Newbie Frogophile

[NeeNee123]

Hello fellow frog lovers! I have a new pond in my backyard and I'm planning on making it a great home from my froggy friends. I'm hoping you folks can head me in the right directions to do it right. Since I want only native critters, I was thinking to take a walk down to the river a 1/2 mile from the house and see if there's tadpoles.

Is there a period of time that a new pond will need to get established before it will support a small frog population? It's a wild kingdom around here: The surrounding garden is pesticide-free, and provides a lot of critter-cover...there's lots of small woody debris and hidey-holes. Although we live in town, there are predators- resident skunks, barn owls, racoons, cats, a pair of nesting red-shoudered hawks, oh, and a chololate lab that wouldn't hurt a flea. I understand I will need a few fish to balance out the pond ecology, but I'm wondering how does that work if I want frogs. Will the fish eat the frog eggs? The pond will be there year-round.

I'm excited to get going as a frog co-habitant!!!!! We're in San Benito County CA. What frogs will I be finding in our local streams?
NeeNee

[1beataway]

Hi there. I know there's a few people on here with ponds outside their homes with frogs, and I don't know as much on the subject, so I'll let them answer, but I just wanted to welcome you to the forums.

[Kurt]

California Frogs and Toads Hope this helps you. If you can keep fish alive you should be anle to do the same with tadpole. Welcome aboard.

[lnaminneci]

Hello! Welcome to the Forum!

You are in my neck of the woods, I live in Santa Cruz, CA. Hollister is just down the street.

I recently caught 4 Pacific Chorus Frogs from my backyard. I would highly recommend them for your pond. They are native frogs to our area and would enjoy your natural backyard.

Have a look at the Pacific Chorus Frog Care guide on the left navigation bar. I believe you will enjoy these very friendly and musical frogs.

[John]

Oh skip the fish. Fish are only good for eating frog tadpole and eggs. Many amphibians won't even attempt to breed in ponds containing fish. If you want some frogs and toads, why not see what's native to the local area and try to collect eggs or tadpoles? Obviously, be sure you can do so legally - California is known for extreme laws that come in too late to be anything but a pain to enthusiasts (e.g. axolotls).

[Ebony]

Welcome to the forum and good luck with your frog pond.

[Deku]

As people say just get the laws, and collect native NON-endangered tadpoles.
My suggestion is you set up the pond heavily planted with aquatic plants. Id suggest the following:
-Anachris:Easy to find and are just generally good for tadpoles and for frogs and toads to lay eggs on.
-Duckweed:Oxygenates the water and provides coverage from airborn animals. frogs love to hide on them.
-Lilly pads: No pond is obviously complete without lilly pads. But not only that it helps provide the frog a place to sit on, and coverage.

To cycle your pond just collect alot of pond water from other ponds or just any body of water.
If I were you I would collect eggs. See I was told that if you collect animals from other ponds, they will try to return to their original pond. I was told to "attract" the animals rather than pick em up and plop em there. I would atleast try to get some eggs. Get eggs from everywhere and you are most likely to get a broad ecosystem. Personally I like bullfrogs. I dont know if they are where you live. But should you guys have em then just collect eggs. Try to make sure to find a way to keep those predators away. Maybe try building food places for them? So like if they come into your yard, say racoons. Put in whatever foods they eat in a place far from the pond. Dont put it in a dish, rather on rocks. So they dont associate the neighbors cat dish for their own food.
Hope this helps, welcome to the forum.

[hyla]

Some good ideas Kevin!

[Kurt]

Bullfrogs have been introduced to California, where the are wreaking havoc with the native frog species. They should be destroyed on sight.