Gray tree frog tadpoles

[Crunchy Frog]

Well, to reiterate, Crunchy said he rescued his tads... if I remember right from previous posts about them, I think the area where they were was drying up (??) so he brought them the 60 that were there in and raised them up until they morphed into froglets, then he released all but 6, which he kept for pets, as he's already mentioned.

I think you need to release them fairly soon after they have absorbed their tails and are able to eat small insects. You want them to keep their instincts to hunt in the wild and not start relying on humans for their food.

Crunchy is a she, at least I'm pretty sure.

My tadpoles were rescued tadpoles. They were originally from someone's free standing swimming pool that was in the process of being drained and dismantled. I rescued as many of those as I could, probably several hundred of them, and released them into our backyard pond. Unfortunately, it turned out that the pond had become overrun with tiny but very aggressive leeches. I didn't realize how bad the problem was at first, and thought that at least a percentage of them could survive, despite the predation, and they would still be better off than they would have been as lawn fertilizer.

Over the following several days, I watched the population density of the tadpoles decline dramatically, saw many tadpoles being attacked by leeches, and became more aware of just how severely overrun the pond was.

I finally realized that they couldn't survive in the pond, and decided to salvage what I could. I actually had to pull leeches off the faces of several tadpoles, and surprisingly, all but a couple of them survived the operation. Even the healthy, vigorous looking tads showed signs of leech bites, mostly in the form of reddened areas around their noses, and leech bitten areas on their tails. One of the smallest tads actually had an eye sucked out, which I didn't notice for a couple of weeks. This is why I now have a one eyed frog.

I ultimately ended up with 59 healthy tads, but lost one of them to a siphoning accident. I would recommend using a turkey baster for cleaning and water changes, rather than a siphon.

I actually decided not to release them very early, as I believe the vast majority of newly morphed froglets end up getting eaten. I released mine after a few weeks, when they were bigger and stronger, seemed more aware of their surroundings, and were able to take larger prey items.

To the original poster, I would probably go with more than 2, like maybe 5 or 6. As a novice, you can probably anticipate some losses. Any frogs that you end up with, in excess of what you want, can be released. I would also go with a smaller tank, like maybe a 5 gallon, for easier maintenance and keeping better track of your tads. That is still a very low population density, and with a filter and some live plants, you shouldn't have to do alot of cleaning or frequent water changes.

And yes, I believe that the vast majority of people who raise large numbers of tads are dealing with rescues.

[irThumper]

Leeches! Gross!!! Wow, that's even more dramatic of a rescue than a drying up puddle! Good job, and glad your little one-eye froggy made it ^_^ So we're going with Crunchy the Frog likely being a girl, but is Crunchy the Frogger a guy or a girl?

irThumper (moi) is a girl by the way, lol!