Are African Dwarf Frogs Good As Pets?

As it is pretty unusual for a frog to be fully aquatic, pet lovers remain confused about buying an African dwarf frog. Especially, the beginners often ask about the difficulty or ease of the African dwarf frog maintenance. So, if you are a beginner, a common question may come into your mind- are African dwarf frogs good as pets?

African dwarf frogs are certainly good as pets. Their requirements of care and demands are pretty simple. Besides, there is no special habitat, feeding, or lighting requirement for them. So, you can easily take care of African dwarf frogs as pets.

But, like other pets, maintaining African dwarf frogs has some cons too. In this article, I’ll try to enlighten you on both pros and cons of keeping African dwarf frogs as pets. By the end of this article, you will be able to decide whether African dwarf frogs are good pets or not.

So, you should not miss this article if you want to know about the good and bad sides of keeping African dwarf frogs as pets in detail.

Can You Pet African Dwarf Frogs?

Many pet lovers want to know if they can pet African dwarf frogs or not.

You can pet African dwarf frogs! African dwarf frogs do pretty well in captivity with proper setups of habitat. If you provide appropriate care and essential needs, you can easily keep an African dwarf frog as a pet.

Moreover, you can also pet other pets along with African dwarf frogs. Also, your pet African dwarf frogs can accompany you for more than five years if you raise them properly.

However, if you want to know more about how long an African dwarf frog can live, you can click this article.

Are African Dwarf Frogs Good For Beginners?

Sometimes the new owners do not properly understand how to take care of their pets. For them, African dwarf frogs are easy options.

These frogs do not require special care or additional needs to remain alive. African dwarf frogs are not only easy maintenance pets but also interesting pets to notice their activities.

So, compared with other fully aquatic pets, you can say that African dwarf frogs are good for beginners.

Why African Dwarf Frogs Are Good As Pets?

I’ve brought out some share-worthy information here. It will help you understand why African dwarf frogs are good for beginners. Let’s check them out without any further ado.

1. Easy Housing Setup

You will not need much stuff to set up the tank of African dwarf frogs. Also, only a 5-gallon aquarium will be sufficient to keep one or two African dwarf frogs.

I will recommend you tetra aquarium tank if you are looking for the best African dwarf frog terrarium at an affordable price.

In addition, you will need to add a screen lid, water filter, heater, light, substrate, and so on. Besides, African dwarf frogs have no issue with keeping live plants or artificial plants in the tank.

Also, these frogs do not fancy décor items. You can put any type of rock, décor, hideouts in the tank as you wish.

Moreover, there is no strictness in keeping a filtration system for your pet African dwarf frogs. Such is because you can manually change the water daily. In this way, you can keep the water parameters right by avoiding the cost of filtration.

In a word, these frogs remain happy with the basic tank items. Such an easy tank setup must be lucrative for any pet lover.

2. You Can Play With Your Pet ADF

It is pretty fun and enticing to play with your pets. You might be wondering what you will do with a fully aquatic frog?

But, if you keep African dwarf frogs as pets, you can train and play with these pets. In addition, playing with such fully aquatic pets will double the joy of playing with the reptile pets.

Although you can not hold this sensitive pet, you can enjoy their activity after a little bit of training. I bet you will not get bored keeping African dwarf frogs as pets.

You can teach your African dwarf frog to jump as these frogs are great jumpers. Also, you can make them chase the foods or strings, and so on. Besides, you can train your African dwarf frogs to follow your instruction of fingers.

3. Calm Pets: Are African Dwarf Frogs Aggressive?

African dwarf frogs have their recognition as peaceful animals. Hence, if you want to maintain a community aquarium, these frogs will be appropriate as pets.

According to several experienced owners, African dwarf frogs are not aggressive at all. These frogs are pretty gentle and calm pets. The experienced owners have confirmed that they have not seen any aggression in African dwarf frogs.

You can also go through this article to clear up the confusion about the aggression of African dwarf frogs.

If any of their behaviors seem aggressive, they may be trying to mate or crawling over each other. Because of their poor eyesight, these frogs may bite small tank mate fish once or twice. But, this is not the case of aggression, rather an accidental cause.

So, African dwarf frogs are incredibly good as pets being one of the calmest creatures.

4. Social Animals

African dwarf frogs love to live with groups of frogs. Besides, these frogs allow different pets in their same tank too. After all, these frogs are incredibly social animals, whereas some pets like to remain alone.

For example, you can not keep two bearded dragons together in a tank. But, African dwarf frogs do not hurt their species or other animals.

As consequence, you can keep suitable tank mates of African dwarf frogs. Besides these frogs, you can fulfill your wish of keeping pet fish while raising African dwarf frogs.

Thus, you’ll have chances to keep several pets at a time. So, undoubtedly, African dwarf frogs are good pets.

5. Simple African Dwarf Frog Diet: Are African Dwarf Frogs Picky Eaters?

You might worry about feeding your pet frog frequently. But, you need not take any pressure or hassles of feeding when you keep an African dwarf frog as a pet.

An adult African dwarf frog needs to eat only once a week. Moreover, these frogs do not bother about remaining without food for a few days.

African dwarf frogs are omnivorous. So, like maximum pets, African dwarf frogs are not picky eaters at all. They tend to eat anything that fits in their mouth.

Besides, these frogs are happy with shrimp, worms, frog foods, fish foods, small fish, and so on. In a nutshell, African dwarf frogs do not demand any special kinds of foods.

So, as you notice, these food items are as simple as other frog food or fish food. Also, you can find these food items in any shop.

You need to wait for only 2-3 minutes to feed your pet African frogs. So, you should allow your pet frog to eat as much as they are capable of within this timeframe. Such is because overfeeding can cause obesity, and uneaten foods will rot in the tank.

However, if you search for African dwarf frog foods, you can check out this aquatic frog food.

6. Not Requiring Any Special Lights

Some special species of frogs require special lighting due to their different physical features. For example, if you keep albino Pacman frog or albino dart frog as your pets, you must not keep UVB light in the tank.

On the other hand, there are no special requirements for lights for African dwarf frogs. Moreover, you will not have to maintain any specific day and night cycle for these frogs.

Also, these African dwarf frogs do not need any specific kinds of lighting such as basking lamps, heat lamps, UVB light, etc.

To stimulate the natural environment, keeping African dwarf frogs under 8-12 hours of light will be sufficient. As these frogs are nocturnal animals, lightings are significant for them. But, there are no strict rules for this.

You can easily fulfill their lighting requirement with LED aquarium lights or any other standard aquarium lights. If you want to use plant lights for the live plants of the tank, your pet African dwarf frog will not have any issues with it too.

7. Less Maintenance

African dwarf frogs are fewer maintenance pets. You do not need to spend your valuable time every day behind their maintenance.

You have to change the tank water regularly to keep the water quality perfect. Otherwise, if you keep filters, you will not need to go through these hassles too.

Aside from changing water, an African dwarf frog owner does not have any other regular work of maintenance.

On the other hand, if you keep other reptiles or semi-aquatic frogs, you may need to clean the tank daily. In the case of African dwarf frogs, you can remove the frog waste through the water changes.

8. Easy Breeding: Are African Dwarf Frogs Easy To Breed?

Some frog owners want to increase the frog population on their own. Hence, the owners want to buy such a pet frog that will be easy to breed.

African dwarf frogs are super easy to breed. As these frogs mate several times in a year, you have numerous chances to hatch the eggs of African dwarf frogs.

For this, you need to separate the African dwarf frog eggs as soon as possible. Later, you can hatch the eggs by keeping them in a separate tank. Also, the tank requirements are pretty simple to hatch the eggs.

All you need is to separate and keep the African dwarf frog eggs in the prepared tank. The fertilized eggs will get hatched, and you’ll get froglets without any hassles.

If you are interested in knowing about African dwarf frog breeding, you should check out this article. It will enlighten you with details about the easy breeding of African dwarf frogs and African dwarf frog eggs care.

9. Inexpensive To Keep

If you want to buy an affordable pet, African dwarf frogs will be budget-friendly for you. You can buy an African dwarf frog at the price of $2-$6. Since the food diet of African dwarf frogs is pretty simple, the monthly food cost will be around only $15-$30.

Besides, there are no extra or additional costs of keeping African dwarf frogs as pets. Since African dwarf frogs are inexpensive pets, these frogs will be good pets for both beginners and experienced owners.

10. Pleasant Calls: Do African Dwarf Frogs Sing?

Another specialty of keeping an African dwarf frog as a pet is getting chances to listen to their humming sound or songs. Generally, the male African dwarf frogs make such sounds as singing. It can be their mating calls.

Otherwise, these frogs make humming sounds whenever they get excited too.

Moreover, sometimes African dwarf frogs sing because of their mood. That is because African dwarf frog owners hear these frogs singing before starting the mating season. Despite having any female accompany, the male African dwarf frogs continue singing.

Besides, your African dwarf frogs make such humming sound of singing so loudly that you can hear it outside the tank. Also, their vocalization is not coarse or cracky.

So, you will be able to listen to such free songs when you decide to keep African dwarf frogs as pets.

Are African Dwarf Frogs Hard To Keep-Alive?

There are not many complexities in raising African dwarf frogs. After all, these frogs do not have any special demands except keeping the water parameters alright.

African dwarf frogs are easy to keep alive with proper care and maintenance. Their feeding guide and maintenance routine are also easy to maintain.

If you fulfill their basic needs regularly, African dwarf frogs will accompany you for up to five years. Thus, you can keep your pet African dwarf frogs alive by spending a little time daily for their care.

However, you can search for details about how to take care of African dwarf frogs as pets.

Cons Of Keeping Pet African Dwarf Frogs: Are African Dwarf Frogs Hard To Keep?

Before deciding to keep a pet, you must know both pros and cons of the animal. Since I’ve already mentioned the reasons for African dwarf frogs being good pets, let’s check out the cons of keeping these frogs.

1 .Being Nocturnal

African dwarf frogs are nocturnal animals. It means these frogs remain active at night and sleep during the day. As a result, you might miss the fascinating activities of your pet African dwarf frogs in the daytime.

2. Restrictions In Handling: Can I Touch My African Dwarf Frog?

African dwarf frogs are not the kind of pets to cuddle or hold in hands. You should not touch your African dwarf frog without any emergency.

Since African dwarf frogs are completely aquatic, they will not survive without water for a long period. If you keep them outside of their tank for longer than 10 minutes, your pet frog may not survive.

Besides, African dwarf frogs are pretty sensitive. The oils, chemicals, or soap of your hand can cause harm to these frogs. Hence, the experienced owners and the researchers strictly forbid touching or holding African dwarf frogs.

3. Sensitive Of Ammonia And Nitrate

Before deciding to keep African dwarf frogs as pets, you must remain aware of these frogs’ sensitivity to ammonia and nitrate.

Usually, African dwarf frogs produce wastes of ammonia. On the other hand, this ammonia gets converted into nitrate that is too poisonous for all aquatic animals, including African dwarf frogs.

For this reason, you must change the tank water regularly if you keep African dwarf frogs as pets. The ammonia and nitrite level in the water must remain 0-0.25%.

Hence, you can add a filter to the African dwarf frog tank. Otherwise, you have to change the water manually.

It is the main concerning factor of keeping African dwarf frogs as pets. Before keeping this frog, you should ensure whether you can keep the water parameters right all-time or not.

4. Having Poor Eyesight

African dwarf frogs have ill fame due to their poor eyesight. These frogs see everything pretty blur. As a result, African dwarf frogs tend to swallow anything mistaken as food. So, when they can not digest the object, they end up dying.

Also, African dwarf frogs rely on vibrations and noise. So, they can not quickly figure out the danger. Sometimes, these frogs get stuck under hard, and large objects while playing or hiding under them.

Due to terribly poor eyesight, African dwarf frogs can die. In consequence, you’ll lose your accompany. Hence, many pet lovers do not want to keep this frog as a pet.

5. Always In Need Of Heat

This con is applicable for all species of frogs as all frogs are cold-blooded animals. As a result, African dwarf frogs can not survive in cold temperatures.

If you live in a cold country, the room temperature will not be sufficient for these frogs. Hence, you’ll always need to keep the African dwarf frog tank warm by adding a heater.

6. Carriers Of Salmonella

African dwarf frogs are one of the most remarkable carriers of salmonella. Besides, there remain risks of spreading salmonella to humans.

Hence, you must wash your hands properly after touching the African dwarf frog, its feces, other objects that have come in contact with the frog. If you do not do so, you will be easily affected by salmonellosis by your pet frog.

Final Words

As every coin has two sides, keeping African dwarf frogs as pets has both advantages and disadvantages. I hope you have got a clear idea from this article whether African dwarf frogs are good pets or not. Considering all of these facts, you can decide if keeping African dwarf frogs as pets is worthy for you.