Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Has anyone tried feeding fish fry to their frogs? I’m new to this board and don’t have any frogs yet. I’m just trying to put all the peaces together before I dive in. Since one of the problems in keeping dart frogs seems to be getting enough calcium into their diets, it would seem to me that fish fry would be a great food. If the frogs are waiting to be fed, ¼ inch fry could simply be dropped in front of them. Alternately fry could be left in very shallow water in the feeding bowl.

There is a genus of killifish called Rivulus. These fish are particularly fond of crawling out of the water, and, in some cases, spend most of their time out of the water. It seems as though their fry would be particularly well suited to hanging out in a feeding bowl.

Very interested in all of your comments,
Chris
Link

Hi Chris,
Interesting question.
I have often thought of putting some feader guppy fry in with more canabilistic tads (kept in individual containers) to see how the animal protein would spark growth, but I no longer keep those meat eaters.
As far as putting them down on bare substrate, I am not sure that most frogs would be interested in a flopping (or non-flopping) fry. They will not pick them out of water. Calsium is easily added by dusting FFs.

Rich

www.fryebrothersfrogs.com

I did have one interesting experience witnessing one of my D. galatonotus actually catch and eat a platy fry from the water in my paludarium while it was apparently fishing out some fruit flies that had fallen in and were still swimming on the surface. The fry was nearly on the surface, just over an aquatic plant leaf. The frog obviously enjoyed its "catch." Within a minute or two, the entire gang of Galacs were gathered around and seemed to be "fishing." However, it never occurred again that I could see, although there were a lot of fry in there at the time. I don't think that dart frog tongues can lap things from the water all that well. They have to be able to stick to the surface of their prey, and fish alo have a slime layer that would prevent this. I figure this was just an isolated incident-- a sheer accident. At the time, I was more interested in the fact that the frog had apparently communicated to the others that it had found something particularly delicious.

As Rich has said, you can always dust fruit flies for the calcium. If you try what you propose, just be sure they have other vitamin dusted food available. Why not try it and let us know what happens?

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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis
4 D. reticulatus
4 D. castaneoticus
2 D. azureus
4 P vittatus

Patty and Rich,

Thanks for your comments. I’m a fairly experienced killifish/orchid person but completely green when it comes to frogs. Onto my next question….

Cheers,
Chris

http://killifish.homestead.com/index.html