Most of you have probably seen an African Clawed Frog at some point or another. They can generally be found at any pet store and are usually kept with fish or with other African Clawed Frogs. The frogs sold at pet stores are generally about two inches long, cute, fat, and seemingly harmless-looking. Most times I have seen them, they are Albino. I myself have been the owner of an Albino African Clawed Frog and I can tell you from experience, these are not just pets you can put into an aquarium with your fish and expect them to be easy-keepers. With the right equipment, they actually are easy-keepers, but you need to know what you’re in for before you bring one of these critters home.

African Clawed Frogs are a completely different frog than an African Dwarf Frog. The two are sometimes sold out of the same tanks, because at one point they will be about the same size, but the African Clawed Frogs grow. They get huge. I have seen one with my own two eyes that was the size of a dinner plate. These frogs generally grow up to six inches long, which is still big, but the mammoth frog I saw at a pet store clearly was bigger than that. So I know myself that it is a possibility. The frog I saw at the pet store was an abandoned frog whose owner could no longer care for her due to her huge size. African Dwarf Frogs are small when they are purchased and will stay small throughout the duration of their lives.

Another important thing to know about African Clawed Frogs is that they eat live fish. They have no tongues and they use their two front hands (for lack of a better word) to catch fish and shove the fish into their mouths. If they can catch it, they will eat it. And they are fast hunters. Your fish may be lucky enough to escape once or twice, but will eventually be caught.

When I purchased my Albino African Clawed Frog, it was on a whim. I knew nothing about these creatures, but they were cute, and I thought, “Eh, it goes into an aquarium; how hard can it be. I’ll take one home.” He went perfectly into my aquarium with my guppies and they all lived in harmony. For about six months, that is. After six months, the frog had gone through some growing. The guppies, obviously, had not. Slowly but surely, the guppies, one by one, began disappearing. It honestly did not occur to me until about the third missing guppy that the frog was the culprit. I only realized what was happening when one day my Albino African Clawed Frog, who was normally a milky-white color, had a faint discoloration to his stomach area. I am not kidding or exaggerating. There was a fancy male guppy, clearly just caught and eaten, in his stomach, and I could see the bright color of the guppy through the frog’s belly. I thought surely I was imagining things. I watched the frog more closely, and caught him red-handed, catching and eating my guppies. So, good to know. These frogs will eat your fish.

Once I learned this, I started researching this behavior and I learned that certain types of fish are not good for these frogs to eat. Guppies, fortunately, are good for the frogs. Goldfish are not. So if you own an African Clawed Frog, you will need to be ready to purchase guppies for it to eat. Feeder goldfish are not healthy for your frog to eat. You can also feed your African Clawed Frog floating food sticks (break them up into pieces for your frog), and bloodworms. Prior to my realization that my Albino African Clawed Frog had a taste for guppies, I am embarrassed to admit that he lived on a diet of only the floating food sticks. He did fine on them, but clearly these guys have a taste for more substance and if you want a happy frog, you will need to change up his diet and offer him more than just pellet food.

When I first started thinking of how to write an article about these frogs, my plan was to put all of the information into one article. Once I started writing, however, I realized there was a lot of information to share and I should probably break it up into a series of articles. Further articles will follow on the topic of African Clawed Frogs, and they will cover habitat requirements for the frog, and the dangers of releasing this species into the wild.

Please feel free to send me your comments or questions, or post your questions to my forum. As always, I welcome your feedback, and would love to hear about your own experiences, whether similar or different than my own.