Keeping African Clawed Frogs as Pets

Set up your tank:   Aquarium gravel is for looks only. It is best to use fairly large stones or just a few large rocks. The frogs have been known to try to eat the smaller stuff. The ideal water depth is between 6-12 inches. You can add live or artificial plants, too. Make sure the chlorine has been removed from the water you are using. Tablets are available from the pet store, or simply leave some tap water in an open bucket for a few days and it will evaporate. Make sure your aquarium has some kind of lid. These frogs have been known to escape and disappear. You may keep a snail in the tank with your frogs, just make sure it is large enough so that they don't try to eat it.

An aquarium heater isn't necessary as normal room temperature is just fine for these hardy frogs. They should be fine in temperatures less than 90F and more than 40 F. The tank should not be kept in direct sunlight. A filter is not necessary. If the water is dirty, just change about 3/4 of the water and rinse the gravel from time to time, which is probably just as easy if you have a small aquarium. If you do use a filter, find one that has a very low flow. "Waterfall" type filters (such a Whisper brand) are best. The frogs come to the surface for air, so there is no need to keep bubbles flowing as you would with some fish. This frog's natural habitat is a shallow stagnant pool.

You can feed your frog tiny frog food pellets or "Reptomin" sticks (which are intended for pet turtles) that you can buy from the pet store. When they get bigger, you might also like to feed them some live fish, mealworms, bloodworms or earthworms. The frogs eat practically anything and are known to feed on dead, decaying animals in the wild. In other words, there are no strict dietary requirements and they have iron stomachs, it seems. Feed your frog only what it will consume in about 15 minutes. These frogs will gladly accept food from the their human caretaker's fingers. They have no teeth, so an accidental nibble won't do any damage.

Clawed frog tadpoles are much more sensitive than the mature frogs. Never handle the tadpoles and change the water in their tank daily, no matter if it looks like it needs it or not. Regular fish food is a fine diet for the tadpoles, but it is very important not to overfeed them. VERY LITTLE food is required. . . one flake of food the size of a 14 pt. font capital letter O per day is all that is needed.

CAUTION:  If one frog is smaller than the other in a multi-frog tank, you can expect that the larger one might eat the other or at they very least, hog all the food.  If you suspect this might be going on, separate them.