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Thread: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

  1. #41
    100+ Post Member daybr4ke's Avatar
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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Wow, the toxins thing is really interesting. I didn't know they were even toxic to such an extent, and the developed immunity is interesting, and pretty quickly developed. I've been thinking about getting some, so it's good to know lol

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  3. #42
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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Well, the heat wave is over. Adding ice to the tank only reduces the temperature for under one hour, then it goes right back up.

    The hottest temperature I saw was 87 degrees. It stayed at that temperature for 36 hours. I was very worried. Everything I did...ice and water changes...worked for a bit, but it went right back to 87F. Toadlets are stupid about rafting on ice cubes. The ones that do end up in quite a torpor.
    There is no direct sunlight involved so the water temp was 87F...outside of the water, in the breeze of the fan, I suspect it is much cooler for them.

    Froggies did not even lose their appetite or change their cute behavior in any way.

    I've left the top of the tank open with a fan blowing. Lost a whole gallon of water to evaporation.

    I don't think I need a chiller after all.

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    The cherry shrimp are thriving in this tank. They appear to be able to handle FBT water in the long term.

    But not everything can...I tried a dwarf crayfish...those did not last long at all.

    I added some assassin snails to try and cope with an outbreak of other nuisance snails...the assassin snails cannot survive very long in a Fire Belly Toad tank; they are all dead after two months. The nuisance snail is still there, but in lower numbers.

    So...
    Mosquito fish and cherry shrimp and some sort of snail that I got from petsmart - no problem in an FBT tank
    Assassin snails or dwarf crayfish - soon dead

    It's hit and miss. I feel like Doctor Frankenstein, mixing creatures from around the world in my experimental tank.

  5. #44

    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    With great interest I have read this thread. It was very entertaining to follow your whole proces. Even more so because end of April my own toads also surprised me with eggs. I would be very curious to see how yours look like now, would it be possible to post some more photos?
    Here some videos of mine because for some reason I cannot upload any images, jpg or png, does anyone else experience this problem too?



    And a more explicit one...


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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Just added a chiller to my frog tank. Now, instead of a hot ambient temperature, close to a dangerous temperature...

    it's whatever I want. 74F is what it is now.

    one of my frogs, over-night, turned a bright lime green in response. they do seem more active at this temperature.

    and I no longer have to worry about heat waves and plopping ice into the tank.

    i need to 'focus' on pictures next.


    that twerking video is hilarious!

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  9. #46
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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    The chiller works great. The frogs are very happy. The males are calling loudly and many batches of eggs have been laid in the past week.

    But the interesting thing is...the eggs are 0% viable. Earlier in the season it was closer to 100%. And now? Every single one of them fails.

    I am not complaining. I don't need any more toadlets. But it is a mystery and i'd like to know why.

    I dealt with a worm issue in my tank by adding a dose of fenbenzadole. The worms, I believe, came from my outdoor pond. Planaria + two other species of filament like worms. Five days later, all gone. Very effective and targeted medicine.

    I don't know if that has anything to do with the egg issue. I have added a bunch of activated charcoal to my filter system to try and absorb any problem chemicals in the water. A basic test kit says my water is fine...no ammonia, no nitrite, 7.6 pH. And lots of nitrates, but that is typical for a tank loaded with frogs.

    The toadlets are growing enough such that the adults are starting to interact with them. I saw one adult grab a toadlet. More like wrapped completely around it, lol. Toadlet Did Not Want This and was able to swim away eventually, for they are squishy escape artists and hard to hold for long. Such is the life of a frog I guess.

    The chiller is a huge load off of my mind. I can go on vacation and not worry about a stinking hot pool of death when I come back home.

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    well, i'm being lazy on the photos. i need to spend some time to clean up the glass on my tank. good lord my water is hard.

    My frogs lay eggs about every week. But the last few months, all eggs have been sterile. i do not know why. could be the high temperatures i had before the chiller was added. could be a toxin i cannot detect with my test kit. could be a sterile frog.

    i was concerned that there was a water quality issue even though a basic test kit showed no problems.
    in response to the dead eggs i've been getting, I added some activated charcoal and some "de-nitrate" to my filter.

    one week later...i have live eggs...i expect to get some 'clinger' tadpoles this evening as they hatch out. my tank has developed enough algae that i suspect they will have plenty to eat and i look forward to getting the algae cleaned up in a natural manner.

    I do not know whether or not there was a water quality issue. A frog was either shooting blanks, or I had something in the water that did not show up on the test kit...and was removed by the activated charcoal.

    either way, i'm down to about 30 froggies. most of them are originals from the first batch of eggs. they are 1/3rd the size of the adults and would probably develop faster if I fed them at a maximum rate. many of the latter and smaller toadlets didn't get fed enough and they started to die off. if i had fed them all, i'd be at over 100 toadlets. there's a population of cherry shrimp on the bottom of this tank that'll eat a dead froglet in one day.

    there is a balance between water quality and how much food i throw into this tank. so i don't max out the food. wish i could save them all, but then i'd be up to my eyeballs in toadlets and would be branded, rightfully so, a crazy frog person.

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  13. #48
    100+ Post Member daybr4ke's Avatar
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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Wow. At that rate you could probably sell CB firebellies lol
    1 Male Giant African Bullfrog
    2 Woodhouse's Toads
    11 Pacific Treefrogs
    1 Dubia Roach Colony
    2 Australian Green Treefrogs

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    they sell at the local pet store for $3. :O

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Wow. In my area it's usually 6 or so dollars. Still, if you have have excess you can offer them on Craigslist for a couple bucks each and still make a bit of money, but it's probably not worth it lol
    1 Male Giant African Bullfrog
    2 Woodhouse's Toads
    11 Pacific Treefrogs
    1 Dubia Roach Colony
    2 Australian Green Treefrogs

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    I started feeding them nightcrawlers. I have to cut the worm into pieces. The first feeding was hilarious:

    I put the worm in the middle of the tank. All five adults came up to look at it. None would eat. They were all daring each other to go first.
    Eventually one ate it, tentatively.

    Now, I find that one of my adults simply does not like worms. Three of them will eat them willingly. One of them goes absolutely nuts for worms and will snap excitedly and randomly whenever one comes near. A good worm meal makes 'em go catatonic in the sense that they'll just stare at space blankly nomatter what you do.

    I try to feed the adults worms first before I throw in the crickets. The small crickets are supposed to be for the toadlets.

    A really short worm segment can be swallowed by a toadlet. However, not all at once. And this typically results in two frogs struggling to eat the same worm. If two frogs get the same worm, they do anything they can to wrench the worm out of the other frogs mouth. they both start flailing wildly. poor worm.

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  19. #52
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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Wow, brutal!
    Interesting to find out about the one toad not liking worms. Everybody has preferences, right?
    1 Male Giant African Bullfrog
    2 Woodhouse's Toads
    11 Pacific Treefrogs
    1 Dubia Roach Colony
    2 Australian Green Treefrogs

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    The bottom of my tank has a population of cherry shrimp. about the time i had a ton of tadpoles, my intake filter (some filter material simply wrapped around the intake) clogged due to all of the food going into the tank, so I removed it.

    Many weeks later, I noticed that there were zero shrimp babies.

    I put an intake filter back on two weeks ago.

    And today, the number of tiny baby shrimp is... countless... good lord they are everywhere.

    the intake filter is an important thing as far as not sucking up all of the baby shrimp.

    sweet. this is an intensely effective cleanup crew. I dropped a worm fragment the other day, went to the bottom. The assassin snails and the cherry shrimp loved it. gone in hours.

    the shrimp are interesting to watch, they 'fly' around everywhere and land on any surface and pick at it. The females have so many eggs in their clutch that they end up spending their time juggling eggs. a few too many to just grab at once, they sort of constantly lose a few and grab em back.

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Ok, well, i'm going to make a confession. I feel that some folks will take this poorly, but I feel I should share anyway.

    It is common knowledge that Fire Belly Toads are poisonous, mildly so.

    It's common knowledge that PacMan frogs will readily eat another frog.

    I had a tank with a hundred FBTs.

    I reasoned this way: Perhaps the FBTs do not develop their poison until they grow up.

    So.... (you can see where this is going)


    On a day where Doug, the Pacman frog was hungry, i put some toadlets in a container next to him. He wanted them.

    So, I gave him the smallest. He ate 'em up, no problem. NOM! Doug the Pacman will eat two at a time.

    Well, the next week I fed Doug, and being wary of the poison toadlets, I gave him a toadlet that was four weeks old. Not a freshly hatched one.

    And.... (i'm not proud of this by the way)

    Bubbles. Bubbles came out of my Pacman frog's nose after he ate it.

    Ugh. Oops. That was the end of that experiment.

    This was many many months ago, my Pacman frog is still growing like a weed. That incident did not seem to cause lasting damage.

    And I still got a tank of FBTs, but more like 30 and not 100.

    I am going with nightcrawlers right now for both species of frog (and small crickets for the FBT toadlets). This sort of food fattens them up good.

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Real talk, I understand how people could find this outrageous or offensive, but I understand. My Woodhouse's Toads would stare and even lunge at the side of the tank while their enclosure was situated next to that of my Pacific Treefrogs. I considered offering them(and my pacman) some tadpoles or young frogs, since I had/have so many. While in the end I decided not to, for multiple reasons, it's not unreasonable in my opinion. Pacman frogs regularly eat other frogs in the wild, anyway. The major arguments against it are usually passing on parisites(Shouldn't be an issue with your captive bred toads, anyway.), the moral dilemma of feeding a frog to another frog, and possible toxins. Personally, I think what you did isn't too big a deal. I even caught an adult Pacific Treefrog chowing down on a baby one once, and had to seperate them, which kinda changed my views on frogs eating eachother. Also, I've no experience with FBTs, but I have(accidentally) kept a Rough skinned or California newt larvae, for a short period of time. Both species are HIGHLY neurotoxic, but after some checking I found out the larvae are not poisonous, and that they only begin producing toxins after metamorphosis.(These newts were returned to their original habitat soon after, just for the record. I wasn't comfortable with them in my house.) While not really similar species, it's possible they are the same in terms of toxin production. Oh, and I'm glad Doug is fine.
    1 Male Giant African Bullfrog
    2 Woodhouse's Toads
    11 Pacific Treefrogs
    1 Dubia Roach Colony
    2 Australian Green Treefrogs

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    Well, my babies are still slowly growing. We went through a pretty awful heat wave, temps were over 107F. I don't really know, as I fled to the coast...i'm not going to stew in that heat if I can help it...and the chiller on my aquarium kept my frog colony alive and healthy at 72F. My PacMan frog can take the heat easily it seems, I figured as much as he's a tropical kind of frog.

    The FBT tank has been a regulated 72F for some time now and my frogs, who used to sing all the time, have stopped entirely. Dead quiet. They otherwise appear happy, healthy and hungry.

    It's interesting that I do, quite often, see an adult frog get a small frog in its mouth. But these frogs seem to have no teeth at all, and every time it has happened, the little frog gets gummed for a while and then spit out. I've not seen any toadlets that have been harmed by this. Although occasionally the toadlet is so irritated from being swallowed by an adult that they go on a very fast swim, back and forth the length of the tank about three times before settling down. No missing legs detected so far. The one time one 'bit' my finger, i hardly felt a thing.
    And yet, with crickets, these frogs are quick, accurate and deadly.

  27. #57

    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    I have to admit I was rather sceptical when you first said that the adults won't eat their toadlets, since I know them for stricking at ANYTHING that would fit into their mouths. However, I've been keeping a small amount of tiny toadlets from the latest batch together with the adults for a while now and indeed not a single toadlet has been swallowed! I've seen an adult strike at a toadlet twice but this was only when the toadlet got startled by me and made a huge jump landing right in front of an adult but in both cases the adult seemed less 'motivated' to actually catch it if that makes any sense. For the rest the toadlets can roam the tank freely crawling in front of the adults without any problem, the adults do not seem interested at all. Very interesting! I did not expect these frogs to have such cognitive abilities.

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  29. #58
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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    This is interesting. I kept a lot of Pacific Treefrog froglets in a tank with two adults. I guess they aren't as smart as Firebellies, because those adults ate at least a few of the smaller froglets. With the Firebellies, I wonder if a part of it is due to their toxicity. Maybe even the toadlets taste a little bad so if they snatch one on accident they know immediately?
    1 Male Giant African Bullfrog
    2 Woodhouse's Toads
    11 Pacific Treefrogs
    1 Dubia Roach Colony
    2 Australian Green Treefrogs

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    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    I think FBTs may be on the 'smart' scale of things.

    They are curious such that if one changes their environment, they check it out.

    If I put a food they have not seen much, such as a worm, they'll come up to it, stare at it, dare each other to strike at it. Eventually one will. But it is tentative.

    Put a cricket in the tank? They can catch them before they even hit the floor. They have been known to jump the length of the tank immediately and accurately. They love looking at the shadow of a cricket under a leaf; they will all jump to get it. The cricket either gets ate or goes flying. They are nutz for crickets. No hesitation.

    Put a toadlet in the tank? The adults let them ride on their backs.

    Once, I saw one that looked like it had a bloated belly. I carefully picked him up. He deflated...just trying to float...no problem.
    But then something remarkable happened. As I had this frog upside down, he struggled a bit as one would expect...then he went limp. It was not an unken reflex. Froggy just relaxed and let all four legs droop down. I'm holding the frog upside down, mind you, and it relaxes completely. I was a little worried until I put him back into the tank, where he woke up and hopped away.

    I know you are not supposed to touch them, and at first, I had a bad skin reaction whenever I as much as touched the water. But i've gotten used to it and can apparently handle one without any reaction now. little upside down relaxed frog in my hand was just a pool of jello. as if it had no bones at all.

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  32. #60

    Default Re: Uh Oh. Gonna have babies

    When observing their behaviour I would also say they are rather smart (for a frog), however they are in fact one of the most primitive species of frogs, which would suggest the opposite.. I have never had any other species in captivity so I have nothing to compare them to but with firebellies I have always been surprised by how much 'personality' they have.

    About the 'jello frog'; Frogs in general can get completely paralysed when handled; take any type of frog and put it on its' back and gently hold it down for a few seconds. After that slowly remove your hand and the frog will remain on its' back for a long time. Years ago I filmed this behaviour with one of my firebellies for a school project, I found the video and uploaded it to youtube to share it with you:



    In the first place this is a defence mechanism to confuse predators but I have noticed that when my firebellies are in a exceptionally horny mood they also seem to get very passive when handled. They can just be scooped out of the water and just seem mellow and can't be bothered and will remain in any position that you put them in.

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