A few years ago my kids and I rescued some tadpoles from our fountain. The turned out to be green tree frog tadpoles. We raised them and released them. They did well, all of them lived to become frogs.

In early May we once again rescued tadpoles from the fountain. Over a thousand of them, extremely tiny ones. They appear to be gulf coast toad tadpoles. After 2 weeks most of them died suddenly overnight. We were left with maybe 60. They have been slow to go through metamorphosis. Last week one with legs developed arms. We moved him to a shallower container with plenty of rocks. He died a few days later. This morning we discovered that over half have died, once again.

We have raised these just like the previous tadpoles. They are in a very large tank. We change their water often. Feed them. Tend to their general needs. I’m not sure any are going to make it to become toads at this rate. Also, from what I have read they should have all gone through metamorphosis by now- typically gulf coast toads only take 3-4 weeks. Any idea what could be wrong? Or something we can do to help the remaining ones make it?

Thank you!