Beware of Aquatic Frogs!

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.
About 5 years ago.

About 5 years ago, I was visiting my local pet store and saw a cute, very small(no bigger than my thumb nail) albino aquatic frog. After fawning over him and asking about him from the employees, silly me bought him. I had a tank full fo fish and he was a nice addition.

I got him frog food and some other sort of dried blood worms to eat. He seemed very happy with his food. He began to grow. The one thing I had not asked about in the store was how BIG could he grow? Well he continued to grow and he was a joy to watch swimming around in the tank with the other fish.

After several months....about 6--8, I came home from work and noticed a fish was missing. I had so many, I could not be sure and did not think too much about it. I came home 2 days later and it was definite. There was a fish missing. I looked at the cat. Did she do it? No. Did it jump out? I looked all around the tank, but there were no fish on the floor. I began to look at that frog.

My cute little frog that was now the size of egg now. I was still not convinced as all the fish were sooooooo much bigger than the frog. I decided that I had to know the truth. I fed the frog all the time so I know it was not hungry. That weekend, I stayed near the tank all day that Saturday and finally I saw it happen. That small albino frog unhinged its jaw , opened that mouth and poof..a fish was gone in an instant.

I called the pet store and asked about that frog. Was it a predator? YES was the answer. Yes..a very serious predator who could eat things twice his size living in his native environment. Did it only eat other fish? No was the answer! How big could it get? In the wilds of asia/africa it could grow to the size of a basketball!!!! A BASKETBALL!!!??? Yes, a basketball. How big could it get in my tank? Pretty darned big.

Well, I was in a quandry. What to do? I bought a big tank just for him and put him in it alone with no fish. Just a few snails. Poor snails. Come to find that albino aquatic frogs like escargôt too. Little did I know. I found out too late to save them. All I saw was snail shells being expelled from the frogs' mouth. He lived in that tank for another year. He was a predator that I had to feed live fish. I lived at that fish store buying feeder fish for that frog. And still he grew and grew and grew! He became the size of a large navel orange.

I called the pet store again and told them about the status of the frog and how big he was and asked if could they take him back. They said they did not want to buy him back. I was not EVEN talking about any kind of refund. I just wanted to give him back. He was already so big that he could push off from one end of the tank and get to the other in a few seconds. That tank seemed like it was getting too small for him. Plus my cat is a small cat. As big as he could get, my cat could be in danger. I had a lid for the tank but strange things can happen. (We have all seen when animals attack on TV)

The pet said they could not take it back as it was too big. And still growing. I asked about letting it go in a river near my home. They said absolutely not. That frog was a predator and would adversly affect the eco system. In addition, they said it would mate with other frogs in the area and new, mutant, hybrid predator frogs could and would be the result. Since they were not native to North America, I would be introducing a new species into the environment that was a known predator.

In addition the employees at the pet store said I needed to be careful now to be sure that I did not get bitten by the frog. They mentioned exotic toxins, getting ill and who knows about antidotes???? Our doctors might now know what to do if I got bitten. I was stuck. I kept the frog and kept on feeding him. I got another tank. A bigger one. He grew to size of a grapefruit. My mother was terrified. She said that I should get rid of it. I told her I tried but there was nothing I could do short of hopping a plane to a river in Asia or Africa. She said that I needed to do something to get rid of it. She suggested I stopped feeding it and let it die.

I did not think that was very humane--starvation, plus I was afraid it might go after the cat somehow or by some freaky thing happening, get out in search of food and bite someone. Nope. I continued to feed it. I looked up how long it could live. For quite some time. In this new tank it lived another year. I decided I would not buy another tank. It would just have to live out its life in that tank no matter how much bigger it got.

All total I had the frog for about 3 years and it was the size of a grapefruit. That last tank, I do believe, got too small. It did not really have room to swim very much. One day I came home and it seemed not to be moving. That was not unsual as sometimes it seemed not to move for quite some time. Then it would be just fine. Well after about a week of not moving, I really thought it was dead. The fish I fed it still were living. The water began to smell and it really was dead.

Never have I been happy to see a pet die, but I was relieved when my frog did. He was an exotic animal not from this country, obviously adapting far too well to his new home and food. He was the size of a grapefruit when he went to froggy heaven. How many frogs or fish can we say really survive for 3 years in a fish tank? He was beautiful to look at but too much of a burden when it came to the local enviroment. Please take time to really look into those exotic anuimals before you buy them. You might have a worrisom pet on your hands instead of an enjoyable one.