Frogs in the Pool: Which Frog It Is, and Why That Matters

Every Florida pool owner scoops frogs. It is such a routine part of the summer that most people stop asking about it and just keep the net by the door.

It is worth asking about once, because the frog is probably not a native and the fix is probably not what you’re doing.

It’s almost certainly a Cuban treefrog

UF/IFAS gives an identification rule so simple it is almost suspicious:

any treefrog in Florida longer than 3 inches is almost certainly a Cuban treefrog

Adults can exceed six inches. They have bulging eyes, warty skin and disproportionately large toepads — the toepads are the giveaway, and they are why these animals can climb anything, including a screen enclosure and the side of your house. Juveniles are trickier, but look for a light line running from the eye back toward the rear legs, and leg bones that can appear distinctly blue through the skin.

The species arrived in the Keys in the 1920s, had spread through most of southern Florida by the mid-1970s, and as of 2023 was established throughout the peninsula and in several areas of the Panhandle. Tampa Bay is comfortably inside that range.

Why it isn’t just a nuisance

If these were native treefrogs we would tell you to leave them alone and enjoy them.

UF/IFAS reports that Cuban treefrogs prey on native frogs, that research found they inhibited the growth and development of native southern toad and green treefrog tadpoles, and that they carry nonnative parasites and diseases that affect native amphibians.

So the frogs in your skimmer are not the local wildlife. They are, in a small way, the reason there is less of it.

Your pool is a breeding site

This is the part that reframes the problem. UF/IFAS states that Cuban treefrogs use swimming pools as breeding sites and that they can breed in surprisingly small amounts of water.

That last clause matters more than it looks. It is not just the pool. It is the bucket by the shed, the plant saucer, the wheelbarrow left out in July, the tarp with a dip in it, and — during construction — an excavation or an unfinished shell that has been holding rainwater for a fortnight.

So a pool that keeps producing tadpoles is not unlucky. It is hospitable.

What UF/IFAS says actually works

Their guidance is refreshingly boring:

Maintain your swimming pool with regular chlorine and shock treatments. Be sure to maintain proper water pH (~7.5 with a test kit) so chlorine treatments are most effective. Cuban treefrogs will lay their eggs in pools that are not well maintained.

Two things are doing the work there, and the second is the one people skip.

Chlorine and shock are the obvious half. pH is the half that decides whether the first half functions. Chlorine’s disinfecting effectiveness falls away as pH climbs, so a pool carrying a decent chlorine reading at a drifted-high pH is doing considerably less than the number on the test strip suggests. Around 7.5 is the target UF/IFAS names, and it sits comfortably inside the range Florida requires of public pools.

This is the same mechanism that makes summer such hard work on Florida pool chemistry generally — heavy rain, long sun and heavy bather load all push at pH and chlorine at once. We go through that in detail in what summer rain does to your pool chemistry.

The practical version: the weeks your pool is most likely to grow tadpoles are exactly the weeks it is least likely to be properly maintained — a holiday, a stretch of storms, a gap between service visits in August. Those are the weeks worth covering.

The bit the extension literature doesn’t cover

UF/IFAS notes that Cuban treefrogs shelter in tight, enclosed spaces — behind storm shutters, behind vinyl siding. They also note the frogs can get into houses through roof vent pipes, which is how they end up in toilets.

Look at a pool installation with that sentence in mind and you’ll see it is full of exactly that habitat: skimmer throats, pump basket lids, the space behind equipment pad housings, autofill boxes, valve boxes, and the gap under a heater cabinet. Tight, enclosed, shaded, and often damp.

Nothing about this is a design flaw and none of it is avoidable — equipment needs enclosures. But it does mean two practical things:

• Frogs in the pump basket and skimmer are the norm, not a symptom of anything. Check the baskets. A frog that drowns in a skimmer becomes an organic load your chlorine then has to deal with.
• Equipment pad housekeeping is frog control. Lids seated properly, valve boxes closed, no standing water in a saucer or a bucket beside the pad, and no leaf litter piled against the cabinets.

If you catch one

UF/IFAS publishes specific guidance, and because this is an invasive species the guidance is to euthanise captured animals humanely rather than move or release them — a benzocaine- or lidocaine-based ointment or spray applied to the belly, then freezing.

We are a pool builder, not an extension service, so we will say only this: read their publication before you act, and be certain of the identification first. Florida’s native treefrogs are smaller, they are not the problem, and they should be left alone. If you are not confident telling them apart, the control that requires no identification at all is the one that works anyway — keep the water right.

This article summarises UF/IFAS Extension publications as available on 17 August 2026. UF/IFAS is the authority here; follow their current publications over any summary.