Finding tadpoles in the toilet was a first for me.

[FrogFever]

I have been in the hobby for less than a year now, and I've put forth so much effort into getting my frogs to breed, and I finally feel like I'm doing something right because I've had two clutches so far... both from my Phyllomedusa Hypochondrialis. No luck with the red eyes yet...



It was such an exciting thing to wake up this morning to see the eggs all wrapped in the leaf. I estimate there to be about 25-30
The first time I realized that my frogs had laid eggs was a couple months back when I had just gotten back from vacation and was cleaning out my dirty rain chamber water and I looked down into the toilet as I was about to flush it all down and saw little things moving around in there. Sure enough, there were 13 little tiny tadpoles that had been living in dirty uncirculated water for at least a few days. Not to mention having no food. (Rainchamber pictured below.)



I have 11 of the sturdy toilet tads left 2 months later and they are just starting to grow their back legs.




This is their new morph out tank I just put them in. I will lower the water level when the time comes and also add some moss and more plants.
I can tell they love it much more than the three separate boring tupperware containers they used to live in.

[John]

Great photos and story. Congratulations on this success story. I love your rain chamber design (the plumbing). I know a lot of people would love to see how you put that together. We could turn it into an article .

[LilyPad]

Awesome! What a neat surprise, not what you'd expect to see in your toilet

[Jimifrog]

That is amazing. Congratulations.

[SludgeMunkey]

I don't know...those survivors look a little flushed...

[FrogFever]

Haha! Flushed.... thats good.

The design was actually a lot more simple than it looks. I had no experience with making one before, and it turned out better than I had anticipated.
I do have plans to make an article or two on here. Actually, I've started 2 of them and then ended up finishing the tanks without taking any further pictures! :/ I got a little ahead of myself, but one will make it on to the main stage soon enough.
I've been in the process of moving this last month so I'm just adding the final decorations to my frog room. I'll post some pictures for you all. Hopefully tonight!

[Kisa]

I agree, awesome story and strong little tads you have there! Keep up the good work.

[jessica2n2]

Thats awesome! And looking forward to seeing the articles.

[BG]

unbelivable what next great story

[FrogFever]

UPDATE: The eggs hatched and dropped into the water on the 9th day. I was astonished at how many there were! It was hard to count every single one, but the few times I counted I had 47/48. That more than doubled the heart beats under my care in just one day! So now I have about 59 tads.
AAANND this morning I found yet another egg folded over with leaves! My phyllomedusa hypochondrialis are breeding like crazy this summer. 3 clutches in 3 months.
After I find eggs I take the 2 males and 2 females out of the rain chamber and put them back in their dry setup. I wasn't necessarily even feeding them all that much, but I was spraying the cage down quite often. Each time I thought one of the females looked round in the belly area I put them all in the rain chamber again. It took them 2-6 days to lay.

[FrogFever]

UPDATE: I found out that the (second) clutch had about 70 eggs in it. Since then I've sold a few, had a couple casualties here and there, and 4 of them have morphed thus far....
Here is one of them that got his legs today actually....


I took pictures of the one and only surviving frog of my original toilet tad clutch. He morphed out to be 3 times larger than the others that morphed 45 days ahead of him! He is still so small and cute though!



Note the changes in color in just a minutes time.

[Sunshine]

Congratulations!! He is sooo cute!

[Mentat]

Great breeding story, thanks for sharing! Do you have a thread were you go over constructing the rain chamber?

[berryblonde2u]

How exciting !!!! Amazing actually! You got yourself a little "mini me" tiger leg there!! I have a toilet story, but mine doesn't have such an incredible ending as yours! I find myself googling the weirdest things now?? I was finding frogs in the toilet!? So there I was,.....googling "frogs in my toilet". I was actually finding them everywhere! 3 in the toilets(upstairs and down) The one scared my daughter to death! Imagine, doing your business and going to flush........and seeing a frog in the toilet!? I didn't know it at the time, they were Gray tree frogs (hyla versicolor) I'm pretty sure. I found them in the toilet, pantry and two on the kitchen floor! About 7 in all.
I found out that they can come in through the septic system! They did! I tried to keep the first one in a "Bird Of Paradise" plant, it stayed there for about 2 days, then my kids convinced me it would starve to death, so I brought it outside and put it on some moss near my koi pond. BTW I'm raising Gray Tree Frog tadpoles as we speak! Months later, I found several clutches of eggs in my koi pond, thinking they were koi and golfish eggs (because the pond fish were all spawning at the time) In fact, one of the Gray tree frogs one just morphed 2 days ago! He's about the size of a pencil eraser. I did get some fish eggs as well from the spawning, which have all hatched, some fancy-tail, others are comets. The eggs (tree frog and fish were all there the next morning in close proximty to each other. My daughter had told me she had seen two frogs....... well, you know (we call it amplexus) LOL about 2 days before that! So I wasn't really sure what I had. It has taken them months to morph. The ones I brought it morphed much faster than the ones I had in a plexiglass (10 gallon) container outside. I will post pics of my morphed Grays in a post. One of them is a real fatty right now!! The one that morphed 2 days ago i'm providing drosophila melanogaster, he's not ready for the hydei yet! LOL Hard to believe they are from the same clutch, huh? The "fatty" is several months morphed and almost 2 inches!!

[Heatheranne]

Awe! How adorable!

[flybyferns]

Hello "sturdy toilet tad" mama !
He is so cute. Just amazing !
Lynn

[FrogFever]

Thanks for sharing your story! Those guys are cute. Isn't it amazing how much the morphed frogs vary in size depending on how long they stay a tadpole? I would rather all of my tads take their time so they can be s big and healthy as my last one!
I will someday decide to build another rain chamber and document it's construction. Or I'll take pictures the next time I take it apart. It is fully removable as I didn't use any glue or silicone or anything to hold it all together.

[Purrdoc]

Wow. Frogs in the toilet. Wow. I think it would freak me out. Not because there is a frog in the toilet, but the, "how did it get there?" issue. I don't have a septic system and I would be panicking if one of mine was out (been there, done that. RETFs don't do so well outside of their humid tank). Cool stories.

I am going through my first experience with frog breeding myself. It has been a wild ride. Lots of warm fuzzes (can you say that with frogs?) and lots of heartbreak. Like the other morning when I was switching the lights around and put a light on the tank I had taken off a couple days before. Should not have been a problem- same light as before, right? Well, evidently, 10 of the froglets didn't think so and desiccated. I still don't understand that one. Out of 76 tadpoles that hatched, I think I am going to end up with maybe 30 froglets. But, I have learned a lot and will do it all over again if I get the chance!

[FrogFever]

UPDATE:

The final froglet from this clutch just morphed this week!
The eggs were laid on 8.7.11.
Hatched into tads on 8.16.11.
The first tadpole to morph into a froglet was on 11.3.11.
And the last was on 4.22.12!
If my math is correct that is a 5 1/2 month difference from the first morph to the last and over 8 months total for the longest tad!
I'm tripping out on how long it took.
Has anyone else experienced this!?