria, daphnia, medium, a flask, and a folding magnifying glass 10x from Blue Spruce Biological Supply.

In the meantime, we decided the second tank in a back room was overcrowded now that the tetras had joined the danios. So, we moved the two younger African Dwarf Frogs of the house out of tank B to tank D at H's office tank. We have a little holding tank not filtered not heated [beta sized tank] that we use for housing critters while we clean their tank [tank E]. A bit of plant from George & Jim's tank made it into the holding tank. H took the younger frogs on a twenty mile ride to work.  They adjusted nicely to their new home, and the tank went back home after being infused with water from the office tank. 

Later that evening, H was looking at the holding tank and exclaimed we have tadpole! Eggs must have been on the plant. We looked in George & Jim's tank, saw more eggs in the plant and another tadpole! 

<- Lucky, our first tadpole 1/8" long.

Our two tadpoles seem to be doing well getting bigger every day. We've been feeding them two droppers of infusoria a day. We can see Lucky [the tadpole in the holding tank] eating at the surface and he can really propel himself with his tail. He has four distinct spots and his mouth is visible at times via the magnifying glass as he lets out an air bubble. The tadpole in with George & Jim hides quite a bit [as he should to keep from getting munched by his parents.] Last night, we gave them their first droppers of daphnia. It's hard to tell whether I got any daphnia in the dropper or just debris from another holding tank where the daphnia now live. In the future I think the daphnia tank shouldn't have gravel for them to hide in. - L

5-14-02 For a few days now, Lucky has four distinct spots. Two in the front and two in the back of his body. His tail has a bit of color to it as well. We think we can see his eyes. He spends most of his time surfing the top of the tank eating.  He's getting harder to look at through the magnifying glass because he can move so quickly. We haven't seen our second tadpole in tank A in a while. We're a bit concerned. Hopefully, he's hiding. We fairly sure we'll end up with more tadpoles since George & Jim are such avid snugglers.We hope to try to take some more photos of our frogs and use a macro lens to take photos of our tadpoles.  -L

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