the end

with the death of the last frog, we conclude our journey that began nearly ten years ago raising tadpoles.

for the record, i do not recommend keeping frogs for pets. these are lab-raised for science experiments, so are not collected from the wild and they come cheap. but they live a longer time and require more space (about ten gallons per frog) than what people might think.

singing the happy rain song

it always tickles me how the frogs inside my house, 

inside a forty gallon fishtank full of water 

always know when it's raining outside.

they just know. 

they don't need to know why they know, 

that is of little to no consequence at all. 

they don't need anybody standing in the room 

outside the tank trying to tell them 

it's not raining, look, see?

thought this was appropriate to post here... aren't they cute? (no, this is not one of my frogs. my frogs are not obese, i think it's a bit cruel to feed them so much they get that fat.)

three frogs left

i buried leopardy this afternoon. he looked pretty much dead for several days, but every time i went to scoop him up, he'd start kicking around a little bit. he was skinny and his body looked old and worn out. i think he died of old age. maybe hastened a bit from being the smallest and the most timid. it didn't matter how much food i put in the tank, the fat ones would gobble it all up, and he never did seem to get quite enough. well, the other three seem to be completely back to normal. we'll see. i'm not sure how long these frogs are supposed to live, but according to something i read online, it said they live a lot longer than the five(?) years we've had them.

goodbye

i just buried spotty under the snow. it's been snowing all day here today. he was the second spotty frog. it was when the first spotty, a dwarf frog, died that we got the tadpoles. i blogged about it. that's what this is. you can scroll down to read the story, from the bottom up, in chronological order, if you'd like.

anyway, the first few times i thought he was dead, and went to fish him out of the tank, he started moving around. noticed he hadn't moved in a few hours, and figured that was that. it was. i feel better now.

the skinny one is still hanging in there. he looks so old. so worn out. the other three seem fine now. not entirely sure what happened. we'll keep a close watch on them.

goodbye

i don't know why some people have to make fun of every perceived weakness in everyone else. i don't know why, if you show these people your soft underbelly, why do they always have to poke at it ever after?

my frogs are dying. i am sad and upset about this. three of them might make it, but the other two are definitely goners. i'm going to have to bury my pets today. they taught me a lot. and now i have to let them go, a good bit sooner than i thought i would. goodbye has never come easy for me. and when it's goodbye forever, that is far and away more difficult.

i'll be okay. eventually. right now i need some time alone if i can't have a shoulder to cry on. and today i can have neither of those things. i have to go to the dentist instead.

photos

the tank isn't clean, but i did snap some photos of the frogs today...
basically, nothing has changed in the last couple years. i still feed the frogs ...sometimes. not too often. i clean their tank even less often. they are fat and happy and singing at me right now.

recent photos

So I cleaned the tank last night and actually remembered to snap a few (dozen) photos afterwards! Here are my favorites.

remember, you can always click a picture to see it much larger!!

long time no update

All five froggies are very healthy and happy. They are much bigger and fatter than in the most recent photos, and I promise to post new ones soon. I sometimes hear one or two of them quietly singing, especially after I clean their tank or add fresh water. I try to keep the pebbles arranged just so, with just glass in the middle of the tank to make it easier for them to find their food, but the frogs always redecorate how they want their home to be. I water my houseplants with their tank water, which is very good for the plants, and for the frogs as well. I am still using a turkey baster to suck up the goop off the bottom, but it's calming sort of work and I enjoy it for the most part. I only do that about once a month or so anyway. They aren't so shy as they used to be, except Leopardy still stays hidden most of the time. The others will come out and swim around sometimes. As soon as I turn off their filter, they know it's feeding time, and go beserk! I only feed them about twice a week, and they are still getting rather fat. I have this problem with captive animals that are obese. I know they don't have much fun besides eating, but that's no reason to shorten their life span or to create poor health in an animal, in particular a cold-blooded critter that has a much lower caloric requirement.

Sorry it's been so long, not much new to tell. The froggies are getting bigger and eating much more but less often. And pooping much more. But froggie poop is very very good for plants, so now they have a job as fertilizer producers for my houseplants!
Here they are last night at feeding time:

The biggest one, on the left, in the back, is Buggy Eyes. I can always tell him because he's still a good bit bigger and fatter than the rest. He's always the first to eat, too (imagine that). But mostly it's impossible for me to differentiate between the frogs anymore. You can tell that Spotless is the lightest one, and Leopardy is the darkest one, but the other two is anyone's guess which is which. All five frogs are apparently males. I suppose that's a good thing, as we don't need any babies! My children have decided that since the guppy tank is becoming overpopulated, we just might have to feed some of them to the frogs.

It is getting harder to tell the three original GAF frogs apart, and I have given up attempting to guess what sex any of them are, we'll just have to wait and see. Zeyonda is now almost as large as BuggyEyes, Spotty and Leopardy are the smallest of the five. Here are some pics I took last night at feeding time.

BuggyEyes (top), Spotless (bottom left), and Leopardy (bottom right)

from left to right, BuggyEyes, Spotty, Zeyonda, and Spotless


The three original frogs that we raised from tadpoles. I'm not sure now, but it looks like probably Spotty on the left, Zeyonda top/middle, and BuggyEyes on the right.

I believe that Leopardy is a girl... seems to have the bump in back over her cloaca that serves as ovipositor on female frogs. I still occassionally hear singing, but am uncertain which of the frogs is doing it! So that would make, if I am correct, three females and two male froglets. Buggy-Eyes, Zeyonda, and Leopardy being the females and Spotless and Spotty the boys. They could prove me wrong, they are still quite small and it is hard to see much detail. None of the froglets have black arms, but Spotty's arms are a good deal darker than those of the other frogs.

chirp chirp chirp

I hear singing! It appeared to be coming from Spotless, as he was the only one not hiding and as soon as he saw me walk past the tank, the chirping stopped and he ran away to hide. All of the frogs are still a little skittish, but seem to be getting more used to my presence. They know when I turn off the filter and make a tapping sound that it's time to eat. I have started feeding them twice a day again, but much much less at a time. I am cleaning the tank whenever I think of it, and doing a partial water change once a week. I can't imagine how messy the tank will get when they are big frogs!

I do have some recent photos to share:

Zeyonda (top) and Spotty. You can't really tell in this photo, but Zeyonda has really grown to be a bit larger than Spotty now.


Spotless in the food dish (never mind that brown algae - yuck!)


Leopardy peeking out (he is still the most shy of all five froglets)


And two photos of Buggy-Eyes, just because she is a camera hound :)
first with a very full belly (see the lump?)

and her typical standing pose in the plants

Spotty is a boy...

I think Spotty is a boy. Not real sure, but now Zeyonda has grown larger than him, and he has dark arms and hands (sometimes). Zeyonda and Buggy-Eyes I am certain are girls, but they might suprise me some day! They are still quite small. The two new guys I still think are boys, but they do not have the darker hands and arms that Spotty sometimes has, and they are big and fat like Buggy-Eyes. I have new photos I need to crop and upload, hopefully will do that later today!

a few more photos!

This really illustrates the difference in size between our froglets. Spotless (top right) is somewhat smaller than BuggyEyes, but still quite a bit larger than Zeyonda (bottom left), as you can see here:



and..... drum roll please....

some photos of the elusive Leopardy
front


and rear

a few new photos

I had absolutely no luck getting a picture of Leopardy, he is really pretty, but very timid and would not come out to say "cheese"!

Here is Miss BuggyEyes, our largest froglet.

and


BuggyEyes and Spotty (in the background)


Spotless!


Spotless and Spotty


Spotty


and Zeyonda, the smallest of them all. To get an idea of what Leopardy looks like, imagine this frog just a bit bigger with darker spots and a whiter belly.

Little frogs poop a lot, y'all!

Brown Algae

A few days ago, I noticed this brown discoloration of some of the decorations in the froggy tank. Today, I finally realized it was brown algae and the tank got it's first scrubbing, inside and out because I know that stuff can take over a tank in no time at all. EEEEWWWWWW!!! Little frogs poop a lot, y'all! I thought, since the tank is half bare-bottom and rocks are only in part of the tank, that as long as I fed them over the glass, and kept the poop and extra food regularly sucked up (using the turkey baster, still haven't justified in my own head the expense of one of those fancy dancy gravel vacuums) that it would be pretty clean. okay then... so today I decide to really clean the tank. I started by sucking up any gunk from the edges of the rocky places. Oh, that was nasty. Really really nasty brown goopy grossness. EEEWWWWW - so I wonder what is under the rest of the rocks and get to cleaning everything really really well. I got three gallons of dark brown gunk from under the rocks and decorations, which I used to water my houseplants, they should love it. I scrubbed the brown slime from the food dish and hidey holes, then realized there was brown gunk (algae) growing on the glass, too. *sigh* It looks as though I've been greatly overfeeding the little frogs and undercleaning the tank.

the little frogs have been getting bigger and bigger... so big, in fact, I had to lower the water level because they were hitting their heads on the glass when they came up for a breath of air!!

Had a scare a few days ago. I thought Buggy-Eyes had eaten one of her sisters. I walked by the tank, and noticed something sticking out of her mouth. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a frog's front leg, and it was moving, waving at me!! I totally freaked out. After calming myself down, and sending an urgent question to the froggy friends yahoo list, I gave the frogs some tubifex worms to tempt them out of their hiding places. I counted all five froglets, so nobody had been lunch. It must have been some shed skin or something. I didn't think she could fit one of the little ones in her mouth, but at the time, I couldn't think of any other explanation.

and now there are FIVE!!

We adopted two more froglets that needed a new home. They just arrived this morning, and I realize these are not the best photos, but just have to share them!!! I'll take more pics later today, when I feed them. DD had no trouble choosing names for the new guys.

Introducing....

Spotless!



and Leopardy!

new froggy photos!

I wish I could get a picture of all three together, to show you how much larger Buggy Eyes is than the other two...
here's Miss Buggy

she is at least twice the body mass of her sisters (and I'm still convinced they are all female, but may be proven wrong in time)

here is Zeyonda
does that not look as though she has a cloacal flap or scute or whatever they call it that serves as an ovipositor? She is the smallest of the three frogs.

and here is Spotty, hiding as usual

for more information....

Check out some of these links. Surf around these sites for lots of helpful info:
http://clawedfrogs.tripod.com/
http://fluffyfrog.com/
http://allaboutfrogs.org/
http://www.geocities.com/mamafrog0538/froggy_place.html
http://aquaticfrogs.tripod.com/
http://www.froggyplace.50megs.com/
http://www.mypetfrog.org/
http://www.xenopus.com/husbandry.htm
http://www.pollywog.co.uk/
http://members.aol.com/sirchin/afc.htm

...or google for african clawed frog or xenopus :)

Please let me know if you want me to add another link to this list!

Here they are!

We have no problem differentiating between our three frogs. I was afraid we might. My daughter has stood firm in her choice of names, and the three frogs have kept the same names they were given when they first morphed from tadpoles into frogs.

From left to right, this is a photo of Spotty, Zeyonda, and Buggy-Eyes. I think they are all three females, but I know it might be too soon to tell. It looks as though they all have a cloacal flap, but maybe they are just always pooping! LOL

Buggy-Eyes has always had the best appetite, was the first to transform, and is now at least half again larger than the other two.


Spotty is indeed the spottiest, even though we didn't know that when she first morphed from tadpole to frog. She is also the shyest and spends her time hiding unless she's eating.


Zeyonda was the last to transform, and has the darkest markings, looking nearly black at times.
They all three do change color from time to time and depending on where they are resting. They look greener when they are hiding in the plants. They all looked a pale yellowish-tan color when they were living in the pickle jar which had beige and yellow sand in the bottom of it.

Peekaboo!

They love their new home!

feeding frenzy


hello



We moved the froglets into the 40 gal tank last night.
The thinnest, darkest one was the last to transform, and is now much smaller than the other two, who are growing at an alarming rate and getting fatter by the hour! But they are all doing well, it seems, and really love their new home.
I do have to turn the filter off in order to feed them.
They are pretty smart, and have already figured out that I put the majority of their food in the terra cotta dish. I was worried at first when they didn't seem to be able to find food unless they accidentally landed on top of it!

If they could talk, they'd be saying *wheeeee*!

The most recently morphed froglet is now eating, but not as voraciously as the other two. Buggy-Eyes is still the piggiest, and gets way more of the food than the others. His belly is the fattest, as a result. I'm so afraid I'm going to over feed him, as I'm trying to make sure the other two get enough. They are no longer afraid of me, and will come up to the side of the jar and stand up like they are begging for food everytime anyone walks by. The third froglet is still a bit darker and a bit larger than the other two, I'm hoping that one is female. They love to play! It looks like a game of tag where they chase each other around, and almost do loop-de-loops in the water. My husband said last night, "If they could talk, they'd be saying *wheeeee*!"

The tank is now set up

Just waiting a little longer before the froglets are moved into their new home. I chose large and medium sized pebbles, leaving part of the bottom bare glass to make it easier to clean. Will probably add many more plants later this week, but we think it's pretty the way it is right now.
I piled the rocks up over the half-flowerpot hidey cave to give the tank another level. There is also a resin hollow log for them to hide inside, and I put a terra-cotta dish to make it easier to feed them (and clean up what food does not get eaten). The plants are suction-cupped to the sides, but they look very realistic for the cheapest plastic plants I could find at the petstore! Hobby Lobby was closed yesterday, Sunday, so I didn't get to check out what sort of artificial plants they had. I'm sure their prices would be much better than those at the petstore.

I'm continuing to do a fishless cycle. The old dirty filter from our guppy tank is inside the big filter on the frog tank, and I have been using the turkey baster to suck up the scum and gunk from the bottom of the tadpole jar and from the gravel in the guppy tank, doing small partial water changes every day, and putting all the dirty water and gunk in the new tank to give the good bacteria stuff to eat.

and then there were three

The third tadpole has very nearly completely absorbed its tail. That one is still slightly larger than the other two, and for now at least, is darker in color. It is not eating the frog pellets yet. The other two froglets have turned a yellowish-tan color, apparently to match the color of the sand in the bottom of their jar. One appears to have a line going down its back, which helps to tell the two apart. The other one is fatter and a more voracious eater, and I think that one is Buggy-Eyes. But we are still going to wait until they are bigger before we decide which one gets which name (DD is still adamant that their names are Buggy-Eyes, Spotty, and Zeyonda - we just don't know which one gets which name right now). Those two will gobble up all the pellets I can put in there with them, so I'm trying to be careful not to overfeed them. It's amazing how large their bellies will stretch! They look fat and happy, and don't seem so afraid of me anymore.

I did a partial water change in the tadpole jar as well as the guppy tank, and put the dirty water into the empty frog tank to help it cycle faster. I used my turkey baster (I finally found one at Kmart) to suck up the gunk from the bottom, so the beneficial bacteria would have more to eat. As soon as the bio-wheel in the filter looks like it has a good bacteria colony, I'm going to put the froglets in there. Tomorrow we are going shopping for greenery and maybe some rocks and sticks and things to decorate the tank. Right now it only has a hollow log and half of a plastic flower pot in there. I have decided it would probably be best to leave the bottom bare rather than put gravel/substrate down.

40 gallons is a lot of water!

The new tank is full and cycling now. I'm using a dirty filter from my fish tank to help cycle the new frog tank, and hope it works okay. I did a bunch of reading about fishless cycling online, but I might still put a guppy or two in there for a while, just to speed things up a bit.

The last tadpole is now starting to absorb its tail. The other two only have tiny black spots where their tails used to be. They are eating machines and will gobble up as much food as I put in there! I was worried about it a little bit when Buggy-Eyes was hogging all the food and Spotty wasn't getting as much, but I started breaking the pellets up into smaller pieces and not dropping them all in the same place. Now Spotty has a big fat belly, too!

Tiny thorn-tails

Buggy-Eyes and Spotty still have the tiniest remnants of their tails. Just a little black thorn-like protrusion on their backsides. They started eating frog food yesterday, stuffing the bites into their mouths with their hands. The room in which I plan to locate their permanent home now has one coat of yellow paint, and should be finished this evening so I can start cycling the tank soon. The frogs are so tiny! They are about half the size our full-grown dwarf frog was, about the size of a dime or maybe a nickel if you include their legs, and I no longer have reservations about keeping them in a one-gallon jar for a while. They actually seem a good bit smaller now than they were when they first arrived here as tadpoles!

almost froggy

Buggy Eyes' tail has turned black and is about as long as one of his toes. I beleive it will be completely gone later today. The other tadpoles are developing at the same rate. One has a tail about the same length as Buggy's tail was yesterday at this time. The other is still swimming head down and gulping water, and seems to be about at the stage the other two were at on Sunday or Monday. Next weekend I will have three tiny little frogs! It's very difficult to get decent photos of these little guys! Bear in mind that the glass jar has distorted the image of the tadpole in the background.