New Grey tree frog tadpole momma (41 babies)

[Betsy]

Hi I'm new and a virgin at keeping frogs let alone raising 41 baby tadpoles that hatched out and lived in my horses water tank for nearly 3 months! Just got them in house less that 2weeks ago and I already have 5 newly morphed froglets!! So cute! I had only 2 froglets die because I didn't get them out of the 5 gallon tadpole aquarium in time. Now I check it constantly to make sure I get them out as soon as I see them with all 4 legs usually hanging out at branch I put in there. Otherwise If they go back down to bottom I've noticed the tadpoles nibbling on there little toes! Next thing I knew they Had eaten him!!! I'm feeding the tads tadpole food by Zoo-Med. Tell me If i'm wrong but it would seem that the tads may not have been developing properly in my horse tank without enough or if any protein sources. I suppose dead bugs and algae would have been their only food in such a captive environment??? They Must have liked the enzymes from my horses mouths!!! Just kidding! Anyway, when I slowly dumped the 70-100 gallon stock tank out and painstakingly netted them all finally!!!




In a two day capture event my back injury was hurting a lot , but what a labor of love!!! Not one froglet to be found. I netted 120 plus or minus tadpoles. Big dark ones and little ones and some with tiny stunted rear legs only. I believe the good food is what stimulated their metamorphic growth? Maybe the ones that morphed in horse tank were just dinner for the rest? It's a frog mystery movie of the week!!! Any one know when the froglets begin to hunt and or eat anything ??? (so far I only have frog and tad food kibbles for them in their make shift tupperware (with holes in top, gravel pebbles, a stem of buckthorn leaves, and piece of native driftwood from WI river.) So far their thriving. No eating behavior yet??? Tommorow I will go to Reptile Rapture to get supplies i.e. fruit flys, substate , moss? How big do I need??? Will they survive when released this spring? Hopefully the will find their real momma out by my hot tub area. They love to hang under the pool cover. I handle them a lot and they are not afraid of me at all. Pretty cool, my little frog dudes!!! I plan on keeping some as pets and try to breed them for release into the wild ( of my 1 acre farm) Living alone with my dogs,horses and now my tree frogs to talk to. My few friends think I'm strange! No I said I'm helping save a very important animal.
Frogs are like the canary birds in a mine. When they start to die humans better pay attention! RIGHT FROG NATION ??? Any help would be appreciated. Frog Momma out!

[Strider18]

Wow that's a long post Well let me see how I can help. You can try to feed them fruit flies pretty much as soon as they morph. If they are really small you can set them up in a 30 gallon (??? Bigger or smaller) tank with water and a way for them to get out of the water. I'm sure the more experienced member will pop on and give some better info I hope this helps!

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[ColleenT]

i raised a few in June. I have 2 Gray tree frogs that lived and they are currently an inch long Snout to Vent. what i did was use a few critter keepers, and clean the water every other day. I used a dechlorinator , since i have town water. i fed them zoomed frog and tadpole food. about 2-3 small bits for each tadpole. They do become cannibalistic, so be careful. no heat, just normal indoor temps are fine. once they get their 4th leg, you need to reduce their water and give them a place to get out of the water as Grays will drown if they cannot get out when they need to. no substrate. they can ingest it. i will post a pic of my Current Vivarium. it is an Exo-Terra 18x18x24 high. Clean water in a bowl, pothos plants are good, b/c they are very strong and also hardy.

Here is my setup, the frogs are an inch long and you can see them at the tops of the bamboo. i mist them a few times a day.

[Betsy]

Hi Colleen, Thanks for the Info. Basicly I'm doing everything except i keep 40 + tads in a 5 gallon aquarium that I change out 80 % of the water every 48 hrs. I take them out asap when I see them /4 legs. I had two froglet die on me yesterday…. Bummer…. I just got them their fruit flies same day ,but they had absorbed all of their tales two days prior. So I guess the little guys starved. Or it was that stupid Tad & frog micro pellets that I put in .May have screwed up the bacteria levels . My fault I didn't change out water after I saw they weren't eatin that any way!!! I had to try to feed them something! They sure do not want that! Found out the hard way…. God they were so dam cute. My question to you is did you feed them wingless fruit flies or what once they have resorbed their tail and have the little nub tails? Thats what I read on this website! My one frog just sits there . I have yet to se him hunt. I put a live baby philadenrem plant in the tuperware with some frog moss too. He looks better today and is sitting up on the top leaf!!! Thats good sign I guess. The other froglet yet to resorb his tail , hangs in the end of tuperware in half inch water. The guy at our local reptile store said they may eat even in the resorb stage. I put a tiny piece of banana in near edge of water so flies have a hang out area. Next do your lites emit uvb and uva rays to help replicate sunlight? They look like LED lights ? I'm gonna use clay hydro balls /screen and then substrate topped /live sphagnum moss with a pump waterfall setup maybe. This system is supposed to self clean water like a mini aquifer filtering and so on . Sounds neat to me. Spoiled frogs or what. How long until you saw you newly metamorphed frogs eat. When they get big enough the small crickets, right? Small worms too i heard? LOVE LOVE LOVE your doggies!!! We both have rat terriers . Mine have hair of course. When I figure out how to put photo on here I 'll send you some pixs of my three cutie pies ! Are you called bat healer?? It said that .? Thanks Betsy in wI

[Betsy]

Hey What the heck is a tapatalk2??? I lost two frogs yesterday…bummer…. Same day I drove 80 miles to get the dam fruit flies. They are in tupperware with the last frog left and a small froglett with one hind leg eaten off when he was in big tadpole tank. He is morphing resorbing tail stage now. Reptile store guy here in Madison said he may eat flies even while resorbing tail.? I put moss and two live pothos plants in too. The frog was on the leaf today and he doesn't look so emaciated either. Fingers crossed!!! Any other pointers? Thanks

[Strider18]

Tapatalk is an app for forums

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[deranged chipmunk]

Are you giving them any land area to climb out to after they morph?


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

[DigitalPunk]

The need some sort of area to climb out of the water when they are ready to. Removing them to soon is as bad as leaving them in to long. The first few days are critical. If they dont have enough water they will dehydrate rabidly.

[ColleenT]

lets see- it takes about 5 days for the newly morphed frogs to eat. i fed mine pinhead crickets and they ate them around 5 days old, after their first shed. ( you might not see them shed) ff would be fine also. i have LED lights for my pothos plants, but the frogs do not seem to need special lighting. they are nocturnal, so lighting is not even necessary. it just is a nice way to look at the tank. Yes i am BatHealer with Photobucket b/c i used to rehab insectivorous bats. it became to time consuming, so i don't do it anymore. Thanks, i love the AHT's. no shedding and a great breed.

[Crunchy Frog]

Hello. I'm a newbie here too (though I apparently joined the site several years back, probably to ask a question about Green frogs in a backyard pond).

Anyway, I had a big Grey tadpole adventure this past summer, raising nearly 60 rescued tadpoles (long story). I might be able to give some pointers, as I was pretty successful. All of them morphed successfully (except one tad who was the victim of a siphoning accident). I raised them all to pretty decent sizes, and released (I believe) 52. I have 6 left that I'm keeping as pets.

In my experience, the babies did not start eating right away. It seemed like it was close to a week after completely absorbing their tails that I started seeing them hunting fruit flies. If you are going to do fruit flies, I would suggest getting some culture medium and culturing supplies, as that many froglets will go through a lot. You can order everything you need online. I also ordered lots of tiny crickets from Ghann's Cricket farm.

I think they probably were getting adequate nutrition in the horse tank. They normally breed in temporary bodies of water, and feed on detritus and algae. In my experience, they developed extremely rapidly once the leg buds appeared, like from barely visible leg buds to being completely morphed in about two weeks.

I never saw any cannibalism in my tads. You might want to keep them a little less densely populated. I had mine divided between two 10 gallon tanks about half way full, with lots of plants, fresh lettuce leaves on the water surface, and a couple feedings a day of high quality fish food.

I used medium sized Kritter Keepers to create special morphing habitats. I did a gravel substrate, shallow at one end and deep at the other, to create a land and a shallow water area. Added a Pothos clipping, some moss for the land area, and a small piece of cork bark. As soon as the tails were absorbed I moved them to ten gallon terrariums set up along similar lines, to make way for continuing waves of new tadpoles ready to morph.

I can post more info, and some pics if you'd like, later on. This system worked very well for me, as I had a basically 100% success rate with it.

This is basically my first post here, and I'm up too late, but I can post more later if you want more info, or if you have any specific questions.

They really are adorable babies, and I hope you can find a system that works out for you.

[Betsy]

Hey Crunchy frog, What about the Zoo med Moonlite reptile bulb? 40 watts shouldn't overheat them in a 18x18x24 Exo- Terra vivarium??? Supposedly it give them UVA rays they need and some heat. Also I CAN WATCH them hunt and it doesn't disturb their light cycles of day and night. My house is pretty cool in winter here in frozen tundra of WI !!! 100 year old farmhouse! In CA or FL it wouldn't matter so much. Please do show pixs of your animals,etc. Much thanks again! Frog Mamma . MIST MIST MIST of course for the and the plants and moss.Read up on the Zoo-med reptile safe water conditioner that keeps PH right and helps frogs keep their slime on their skin healthy it says. Makes sense , can't hurt can it?

[Betsy]

Hey, Thanks for your input! I used to save bats when I was a kid . I lived on lake Mendota in Madison for 28 years. I would find bats that had fallen in the lake and get a long branch to fish them out! My mom didn't care for that. Anyway it was neat and i would spread out their wings to dry them out and even pet them. GOD I was stupid but very careful as my dad was a Dr. and he taught me about rabies of course. I save bats that get in my farm house every year and I scruff them like a mini cat. I was a vet tech. I love them. I figure the Indians would say I have bat energy for saving them. I drew my medicine cards once long ago and I drew a bat card for my above or sky direction animal. Pretty cool ah? These frogs make me feel like a kid again! LOVE that…. I will get some pin heads and let the forum know. Otherwise I'll try to find you in a thread post. I'm not very good at navigating this site. It's my first ever. I 'm so busy with my horses and puppies and my X boyfriend situation. Winter is coming soon to WI….aaaah !!!

[Betsy]

Hi, I do have a nice stick in the tad aquarium half in ,half out. They do come up on it. But I've seen them go back down to the bottom and drown too. Sorry but I'm not stupid-two, 2 degrees in science ! I of course was misting them 2x a day. And I have half an inch of water in the tupperware unit, with sphagnum moss and live plants.too. HECK I 'd like to live in there!!! Thanks for you input.

[Betsy]

Absolutely they have pebble gravel on one end sloped to get out and moss and live plants and a driftwood and fruit flies…. I believe they need to go right into a terrarium that I'm trying to buy on line today. I need to know if the blue moonlite bulb by Zoomed is ok. 40 watt too hot or what? I read about it all day .It gives them the UVA they need and some heat to stabilize temps at nite when I turn my house heat down to 67 degrees. I'm excited to set up the hydoballs , substrate , live plants and live moss, etc. I read to use a repti-glow 5.0 for UVB for vitamin D for calcium metabolism. That would seem pretty important. The UVA rays increases their appetite too . I'll post my findings. Thank you for you input.

[Strider18]

I would like to see the links to, I personally disagree with most of what you just stated. If you would probe me wrong that would be great

0.1.0 Psuedacris regilla

[Frogman1031]

Hello Betsy!
Actually, nocturnal species such as grey tree frogs do not need uv exposure. Think about it, during the day the frogs are sleeping under leaves or logs or bark or things of that nature and the sunlight does not hit them. At night when they come out, there is still no light hitting them. They get all of their nutrients from their foods, which is why its important to dust their food with vitamins and calcium. Of course, having a uv light won't hurt, as long as they have plenty of places where they will not have to be exposed to it. I also believe that it would be best to release the froglets now rather than later. They need to learn how to hung on their own. Has this herpetologist collected data on how many frogs survived after he released them in the spring and on how many survived when released in the fall? I would also love to see this doctor's studies

[DigitalPunk]

Besty I edited your post and removed your phone number. You may not be a stalker but posting your phone number online is a good way to meet the creepy people in the world. If you would like to hand it out to someone please use the PM system.

I removed it for your own safety and sanity. Take care

Paul

[Betsy]

Sorry but what is the PM system???? I'm sure He was a frog / bug person just trying to help. Can we send person info via the other post options?? Sorry I'm not very techy at all.

[DigitalPunk]

There is a way to have a debate without being a total Jerk. Betsy this is your one warning to follow the forum rules and treat other members with respect.

PM = Private Message.

[UncleChester]

Whoa Betsy, calm down please. Responding to someone who is doubting your information by ranting and raving will get you nowhere you want to be. With your biological science degrees you should know full well the importance of being able to back up your claims with established and credible research. So, you can choose to be an asset to this forum by putting your research skills to good use and sharing the articles/studies you find or you can choose a less constructive option. Your choice!

Sorry but what is the PM system???? I'm sure He was a frog / bug person just trying to help. Can we send person info via the other post options?? Sorry I'm not very techy at all.

Click a persons name to the left of their post and a menu pops up. One option is "Private Message", or PM for short. This lets you send them a message only they will see, kinda like an email but delivered through the forum software.