In our hobby, we are turning natural selection upside down. Instead of one frog eating his brothers and sisters, we let them all live. Then we get rid of all the predators, (over)feed them, relentlessly clean their water, and give them a stable temperature to develop. We make it so the vast majority of eggs laid in our hobby turn into frogs that are bred and produce offspring for this hobby.

I think there are a lot of frogs in our hobby that shouldn’t have made the cut. We are watering down the frogs we have by continually adding weak frogs into the system. I have set a few guidelines for my breeding practices in an effort to get rid of some weak frogs while still maintaining the supply I need to make a living.

First off, I have stopped using Methylene Blue on my eggs. If the egg molds then it molds. I’m not babying eggs anymore.

Secondly, I’m not doing any water changes. And I don’t miss it at all. Could our constant water changes be affecting our frogs in the same way too sterile conditions lead to allergies in humans?

Finally, I have created a slope system (see Breeding) where only frogs with the strongest front legs survive. SLS comes in varying degrees, so I want to cull the frogs that show any signs. Could easy access out of the water be a contributing factor to SLS in the fact that frogs don’t need strong legs to get out of our water, so they don’t develop strong front legs?

I welcome your feedback.