Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought 3 African Dwarfs a little over a week ago and put them in my tank with my fish. I was having trouble getting food to them (you know how fast fish eat) so, despite the fact that the fish and frogs were getting along fine, I decided to set up my 2nd tank for the frogs.

I`d used this tank once before, several months ago, for some platy fry. At the time, I wasn`t using a filter. And I was trying to feed the platies on home-grown brine shrimp. After just a few days I noticed that they water was NASTY and did a 50% water change. ...A few hours later, I noticed that the fry were dying. I could think of nothing I could do for them, so I left them and went to bed, hoping some would rally. By morning, all were dead. I was running late for work, and so I left them until that afternoon. I can`t remember what it was like in the morning, but definately by evening... they all had `halos` around... of some sort of whitish-clearish... fungus maybe? growing out of them in a spikey sort of pattern. So there`s the history of the tank. It`s been thoroughly cleaned since, and it`s been sitting dry for several months.

So, just about a week ago I set up the 2nd tank. I included a filter this time, to keep the water from going bad. And clearly there`d be no brine shrimp this time. I thought things would be fine. The pebbles and drift wood in the tank were new, but washed thoroughly. I set the tank up, Filled it half with water from my larger tank, and half with fresh water... and threw in some `Japanese minnow` fry as I call them (I`m in Japan. They`re fry were fine, so I moved my frogs over, as well as a snail and a shrimp. (The shrimp is heavy with eggs. I want the frogs to eat the babies...)

Everything was fine until last night, when I noticed that one of my frogs was floating. It would get caught in the current from the filter, and that would flip it onto its back. It never struggled to right itself, so I righted it for it. This didn`t make it dive and run like usual... it just wasn`t moving. So I picked it up and... then it moved. So I put it back, and turned off the filter (so it wouldn`t get flipped again). I tried to tempt it with some thawed bloodworms, but it wouldn`t eat. Just before bed-time it was still floating, but alive. When I woke up... it was definately dead. And once again, the body was surrounded by the spikey white fungus. Is this NORMAL? What IS it? Is there something wrong with my tank? I never bleached the tank, I just used soap and water. Should I get everyone back into the big tank, and bleach the smaller one? What killed my frog, any ideas?

I have a filter... the tank is heated to 25C (which is optimal heat for these frogs). It`s around 8 gallons by the calculations I ran before. They were eating frozen bloodworms. These are my first frogs, and I`ve only been keeping a fish tank since August, so I`m still new at all of this stuff. Possible explinations and suggestions are welcome, though I realize these are just speculation on your part.

Thanks for your help!

Frogs are highly allergic to soap. So if you washed the tank with soap and water there will always be a soap residue. I would recommend you re wash it with hot water, and an algae scrubber. As for the whitish skin, it's normal rot, when an aquatic animal dies, especially over night. It's a free for all for the other fish, they will start to eat the dead. I have lost two of my smallest frogs for some unknown reason, I don't know if it's because the healthier frogs don't let it near food or what. I have fish in my tank too, but I feed my frogs with a turkey baster to I can put the baster to the bottom of the tank and feed the frogs directly. Also turn off the light when you feed them, frogs are nocturnal. Feed the fish their flakes, and feed the frogs with the turkey baster. That way both top and bottom feeders will get their food.

The white wasn`t the skin being eaten at, though... the white was a halo of fungus or something GROWING out of the frog...

Don't know what to tell you about the "fungus"It sounds normal for something left that long.
I do have a couple concerns though about the setup.
You said you used driftwood.Driftwood tends to lower the PH of your water.That is a small water volume so driftwood would not take long to make a difference.These frogs prefer their water a bit alkaline.
Also you said that the filter caused the frogs to blow around.These frogs prefer clean (water which you provided),but they also like the water to be fairly still.They are found in pools and such in the wild and not streams.That may have caused some unneeded stress stress.
Each individual frog is unique and some can tolerate things that others can't.The best thing is to try and mimic their natural environment so that it is not a worry.Remember that you don't have to use a lot of space.Especially for 3 frogs.The tank you have is fine and I would say you could put a couple more in even.I like to keep mine in a heavily planted aquarium with a small hang on back filter turned all the way down.Make sure to do partial water changes every 3 or 4 weeks.