# General Topics > General Discussion & News > Care Sheet Proposals >  Breeding Occidozyga lima

## corientalis

Hello! At last I found this topic after sending submission messages all  over the place and for John personally. So, I managed to breed floating  frogs more than one time, and I wrote an article about many aspects of  the matter. I also got some pictures and for the most curious I have a  few very-very bad quality videos on youtube, too - my apologies, I was  greatly unprepared for this technologically. Also, sorry if I made some  mistakes, English is not my native language. 

  "Care and Breeding of the Floating Frog (_Occidozyga lima_, Gravenhorst 1829)

  Article and Photos by Gábor Molnár

    Maybe because of its simple appearance and relatively inactive  lifestyle, this species could not manage to become a popular addition of  herp lovers collections yet. It is also hard to find decent literature  on keeping these frogs, and I have yet to find at least one complete,  non-speculative article on the aspect of breeding. For that very reason  it was a great experience for me to develope a successful method for the  latter.      

Introduction

_Occidozyga lima_  occurs in large parts of South-East Asia where it inhabits slow-moving  and still waters like rice paddies, ditches, ponds with dense aquatic  vegetation. The snout-vent lenght is about 4cm; males usually are  somewhat shorter. The dorsal side is brown, greenish brown with dark  spots and on certain specimens, a thin stripe runs in the middle of the  back. The light colored ventral side is sprinkled with darker spots here  and there. Males also have some yellowish discoloration at where the  throat sac (in this case a single median subgular vocal sack) can be  found.  
It is said because of their abundance in their natural  habitats local ornamental fish farmers use this frogs among others as  live food for large predatory fish, and it is also known that snake  keepers feed them to problematic eaters of amphibian specialists as one  of the few readily available frog species within its price range.  However it seems both the fodder frogs and the ones selected for the  international pet trade are usually captured from the wild. Since low  price, steady supplies of harvested animals and low demand by the herp  communities worldwide, serious westerner breeders did not indulge in  keeping them yet. Importers often do not have sufficient experience with  them, therefore it is not uncommon for shopkeepers to suggest taking  care of these amphibians like clawed frogs. Of course, due to their  completely different lifestyle floating frogs require quite different  captive environment and nourishment.                   

General Care

     Most of the time floating frogs are just floating on the surface,  diving only when they are frightened. When this happens, they try to  hide quickly, dashing hither and thither on the bottom, wildly bumping  to underwater objects and the walls of the tank, just to couch for a few  minutes motionless before surfacing again. Therefore water depth has  almost no significance, but using bedding and tank furniture pieces with  sharp edges is not a wise choice.   
It is important to let them  crawl out on a stone or a piece of cork bark, but it is best to provide  them with a whole bunch of aquatic plants which reach the surface, so  the frogs can rest on the top of them without leaving water. While they  can float for quite a time, it is stressful to them if they can not at  least anchor themeselves when needed, especially if the current from the  filter is not mellowed enough.  
Typically they jump flat, not high  to reach water sooner, so it seems safe enough to leave at least 20cm  bellow the edge of the tank to place the highest resting site.  Nevertheless their tank should be made escape-proof with an adequate  cover or at least rims on the edges. They usually jump upwards only when  they are cornered on land and trying to break out, or when they notice a  bug sitting up on the tank glass. Of course they can jump higher from  land than from the water without any supporting object under their feet.  For this reason catching them out is also easier and maybe less  stressful by using a cup to scoop them out with some water rather than a  net or your bare hands.   
Unlike clawed frogs, floating frogs  usually do not hunt underwater (however they can be trained to tong-feed  even underwater according to the previous owner of some of my animals),  but they accept small insects sprinkled over the water surface and tank  furniture. I feed them Turkestan cockroach (_Shelfordella tartara)_  nymphs (when they are very hungry, especially females may try and  succeed to catch adult ones) and small crickets dusted with  vitamin-mineral supplement now and then, but their favourites are  flightless house flies. I suspect that the metabolism of the species has  been adapted to low-nutrient prey items as after a rich roach meal my  adult animals usually suspend eating for quite a long time regarding  their size.   
Temperaturewise floating frogs seem tolerant enough. I  keep them at room temperature (at least 23°C) most of the time, but  they really like it when weather becomes hot and sunny in the summer,  and their water temperature reaches 28-30°C.Males call more often on  higher temperatures, but they may use a specific chirping sound anytime.  One who never heard them croaking before usually thinks that is their  call, but actually I do not think chirping is related to sexes and  spawning anyhow, as freshly metamorphosed froglets often do it, too,  especially during feeding time.

    Breeding     

I got my  first trio  a male with two females - in June 2012. Tank parameters:  130l (filled till 2/3rd), built-in biological filter system, no bedding,  cork bark pieces for land area, wood and plant imitations made of nylon  strips for underwater hiding. The whole purpose was to make the tank  easy to clean and clear-cut as possible. Soon the male started calling  which sounds like clucking and bashing wooden building blocks together.  After a month I found a pair in amplexus, but eventually they parted in  the late evening before egg-deposition. I tried to stimulate them by  large volume water changes (suddenly cooling the water from 28°C below  25°C) without any success.   
In November I put all the frogs in a  plastic tub filled with only a few cm of water. After a starving period  of about a week I put them in a tub filled with moist coco-fiber in  which they burried themselves almost at once. After I supplied them with  a small water dish just in case (changed weekly), I took their tub in  the basement, where the temperature stayed between 15-19°C during  winter. I tried to imitate the dry season which I am not sure if they  ever experienced in their specific natural environment. Still, the  previous owner hinted they did bury themselves into the ground of his  community frog vivarium for a while, and after waking up they started to  spawn. 
       In the end of December I brought their clipbox back  to room temperature. They refused to come up so after a week I dug them  out to check if anything is went wrong during aestivation. Luckily they  were in good condition. In the meantime I put together a more natural  looking aqua-terrarium with fine sand substrate, lower water level and  multiple protruding land areas like wood pieces and ceramic turtle  islands (but still only a few nylon plant imitations). I also set up an  artificial rain-system in it too, by using a small aquarium pump to  circulate water through a pvc tube with holes on it, attached to the  ceiling of the enclosure. I switched it on for about 15 minutes on every  evening for weeks. I slowly heated up the water with a water-proof  heating cable buried in the sand and attached to a thermostat for about  27°C. All efforts seemed wasted as the frogs showed no interest in  spawning besides the usual croaking for the time being. 
  While taking a trip to a local stream in the end of June 2013, I saw some edible frogs (_Rana esculenta_)  sitting on the shores. Amphibians usually considered to be sensitive to  high temperatures and strong light, especially with high UV content.  Yet these ones were basking in the Sun in midday just like their  tadpoles in a shallow section of the stream without vegetation. Maybe  floating frogs need high temperature and natural sunlight, too, I  tought! Albeit the previous owner had some breeding success, it was  absolutely unintentional (just for the record, the few tadpoles also did  not survive), so he did take no notice on the exact parameters needed.  Therefore, without clues - except for aestivaton and maybe raining (they  lived in the pond of a dart frog tank for a period of time, misted  regularly) - I had to try everything which came to my mind.  
I installed a new enclosure again, making use of a plastic rodent cage bottom about half a m2 in size, which I already used many times before for raising african dwarf frog (_Hymenochirus sp_.) tadpoles and chinese firebelly newt (_Hypselotriton orientalis_)  larvae. I set it up on a table right in front of a large window. The  walls had been elongated with segments of fibreboard on all sides but  the one nearest to the window as I fitted a glass panel there for  letting in as much sunlight as possible. Adhesive tape sections were  used on the edges to prevent both frogs and roaches from escape.   Large  amounts of _Myriophyllum_ were stacked into the ~10 cm deep  water, and a few pieces of wood (Mopani and mangrove root) served as  small islands. Thanks to all of this changes and the upcoming hot summer  weather the male started croaking again, and in addition it did it more  often and for longer periods of time both in the daytime and at night.    
It was a bright day on July 4, the water temperature went up to  28°C without any additional heating. While listening to the usual midday  croaking, I noticed an unusual tune at the end of the already familiar  rythms. After sneaking to their pool in the frog room (our living  room) I found a pair in amplexus again. They seemed really determined as  they stuck together all day long even when disturbed and dived under  the aquatic jungle to hide. During a stuffy night with lots of croaking  and splashing egg-deposition has happened at last. Though being familiar  with similar frog species breeding habits  and I expected several  hundred eggs, I only found about a dozen, scattered on plants and the  pool sides underwater. Their diameter is about 1,5mm. Most of them were  infertile. 3-4mm long, dark colored tadpoles hatched from the viable  eggs after 3-5 days. Later I found a good dozen more, but I was still  disappointed in my moderate success. I am going to get back to the  matter of raising tadpoles later in this article. 
 In the next year I  strived to reach much better results while proving that my method is  practicable at the same time. However the 5 months long (I thought it  would stimulate them better for a good reason) aestivation ended with  failure, as the females did not make it this time. The male was in  perfect shape again, so I do not think it was the matter of time  specifically. I managed to buy six new, but long-term captive,  estabilished animals just in time  two females and four males. This  gender ratio works nice with this species as males can compete through  chorus which may trigger spawning, plus females have the opportunity to  chose the most suitable ones. 
  The rodent cage bottom was used  again, but furnishing got elaborated a bit more. On one half of the  water surface I layed a plastic plant carpet (fake leaves built on a  plastic mesh). It was supported by protruding wood pieces the way the  carpet stayed just on surface level on them and just below it (leaves  still protruding) at the sections between them. The other half was also  filled with aquatic plants so dense I could hardly see the bottom. Using  this method frogs may felt much safer as they could hide quicker, and  dived under the false plant carpet to later surface between mesh  squares, still partially covered by fake leaves. They could also reach  insects climbed to the top of leaves easily as those still short enough  to do so. Prey items tend to drown a bit rarer as they can get a hold on  this installment. They also could be chased through the surface as they  and the frogs too could actually run on the top of the wast amount of  _Myriophyllum_.   
Besides natural light a T8 tube fixture  with an 18w UVB fluorescent tube (Zoo Med Reptisun 5.0) was installed  about 30cm above water level. It was on for 10 hours per day. An other  new addition was a high pressure misting system attached to a time  switch, programmed to work for 15, later 30 minutes every evening. No  filter was used, only weekly partial water changes and the  photosynthesis of the plants was supposed to maintain an acceptable  level of water quality.   This enclosure became a messy looking,  hard-to-clean setup, but one the frogs liked as it really must have  reminded them to a ditch or flooded meadow where they possibly lived  their lives before they got captured. Their chorus tuned up more and  more often. Sometimes they started arguing using audibly different  sounds, tossing, chasing and grabbing onto each other. 
On July 9,  2014, again, on a bright, hot day, after a partial water change a pair  started mating, leaving lots of fertile eggs dispersed on the vegetation  and basically everywhere during the night. They may felt the change of  atmospheric pressure before a rainy day which helped them to decide to  do their stuff, too. It seemed easier to me to let the eggs where they  were, and catching out the tadpoles later.   In mid July they spawned  again, but without the aid of UVB lamp and on a cloudy day this time. I  still think warm and strong light was necessary to trigger the process  at first in the season. In countries where it is possible, it may be  better to keep them in an outdoor enclosure in the summer if breeding is  the goal. They layed eggs at least one more time this season, but I  concentrated on rearing only the first two batches. The other eggs were  left in the adults tank (I have never seen them eating the eggs).

       Raising Tadpoles     

The  very first time I only noticed four tadpoles which seemed to disappear  after a few days, so I gave up on them. I thought they might just died,  and since most of the eggs were infertile no tadpoles left in the pool  by now. For a long time I did not dare to properly clean the tank as I  was afraid to accidentally suck out some offspring when removing  detritus, but now I thought it was time to do it. After a month since  the last tadpole sighting I removed the frogs and all the plants and  wood pieces into a bucket of water, when I noticed motion in the mulm.
After  one by one, tapoles  spectacularly more depeloped since first seen   appeared. I searched through the bottom bit by bit using a stick to stir  up the mulm, because when motionless they are almost invisible thanks  to their yellowish-brownish, marbled camouflage. It is very easy to mix  them with a tiny snail shell or a small piece of rotting leaf particle  even when kept on bare glass! With the aid of an artemia net (Hobby  brand, very useful) and a plastic spoon I replaced 11 of them to the  130l tank which I kept the adults in when they arrived. As they always  couched on the mattenfilter, I switched off the built-in filter system  and put a small, air-pump supplied sponge filter in the aquarium. They  behaved like that for now no matter what, so I switched back the former  one. Aquatic plants, mangrove root pieces and coconut shells were put in  the way of the current. 
  At that time I did not find any useful  literature on the feeding behaviour of the tadpoles of this species, so I  assumed they are just like _Rana_ and _Bombina_ tadpoles,  which have similar lifestyle to floating frogs. I offered them scalded  vegetables and stones overgrown with algae, collected from the stream  but I did not see them eating  they did come down from the filter  sponge after a while but remained passive towards the food.   One day I  found a website about the wildlife of Thailand, where natural behaviour  of a different Occidozyga species was exposed. It said those tadpoles  live in the wet forest floor and hunt for tiny invertebrates on the thin  layer of water which covers leaf litter. I did not change the tank  setup, but started to decapsulate and incubate _Artemia_ eggs at once.
 Just as expected they swooped on the freshly hatched brineshrimp  nauplii. Their belly soon became red from all the nauplii stuffed  inside, and their body shape got healthy egg- or pear-like. After a week  of rich daily feeding buds of the hind legs appeared on several  specimens. Good quality _Artemia_ eggs are hard to find in  Hungary, but there is one aquatics shop which sells them constantly by  re-packaging large bags into affordably priced packs. Therefore I did  not see the need to try out other kinds of live food at the meantime,  and I did not want to risk ruining water quality with frozen food (as  they are feeding in a slowly, pecking manner and find non-moving fodder  harder unlike most fish for example) until I had other choice. 
       On August 20, about two weeks after the cleaning of the adults pool I  found an other 2 tadpoles, from the previous batch according to their  size. It was a wise decision not to remove mulm in the end but do only a  large volume water change and plant trimming - I calculated upon  missing a few ones while searching after them for the first time. Since  their relocation they got used to the setup; hided under and climbed a  lot on coco shells and plants  the nearer they got to metamorphosis the  more time they spent on the plants right under the surface. They still  climbed on the mattefilter a lot, obviously to catch nauplii trapped  into algae and moss growing on the sponge. They mainly fed on the bottom  however. 
 At the beginning of September I installed a heater in the  tank to keep temperature around 26°C, because the weather became a bit  cooler, and room temperature dropped to 23°C. Scouring the frogs pool I  found some new tadpoles again, the same size as the aquarium-dwellers,  but crippled just like the previous two. Maybe it was because of  starvation - the native copepod stock occuring in every healthy tank  must have been depleted by that time. All the others were in good  condition, and had few casualties. But soon a disaster came and I  regreted collecting algae covered stones from nature a thousand times. 
 Even high concentration salt bath could not prevent the introduction of _Hydra_,  which meant no harm at all until only a few specimens appeared on the  aquarium walls. But in a matter of weeks they spread over in the tank,  literally not leaving a single uncovered spot for the tadpoles to just  sit and recover. These cnidarians are too small to prey upon well  developed tadpoles, but large enough not to be alarmed and retract their  tentacles when they touch them. And when touching they may sting them,  causing great stress. Besides this they actually filtered out most of  the _Artemia_ from the water, so the tadpoles became stressed and  starved to lose good shape in no time. Raising daily food portion or  feeding twice a day was only adding oil to the fire, _Hydra_ just  carried on multiplying faster. When rubbed from the glasses they  reappeared soon; with tadpoles in the tank I did not dare to use any  chemicals or salt against them, and I also could not play with raising  temperature freely.
 On September 15 I relocated the 12 survivors  into a plastic tub with heater (25°C) and aerating the water. They fed  well and got a nice fat, red belly right after their first meal here,  and continued developing.  Some of the tadpoles ended metamorphosis  around this time, 2 months after hatching. The 1cm long froglets sat out  on a plastic flower ladder floating on the water surface, hunting for  flightless _Drosophila hydei_ covered with vitamin-mineral  supplement after their tail has been absorbed. Unfortunately, the  capacity of the small sponge filter is nowhere to my built-in one in the  aquarium, so water quality deteriorated soon because of the daily   more than enough  _Artemia_ portions. At the beginning of  October both tadpoles and froglets started to become sick and die, so  again, I had to risk putting the animals back into the 130l tank. _Hydra_  are already vanished because the lack of food, but now they reappeared  of course. Luckily they had no time to cumulate as the last tadpoles  grew into froglets quickly. However the very last ones became smaller  and weaker due to the more limited food supply thanks to our cnidarian  friends.           
Froglets became skittish just like the adults.  One of them weared its nose down by wildly bumping to the glass all the  time it saw me coming. I put them back in the plastic tub with a ceramic  turtle island coverd by a section of fake plant carpet this time, where  they settled down at last. It must be the positive effect of both the  special hiding place and the fact they only saw me above but not through  the walls (much more coverage). However they still did not come out  under the leaves when seeing me. From this very first batch only 2  specimens are still living. Eating fruitflies, micro  and small  crickets and nowadays small _tartara_ roaches they barely grew  2,5cm long during their first year. Therefore floating frogs you see in  pet shops must be much older than that I think. Even though it may be  possible to make them grow faster by constantly heating their water and  feeding them good amounts of appropriately sized roaches or other  insects with high nutritional value from the beginning, which I am  definitely trying out this year.  
The 2014 offspring enticed me with  greater success. Not only I found approximately 150 tadpoles first (I  spooned them out one by one, which took a couple of hours), but only  after a few weeks the frogs produced a second batch which I did not even  count. The former ones were put in the glass tank first, but when I  noticed a tiny, single - yes  _Hydra_ hitchhiking a small  aquatic snail after a whole year of the incident, I took them out into a  large bucket of water at once. The second batch of 2014 got a separate  bucket because of the large size difference compered to the first batch  members. They did not get heaters this time, the temperature ranged  between 24-28°C.   I also stopped decapsulating the brineshrimp eggs as I  realized unlike firebelly newt larvae these tadpoles either did not eat  the empty shells or those did not cumulated in their intestines,  causing death. 
With daily partial water changes their uprearing went  without trouble this time, eventhough there were casualties at the  start due to unknown causes. At one point it seemed serious food  problems were coming, as my _Artemia_ egg-stock ran out, and I  could not get more from the usual shop because of unprecedented  stock-shortage. I also could not get other types of micro-sized live  food because different causes, so I wanted to use chopped _Tubifex_  worm. I tried to give whole worms for the larger tadpoles first, and  they ate it gladly and with relative ease. The small, few weeks old ones  (at around 5mm snout-vent length) also managed to surmount worms much  longer than themeselves. So they do can eat larger meals than it seemed  first. It was a lucky and very useful observation in the end, because  unlike quality _Artemia_ eggs _Tubifex_ is readily  available in most pet shops year-round, at least in the capital. It is  also very nutritious, the second batch slowly managed to catch up in  size with the first. I wish they would have consumed _Hydra_, too 
  The 2014 offspring have metamorphosed by now, 81 specimens altogether.  Because of their large number they got the rodent cage pool, while the  adults were put into the aquarium many times mentioned above. The  froglets home contains the aforementioned fake plant carpet supported  with upside-down cups, a heater (on 25°C) and an air stone to help  dissolving temperature evently (large surface but only 6cm depth) by  moving the water. They are fed with tiny _tartara_ roaches from  the start in the hope of quicker growth (compared to a fruitfly-based  diet)  it seems it works with daily 1-2 heavy feedings.     
All the  methods in this article are based on my personal experiences and are  definitely not set in stone. There is room for improvement in many  aspects, obviously. However, these observations may help to better  understand the needs of this species and arouse more interest towards  them." 

And here are those links for the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVc3...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFmC...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a81T...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOF0...G0p1kg&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdVM...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tou...YtvP45uQG0p1kg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjOS...G0p1kg&index=7

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## ThreeToedBox

What's the lifespan for these guys?

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## corientalis

ThreeToed: I usually don't bother with this kind of infos as in my opinion it does not matter for a good owner since any specimens live until their keeper keep them healthy - maximum possible lifespan is not the most common to be reached in reality.

UPDATE TO THE ARTICLE:
Juveniles definitely grow quick when the latter feeding schedule is applied, and also start croaking after about half a year. One of the new owners of my juveniles reported they started breeding without any special treatment within their first year! Seems like captive bred animals breed easier.

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## Grim FrogBreeder

Hey guys, I think my female Occidozyga layed eggs cause yesterday she was twice bigger than today... how does the eggs look like? I found something looking like eggs, but not sure are they eggs. I have 3 frogs of this species (I bought 7 like 1 year ago but something gone wrong and you know..), keeping them in small tank with a lots of plants and a big piece of wood, where they hide and they can also get out of water on plant leaves and on the top of the wood (it's some kind of root I think). Any advice?

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