As the popularity of keeping frogs as pets, especially African Dwarf Frogs continues to increase in popularity, we have noticed more and more questions from the frog keeping community asking various questions about how they are able to offer the best care possible for their pet frog.
Many people keep their pet frog in a tank with fish and with ich being a real problem for fish, it’s easy to see why so many people ask if ich affects frogs or not.
It is very unlikely that ich will be able to affect your pet frog due to the way that the ich parasite has to bond to its host.
Not only does a frog’s skin have the incorrect texture but the layer of mucus that many frog species naturally produce will make it even more difficult for ich to affect your frog and be able to attach to its skin.
There are other types of parasite that are technically able to take hold of a frog and may look similar to ich in some situations but they are usually distinct enough to know that it is not ich.
Some fungal infections on frogs can sometimes look like ich too due to the mucus coat on the frog having an effect on the fungus and changing its texture with this often being misidentified as ich.
Does Ich Affect Frogs?
Ich is not able to affect frogs in the same way that it is able to affect fish due to the ich parasite not being able to attach itself to the skin of a frog.
This drastically reduces the risk of having a frog in a tank where there is an ich breakout due to it being such a low risk to frogs in most situations.
Some people have posted photographs on social media of their pet frog that they think has ich but it is usually due to one of the reasons that we covered earlier in the article.
Most often, a fungal infection where the texture of the fungus has changed due to the mucus coating of the frog having an effect on the fungus.
You are usually able to confirm this to be the case by looking for other signs of a fungal infection in your aquarium.
Quite often, there will be multiple signs of a fungal infection making it obvious that this is the issue and the marks on the skin of your pet frog is not an ich breakout.
If you do have your frog in a tank with fish then the fish will often show the signs of a fungal infection too but due to the mucus coat of a fish not being as thick as that of a frog, it is usually obvious to tell that the problem is just a fungal outbreak.
Will Ich Treatment Kill Frogs?
Some ich treatments can cause problems with frogs and in some cases, they may be able to kill a frog but the chances of an ich treatment killing a healthy frog is low.
This will largely depend on the specific ich treatment that you plan to use to treat the ich breakout in your tank though as different products use different active ingredients.
If your tank has fertilized frog eggs, baby frogs, or sick frogs in it then the chances of an ich treatment negatively affecting them can increase but the chance of death is still low in most cases.
Frogs with open wounds can also have issues with pain if they are in a tank with ich treatments actively being used due to many active ingredients in ich treatments being irritants that can cause pain or stinging.
Although rare, an ich treatment may also cause problems with the frog’s eyes or the frog’s natural ability to produce the mucus coat that it uses to protect its skin from any potential problems too.
This is why a frog should be closely monitored if you have to keep it in an aquarium tank that you have to use ich treatments on but ideally, you will be moving the frog into a separate tank.
Should You Quarantine Frogs If Their Tank Has Ich?
It is usually a good idea to move a frog to a quarantine tank away from your main tank if you have to start dosing your main tank with an ich treatment.
Not only can ich treatments have negative effects on your frogs but some fish species can become slow and lethargic when suffering from ich and some species of frog will end up eating the fish due to them being easier to catch.
We know that a large number of our readers won’t have access to a fully blown second tank but depending on the species of frog, you may be able to keep the frog in another container with water in it as a temporary solution.
This is still often better than leaving your frog in its cage and letting it sit in water with an ich treatment in it, especially if you have had to go with a high strength, chemical based ich treatment.
In most cases, we don’t recommend that you keep frogs and fish in the same tank anyway but there are some species that can work fine without issue together.
If your fish have ich then this can change though and some species of frog will take advantage of the slower moving fish and eat them.
This is another reason why we would recommend that you try to move your frog into another tank if possible until your fish are all better and the ich has been treated.
Conclusion
That brings our article going ver if ich affects frog’s or not to an end. We hope that we have been able to help you better understand that the chances of ich taking hold of a pet frog really are minimal. We know that some posts on social media make it sound like it is highly likely that ich will infect a frog but this really is not the case and the people who make those posts are commonly misidentifying another condition that their frog is suffering from.
