Hi All,

First off, let me be clear that I have zero experience breeding and raising tadpoles. This is my first batch. I have about 50 RETF tadpoles, all seem to be doing well, eating well, and morphing normally.

I have one little guy that I moved from the "morphing tank" (half water, half land where they are placed when they develop 4 legs and stay until they absorb their tails) into the "froglet tank" (fully morphed, where they are fed dusted fruit flies and pin head crickets). When he was moved, he was relatively weak in the back legs, and they didn't seem to quite work properly. It is almost as if they would get stuck and he didn't have much control over them. He was a bit thinner than the others. A couple times I found him upside down. I really thought he wasn't going to make it, but, doggone it, that was a week ago, and he is still hanging in there. He has put on weight (or at least is not losing weight) and is able to move around better. He is still not as active as the other froglets- he mostly sits on the bottom of the tank (a few others do also, but they are hiding in the moss, he basically stays in the same spot on just a paper towel area) and doesn't move as much. When I encourage him to hop, he does move better and doesn't tip over or get stuck like he did.

I know SLS is typically a front leg thing and in dart frogs. This sounds to me like a developmental thing- he was just slower or something, and just taking time to catch up? I don't know. I am watching him closely. Ok, hovering over him is probably a better description. I cannot tell if anyone is eating (darn nocturnal creatures!), much less him specifically, but I would assume he would be either a skeleton or dead by now if he wasn't.

Any thoughts or comments? I have at least 10 froglets so far to compare him to with another 7 in the "morphing tank" right now. I just want to make sure I am not doing something wrong or there is worse to come.

Thanks.