Nutrition of african dwarf frogs (Hymenochirus sp.)
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The most important thing right at the beginning: The african dwarf frogs can starve if they don`t get enough food in a society aquarium , in addition, an over feeding can have fatal consequences. Dried food (fish flake) normally is not recognized as food. Sometimes the froggys take also food tabs (those for carnivor fishes which you can normally attach to the aquarium). Anyway, living food is the best and most natural for dwarf frogs. If one is afraid of feeding living food, then one should consider not keep these animals, because eventually they (after a quite longer continuing hunger period) could die.

How do african dwarf/claw frogs seek out their food? Because african dwarf frogs have a relatively weakly trained vision they need an additional detection apparatus: The lateralisorgan. This organ consists of line-like arranged sense hills (neuro masts), which are connected by nerve cells (afferent neurons) directly with the central brain and the optic nerve (!).
With the help of the lateralisorgan (and with help of weak vision) the frog brings itself into an optimal adjustment to the prey. It reacts best to strongly colored (e.g. tubifex or red bloodworms) and moving prey. In addition, the sense of smell is very well trained. It is probably responsible for the fact that the froggys sometimes come only out from its hiding places if they are fed. Because the animals rate its prey for a while before they take it up with their suction muzzle, they sometimes dont't get enough to eat if they are socialized with fishes. The sense of smell is probably the reason that the animals can also be fed (in the extreme emergency) with food tabs (for carnivore fishes). The sense of smell (chemical receptors) reacts very well to essential amino acids, so that one can observe a prey catch behavior immediately by feeding strongly amino acid containing food.

What do african dwarf frogs eat? Preferably the animals (from above mentioned reasons) eat living or frozen bloodworms or tubifex worms. Before feeding, you should "wash" frozen food with clear water and water living food for 2 days (see general information). Please don't feed too many at one time, since this can harm the frogs. In extreme cases an over feeding can also lead to death of the dwarves, since these do apparently not know when it is enough. In [1] is even recommended to fed the animals only every other day.
Alternatively one can feed also very well young daphnia (water fleas), bosmiden, cyclops, artemia (brine shrimp), enchytraeen and tubifex worms. Alive or as frozen food.
It is extremely important that one absolutely not immediately pours the red mosquito larvae or bloodworms (living at the soil of loaded waters) from the bag into the aquarium, but transfer them into a container with stagnant tap water until they emptied themselves as completely as possible. Direct feeding can poison the frogs, or after some time let becoming them ill.
 

African dwarf frogs in pet stores oftenly look very thin. That is on the one hand because of the fact that there the exclusive carnivores get oftenly fodder tablets, or they are kept in a basin with a lot of fish, which notice the food substantially faster, and so usually nothing remains for the frogs.

In any case a carnivore nutrition is recommended. That means not each day bloodworms, but also another kind of carnal food. It is also possible to feed fine chopped pigliver or beef heart, but these food can pollute the water quickly.
Here for interested again a few pictures of Chironomus thummi (red mosquito larva, bloodworm) and Artemia salina (brine shrimp)
 

How do african dwarf/claw frogs eat? The frogs possess like all aquatic amphibians (those are animals which live durably under water, however also can go ashore) a so-called Hyoidpump.Thus they can suck in their prey with the help oft he Hybranchialapparatus. The suction effect leads to a negative pressure in the mouth, so that smaller booty animals can be aspirated directly. In addition you can observe a helping movement with the front extremities very oftenly. If the prey is too large to eat then it is simply spit out again, since the african dwarf frogs can hardly divide the food with their muzzle. The muzzle can be locked however very firmly, so that it looks occasionally in such a way, as if the animal bite off a piece.
African dwarf frogs do not have a tongue, but a mucous membrane fold, which helps to hold the food. However, this is not comparable with the strength of a tongue. The mucous membrane fold possesses also taste buds (Mikrovilli) like a tongue.
The african dwarf frogs have also small teeth and a "chewing musculature", but both is not used to chew, but only to hold the prey. The food is being swallowed down in one piece.