african dwarf frog! please help!

Question
QUESTION: hi i don't know if you know much about african dwarf frogs but i have 1 in my community tank... ive had him for 2 months and everything has been great.. now all of a suudden he is not moving he is just floping around at the top of the tank! this is very unlike him he often darts around when confronted by me or other fish... i feed him real worms and freeze dried blood worms... ive never acctually seen him eat becuase i feed him at night when he is most active and the other fish are least active... he seemed fine yesterday and now it seems like hes dyeing! please tell me if you haev any suggestions!
ANSWER: Hi Sam
I know a little about them, I have one in a 10 gallon tank.  Sometimes they'll hang out at the top, being lazy so they don't have to swim up from the bottom.  But flopping around doesn't sound good.  Do you have a water test kit to test for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates?  If not, you really should get one.  The better, more accurate ones are the dropper kinds, as opposed to the dipstick test kits.  Frogs can suffer from ammonia and nitrtie poisoning just like fish can.  

As for him darting around when other fish or you come around, that may be normal.  He may not be feeling too secure with the other fish in the tank, especiallly if you're not sure if he's eating or not.  I had to move mine to my larger 33 gallon community tank, and he didn't seem to thrilled by it.  I know whenever a fish bumped into him, he'd move off to another spot.  

First try checking your water parameters, ammonia and nitrite should read 0 ppm, and nitrates under 20 ppm.  If they're reading other then that, do a water change.  In fact, if you don't have a test kit at the moment, do a water change now and see if that helps him.  If anything, it won't hurt.  If not, maybe consider another tank, 5 gallon should be good for him.  Here's a good link with info on ADF's, but doesn't give much info on symptoms of diseases.  Need to copy and paste to your browser:

http://aquaticfrogs.tripod.com/id8.html

Hope that helps and good luck with him!

Christy

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: well i dotn have a test kit but once a month i get it tested at the pet store and i just did it 2 days ago and everything was good.... i did a water change, he still isnt responding very much but he is swimming a bit better now!

Answer
Hi Sam
Honestly, you really should buy your own test kit.  A lot of people(and even some test kits) will say the water is fine, but may show a little ammonia or nitrites.  That really isn't fine for the fish. Plus you'll want to check the levels more often then once a month.   Try doing another small water change again tomorrow, and see if he starts acting better.  They generally aren't very "responsive", usually they just hang out rather then swimming around.  Maybe it just needed a water change, and that was enough to help him out.  If you're not doing it, get on a schedule of doing water changes once a week.  Any longer then a week is really too long.  I usually recommend vacuuming the gravel and changing out about 25% of the water, in regularly stocked tanks once a week.  That's the best way to keep the water quality good.

Good luck!

Christy